U.S. Senate Approves Changes in Patriot Act Extension

U.S. Senate Approves Changes in Patriot Act Extension (Update3)

March 1 (Bloomberg) -- The Senate cleared the way for Congress to renew the USA Patriot Act that gave the FBI expanded power to investigate suspected terrorists after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Senate voted 95-4 to accept changes to a proposed extension of the law, which has been stalled over objections that it didn't provide enough civil-liberties protections. The House of Representatives will vote next week on the changes. A temporary extension of the law expires March 10.

The revised bill would shield businesses and individuals from having to tell the Federal Bureau of Investigation the names of lawyers they consult about FBI demands for records. Another change would give a company, after a one-year delay, the right to go to court to challenge a gag order that forbids it from discussing the record demands.


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The proposal ``would permit judicial review of gag orders but under conditions that would make it very difficult for anyone to obtain meaningful judicial review,'' said Feingold, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act in 2001. He said it would be ``virtually impossible'' for a company to prove the government acted in bad faith, as required by the bill.


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Aides said the new bill, co-sponsored by the committee's top Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, was designed to provide a vehicle for continued debate over the act - how best to protect civil liberties while fighting terrorism. "Everybody in this body wants to reauthorize the Patriot Act. Many of the expiring provisions are entirely noncontroversial," said Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, who spearheaded opposition to the Sununu bill. "But we also need to fix the provisions that went too far, that do not contain the checks and balances necessary to protect our rights and freedoms."

Sixty votes were needed to end debate, and the motion to do so was passed 69 to 30. Fourteen largely centrist Democrats voted with all of the Senate's 55 Republicans. Thirty Democrats voted against ending debate.

Some Democrats who voted against ending debate - a move known in Senate parlance as cloture - said they did so to protest Republicans' refusal to permit amendments to be added to the legislation, not because they opposed the bill.

"While I will vote against cloture, I nonetheless support the underlying bill . . . ," the Senate Democratic leader, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, said in a statement. "The Sununu bill puts in place more checks on the expanded authorities granted to the government by the Patriot Act, without interfering with the government's ability to protect Americans from terrorism."

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