"Patriot Act may be renewed without reforms"

[dbeach]

CONgress will again protect us from them terrsist's

Y am I not surprised???

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5986379.html


"A frenzy of last-minute negotiations over the Patriot Act, conducted behind closed doors as a Dec. 31 expiration date nears, has yielded a four-year renewal of the law and no substantial reforms.

Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who has been a point person during this year's debate over the fate of the complex and controversial law, said Wednesday that he and his counterparts in the House of Representatives have agreed to a deal that could pave the way for reauthorization of the Patriot Act by next week.

After reaching an impasse with House Republicans who held out for a longer seven-year renewal, Specter said he asked President Bush to intervene. "The vice president helped out a little yesterday and after a lot of haggling, I signed the conference report at 9:00 p.m.," Specter said in a statement sent to CNET News.com. "They brought it to my house."

But a band of six Democratic and Republican senators--who lodged strong objections to the draft conference report prepared last month--is likely to block a vote unless their concerns about privacy and overly broad surveillance are addressed. Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and member of the group, said through a spokesman on Wednesday that he had not reviewed the final text.

Of the 16 portions of the massive law that are set to expire, five deal with electronic surveillance and computer crime. Those permit secret court orders that the FBI can use to obtain business records; authorize more information sharing between Internet providers and police; and list computer hacking as an offense granting increased eavesdropping authority.

One important but unanswered question is how much support the group of six senators can muster among their colleagues. At a press conference last month, the group called for reforming portions of the Patriot Act that deal with library and other business record acquisitions, secret "National Security Letters" that have been used against Internet service providers, and delayed search warrants that permit police to secretly enter a home and notify the person weeks or months later.

Specter's office did not make the text of the final bill available. But according to interviews with staffers and lobbyists, not one of those three changes has been made.

Tim Edgar, a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said Specter's announcement was "designed to put a lot of pressure on the Senate to go along with an extremely flawed conference report. We'll see if they bite."

The group of six includes Democrats Richard Durbin of Illinois and Kenneth Salazar of Colorado; and Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska; Larry Craig of Idaho; and John Sununu of New Hampshire. They backed a Patriot Act reform plan, called the Safe Act, that is still stuck in committee. "