John Edwards and the Patriot Act - final clarity thread

[WilliamPitt]

Again, I feel like I owe it to the Edwards supporters here to have as much clarity as possible on the matter. For the record, if John Edwards gets nominated, he has my vote and active support.

A couple of days I stated in a thread that John Edwards helped write the Patriot Act. I was asked to supply a cite for that statement. I came up with this Edwards press release:

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http://edwards.senate.gov/press/2001/oct26-pr.html

SENATE PASSES STRONG ANTITERRORISM LAW
October 26, 2001

WASHINGTON–The Senate on Thursday passed a sweeping antiterrorism bill that expanded the wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority of the FBI and imposed stronger penalties for harboring or bankrolling terrorists.

"This will strengthen our nation's ability to prevent future terrorist attacks," said Senator John Edwards, who worked on the legislation as a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Select Committee on Intelligence.

(snip)

Under the law in force before September 11, when highjacked planes crashed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, federal courts could authorize many electronic surveillance warrants only in the place where the court had jurisdiction. If the target of an investigation lived in Charlotte, for example, but the subject of the warrant was technically an Internet Service Provider located in Raleigh, the warrant wouldn't let agents track the electronic trail of email records or web surfing activities. The new law lets the court overseeing an investigation issue valid warrants nationwide.

Another common-sense change gives law enforcement officers and the intelligence community the ability to share intelligence information with each other. "We simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing," Senator Edwards said.

...more...

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Edwards folks replied by stating that 'worked on' means he put the sunset provisions in, and actively worked to cut out the worst parts. The truth is somewhere in between, so draw your own conclusions. Sorry for the wacky formatting below. The floor debate, October 11, 2001:

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Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. President, I rise in support of S. 1510, the Uniting
and Strengthening America Act.

In the aftermath of September 11, we face two difficult and delicate
tasks: to strengthen our security in order to prevent future terrorist
attacks, and at the same time, to safeguard the individual liberties that make America a beacon of freedom to all the world.

I believe that when the President signs this anti-terrorism
legislation into law, we will have achieved those two goals as best we
now can.

The act is a far-reaching bill. I will mention just a few key aspects
of that bill.

First, the legislation brings our surveillance laws into the 21st
century. Here are two of many examples. Under current law, the FBI can
use a basic search warrant to access answering machine messages, but
the FBI needs a different kind of warrant to get to voice mail. This
law says the FBI can use a traditional warrant for both. Another
example: Under current law, a Federal court can authorize many
electronic surveillance warrants only within the court's limited
jurisdiction. If the target of the investigation is in the judge's
jurisdiction, but the subject of the warrant is technically an internet service provider located elsewhere, the warrant is no good as to that ISP. This bill allows the court overseeing an investigation to issue valid warrants nationwide.

Second, the act gives law enforcement officers and the foreign
intelligence community the ability to share intelligence information
with each other in defined contexts. For example, the act says that
under specified conditions, the FBI may share wiretap and grand jury
information related to foreign- and counter-intelligence. I appreciate
concerns that this information-sharing authority could be abused. Like
Chairman Leahy, I would have preferred to see greater judicial
oversight of these data exchanges. But I also believe we simply cannot prevail in the battle against terrorism if the right hand of our government has no idea what the left hand is doing.

Third, the act enhances intelligence authorities under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). When I met with FBI agents in North Carolina shortly after September 11, they told me their number one priority was to streamline the FISA process. We've done that. We've said, for example, that the renewal periods of certain key FISA orders may be longer than the initial periods. This makes sure the FBI can focus on investigations, not duplicative court applications.

A more controversial change concerns the purpose of FISA
surveillance. Under current law, a FISA wiretap order may only enter if the primary purpose of the surveillance is foreign intelligence
gathering. The administration initially proposed changing the ``primary purpose'' requirement to a requirement of ``a purpose,'' any foreign intelligence purpose. At a recent Intelligence Committee hearing, I was one of several Senators to raise constitutional questions about the Administration's initial proposal. The last thing we want is to see FISA investigations lost, and convictions overturned, because the surveillance is not constitutional. S. 1510 says that FISA surveillance requires not just ``a purpose,'' but ``a significant purpose,'' of foreign intelligence gathering. That new language is a substantial improvement that I support. In applying this ``significant purpose'' requirement, the FISA court will still need to be careful to enter FISA orders only when the requirements of the Constitution as well as the statute are satisfied. As the Department of Justice has stated in its letter regarding the proposed FISA change, the FISA court has ``an obligation,'' whatever the statutory standard, ``to reject FISA applications that do not truly qualify'' as constitutional. I anticipate continued close congressional oversight and inquiry in this area.

A forth step taken by this legislation is to triple the number of
Border Patrol, INS inspectors, and Customs Service agents along our
4,000-mile northern border. Today there are just 300 border patrol
agents to guard those 4,000 miles. Orange cones are too often our only defenses against illegal entries. This bill will change that.

Fifth, the bill expedites the hiring of translators by the FBI. It is
unthinkable that our law enforcement agents could have critical raw
intelligence that they simply cannot understand because they do not
know the relevant language. This statute will help to change that state of affairs.

Finally, the bill makes the criminal law tougher on terrorists. We make it a crime to possess a biological agent or toxin in an amount with no reasonable, peaceful purpose, a crime to harbor a terrorist, a crime to provide material support to terrorism. And we say that when you commit a crime of terrorism, you can be prosecuted for that crime for the rest of your life, with no limitations period. Statutes of limitations guarantee what lawyers call ``repose.'' Terrorists deserve no repose.

As Chairman Leahy and Senator Hatch have both said, this legislation
is not perfect, and the House-Senate Conference may yet make
improvements. For example, the Conference might clarify that, as to aliens detained as national security threats, the law will secure the due process protections and judicial review required by the
Constitution and by the Supreme Court's recent decisions in Zadvydas v. Davis and INS v. St. Cyr. The Conference might also sensibly include a sunset of the new surveillance authorities, ensuring that Congress will reconsider this bill's provisions, which touch such cherished liberties, in light of further experience and reflection.

The bill is not perfect, but it is a good bill, it is important for
the Nation, and I am pleased to support it.

http://www.cdt.org/security/011011senate.txt

[pmbryant]

1. Is the bill he is talking about the final bill voted on? (EDIT: No!)

I don't know the details, but I thought the GOP pulled an earlier version and substituted a version written by the Justice Dept at the last minute, and that this sight-unseen bill was the bill actually voted on.

Anyway, both Kerry and Edwards voted for this, so I don't see how this can be a legitimate campaign issue at this time, unless their current positions are different.

--Peter

EDIT: He is clearly not talking about the final version of the bill, so I'm not sure if this speech has any actual relevance to Edwards' position on the details of the bill that was actually passed.

[Ninga]

2. How does the section in the Patroit Act read about the drug

company being exempt from lawsuits because of the theory that preservatives in children's innoculations might cause Autisim?

[AP]

3. So, we see that the Administration WROTE a bill, which they submitted on

Sep 17 (?) and asked congress to pass it within days. The Senate, instead, spent a month WORKING on it, to get out lots of the worst parts of it. They included things like the sunset provisions -- however, it's not clear who wrote those provisions.

[DaisyUCSB]

4. And If Kerry was on the intelligence committee he would have "helped"

as well.

Edwards Actually has a pretty good plan to protect civil liberties in addition to a new Attorney General, something Kerry seems to lack. To make safeguards permanant

He has proposed a new watchdog agency within government called the office of civil liberties and civil rights> And he has a very innovative plan to reform the intelligence community, which all of the other candidates that I know of lack, to put the spying powers of the FBI under the oversight of congress, by transfurring them to a new agency

[AP]

6. Yeah. I guess it's OK to say, Kerry wrote NAFTA.

[AP]

5. Clarity?

I don't think I need to remind candidate advocates, professional writers and former press secretaries that words carry great meaning, and that words like "wrote," "worked on," and "authored" all carry very different meanings, and even those words don't capture what happened with that bill.

There's still an opportunity to "clarify" here.