Obama, in Europe, signs Patriot Act extension

[Ban Hammer 12,848]

WASHINGTON – Minutes before a midnight deadline, President Barack Obama signed into law a four-year extension of post-Sept. 11 powers to search records and conduct roving wiretaps in pursuit of terrorists.

"It's an important tool for us to continue dealing with an ongoing terrorist threat," Obama said Friday after a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

With Obama in France, the White House said the president used an autopen machine that holds a pen and signs his actual signature. It is only used with proper authorization of the president.

Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused.

The Senate voted 72-23 for the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities. The House passed the measure 250-153 on an evening vote.

A short-term expiration would not have interrupted ongoing operations but would have barred the government from seeking warrants for new investigations.

Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government's ability to monitor individual actions.

The measure would add four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps, authorized for a person rather than a communications line or device; court-ordered searches of business records; and surveillance of non-American "lone wolf" suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.

The roving wiretaps and access to business records are small parts of the USA Patriot Act enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But unlike most of the act, which is permanent law, those provisions must be renewed periodically because of concerns that they could be used to violate privacy rights. The same applies to the "lone wolf" provision, which was part of a 2004 intelligence law.

Paul argued that in the rush to meet the terrorist threat in 2001 Congress enacted a Patriot Act that tramples on individual liberties. He had some backing from liberal Democrats and civil liberties groups who have long contended the law gives the government authority to spy on innocent citizens.

Sen. ####### Durbin, D-Ill., said he voted for the act in 2001 "while ground zero was still burning." But "I soon realized it gave too much power to government without enough judicial and congressional oversight."

Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the provision on collecting business records can expose law-abiding citizens to government scrutiny. "If we cannot limit investigations to terrorism or other nefarious activities, where do they end?" he asked.

"The Patriot Act has been used improperly again and again by law enforcement to invade Americans' privacy and violate their constitutional rights," said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington legislative office.

Still, coming just a month after intelligence and military forces tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, there was little appetite for tampering with the terrorism-fighting tools. These tools, said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, "have kept us safe for nearly a decade and Americans today should be relieved and reassured to know that these programs will continue."

Intelligence officials have denied improper use of surveillance tools, and this week both FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper sent letters to congressional leaders warning of serious national security consequences if the provisions were allowed to lapse.

The Obama administration says that without the three authorities the FBI might not be able to obtain information on terrorist plotting inside the U.S. and that a terrorist who communicates using different cell phones and email accounts could escape timely surveillance.

"When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we would be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot attacks against our country, undetected," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday. In unusually personal criticism of a fellow senator, he warned that Paul, by blocking swift passage of the bill, "is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them."

The nation itself is divided over the Patriot Act, as reflected in a Pew Research Center poll last February, before the killing of bin Laden, that found that 34 percent felt the law "goes too far and poses a threat to civil liberties. Some 42 percent considered it "a necessary tool that helps the government find terrorists." That was a slight turnaround from 2004 when 39 percent thought it went too far and 33 percent said it was necessary.

Paul, after complaining that Reid's remarks were "personally insulting," asked whether the nation "should have some rules that say before they come into your house, before they go into your banking records, that a judge should be asked for permission, that there should be judicial review? Do we want a lawless land?"

Paul agreed to let the bill go forward after he was given a vote on two amendments to rein in government surveillance powers. Both were soundly defeated. The more controversial, an amendment that would have restricted powers to obtain gun records in terrorist investigations, was defeated 85-10 after lawmakers received a letter from the National Rifle Association stating that it was not taking a position on the measure.

According to a senior Justice Department national security official testifying to Congress last March, the government has sought roving wiretap authority in about 20 cases a year between 2001 and 2010 and has sought warrants for business records less than 40 times a year, on average. The government has yet to use the lone wolf authority.

But the ACLU also points out that court approvals for business record access jumped from 21 in 2009 to 96 last year, and the organization contends the Patriot Act has blurred the line between investigations of actual terrorists and those not suspected of doing anything wrong.

Two Democratic critics of the Patriot Act, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Udall of Colorado, on Thursday extracted a promise from Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she would hold hearings with intelligence and law enforcement officials on how the law is being carried out.

Wyden says that while there are numerous interpretations of how the Patriot Act works, the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. "A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says," Wyden said.

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[slim 1,514]

the official government interpretation of the law remains classified. "A significant gap has developed now between what the public thinks the law says and what the government secretly claims it says," Wyden said.

So that's what Obama meant by "most transparent administration ever."

[Ban Hammer 12,848]

So that's what Obama meant by "most transparent administration ever."

[Vi-Jay 218]

[Golden Gate 530]

What a disappointment!

[NickD 202]

I couldn't even open a small 500 joint bank account with my wife on it because of the APA, tried this at four different banks, it wasn't until she got her EDA and SS number that I was permitted to let her join my account.

Now 500 bucks won't buy much of a terrorist, maybe 25 million would, but a long cry between 500 bucks and 25 million bucks.

So with this new APA, is that banking thing still in effect? I liked Russ Feingold, the only senator to read the APA, he said it was because he read it, caused me to read it too, couldn't believe what I was reading.

Even before the APA, had two instances. One was when I was legally separated from my wife with a court statement saying I was no longer legal for her bills. And that she did, about $15,500.00 worth. While fighting this in court, I lost, they found my bank account and froze it.

The other was buying a computer on-line out of state, forgot to pay state taxes on it, got a letter from the state IRS not only to pay that sales tax, but with a fine attached to it. Big brother is already watching.

Can only question why the USCIS wants all that evidence, they already know more about you than you know about yourself. Guess they are just checking your honesty.

[Brother Hesekiel 2,235]

That's right: Obama is no socialist, like most Presidents of modern times he's a corporatist ,answering to his masters: the corporations' CEOs.

[NickD 202]

That's right: Obama is no socialist, like most Presidents of modern times he's a corporatist ,answering to his masters: the corporations' CEOs.

He does have class, but his actions are the same as the guy before him. All Harvard guys, Bush was a Skull, but thinking the same about Obama. Doing what they are told to do.

Wonder who actually is running this country, certainly not the people.

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

I thought the A-POTUS signed the bill.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/27/obama-uses-autopen-to-sign-patriot-act-extension-remotely/

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Yeah, I sorta cringe when Obama's Autopen signs into law an extension of that which he campaigned against a mere three years ago, and would have voted against, had he been a senator at the time, much like raising the debt limit.

ETA: In italics.

Edited May 27, 2011 by Some Old Guy

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

So that's what Obama meant by "most transparent administration ever."

I would say that Obama has been very transparent from the get go. Who was fooled?