{news} Fw: Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL

[Justine McCabe]

Legislative Action Message -- Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: Kathy Guthrie 
To: Justine Mccabe 
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 3:31 PM
Subject: Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL



            
            Legislative Action Message
            
      
      Patriot Act Reform Stands in the Balance: Act Today - FCNL

                     

                  A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives last week blocked an attempt by the congressional leadership to steam-roller Congress into reauthorizing, or renewing, expiring provisions of, the USA PATRIOT Act. But both chambers of Congress will act on the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act when they return from the Thanksgiving recess in early December. They need to hear from you during the Thanksgiving recess (before Dec. 5).

                  In the past two weeks, the majority party leaders met behind closed doors and devised a congressional maneuver to force the Congress to reject modest improvements to the Patriot Act contained in the unanimously adopted Senate version of the Patriot Act reauthorization bill. The majority party leaders then added new provisions that make the Patriot Act even worse than the 2001 version.

                  In a revolt against the draft "conference report" (the revised bill to be presented by the conference committee to the House and the Senate for final approval), a bi-partisan group of senators and representatives are gathering support, refusing to accept the secretive, steam-roller tactics of the conference committee's majority. You can help.

                  Take Action
                  Contact your senators and representative while they are home for the Thanksgiving recess. As a constituent, your voice counts more than any others.

                  While these members of Congress are at home, you have many options for action: speak up at town hall meetings, call them when they are on talk radio, place an op-ed piece in your local newspaper, join your friends and call on them or their staffs in their district offices, or send them a message by phone or mail to those home offices. See FCNL's web site to find the location of your members' district offices: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/

                  Here's a suggested message:


                    a.. Tell your members to join the opposition to the conference report. 
                    b.. Ask them to send the conference committee back to an open bi-partisan process. 
                    c.. Urge them to adopt the preferred Senate version of the USA PATRIOT Act reauthorization bill (H.R. 3199). 
                    d.. Tell them about your heartfelt concerns about civil liberties in the United States in the years since Sept. 11, 2001.

                  After you contact your members, please email us at field at fcnl.org. Let us know what you did and any response you received. Thank you!

                  Background
                  Just when advocates thought that the Patriot Act reauthorization bill had reached the end of its legislative process, civil liberties protectors have been presented with an unexpected opening for positive action. The USA PATRIOT Act, passed in fear and haste in October 2001 in response to the 9/11 attacks, included 16 provisions that will expire Dec. 31, 2005, unless reauthorized by Congress. These "sunsetting" provisions include some, but not all, of the most controversial sections of the bill. From FCNL's perspective, the sunsets are helpful because they ensure that Congress examines controversial provisions carefully, choosing on a case-by-case basis which provision to extend and which to allow to expire. Note that these sunset provisions can be extended ("continued") past the deadline by routine congressional action, so that the deadline can be easily delayed.

                  During the summer and fall of 2005, reauthorization measures passed through the House and the Senate that made most of the 16 provisions permanent, but also addressed some of the problems with the original USA PATRIOT Act that the last four years have exposed. Although civil liberties advocates were disappointed at the modesty of the improvements to the original bill, the Senate version contained more favorable provisions. (For a comparison, see http://www.fcnl.org/issues/item.php?item_id=1509&issue_id=68.)

                  The House and Senate versions were to be reconciled in a "conference committee," with members named by House and Senate leadership. The party split in the conference committee reflects the party split in Congress, with Republicans in the majority. The conference committee would, following usual congressional order, issue a "conference report" containing the final version of the bill, and both houses of Congress would (usually) vote to adopt the report.

                  The conference committee for the Patriot Act reauthorization bill has been no exception - so far. First, the House leadership delayed formally naming the House conferees for weeks, setting up an artificial hurry-up atmosphere for consideration of the reauthorization bill. Then, over the weekend of Nov. 12-13, the conference committee's minority party members were abruptly cut off from participation in the negotiations, and officials from the Department of Justice and the White House met with conference committee leaders. A tentative deal was struck. The majority party conferees began circulation of a draft conference report mid-week (Nov. 16-17). The draft conference report not only ignored the unanimous instruction passed by the House (calling for the Senate's shorter, four-year extensions of three sunset provisions), but it also ignored the unanimously passed provisions of the Senate version of the bill, and even added provisions not passed by either the House or the Senate. Here are some of the problems with the draft conference report being circulated on Thursday, Nov. 17 for review by the conference committee:


                    a.. The Senate version included a common sense requirement, not in the original USA PATRIOT Act, that to get permission to search business records (including library and medical records), the FBI must offer some facts showing that the records relate to a suspected spy or terrorist. Unfortunately, that reform was dropped from the conference report. 
                    b.. The FBI currently has permission to issue "National Security Letters" (NSLs) demanding information from telecommunications providers about use of internet and phone lines. The Washington Post recently revealed that in the last year, the FBI has issued over 30,000 such NSLs, a one-hundred fold increase. . The conference report not only does not rein the FBI in, it adds authorization for the FBI to issue contempt citations for failure to comply with an NSL and criminal penalties for disclosing its existence to anyone. 
                    c.. The Senate version would have renewed the sunsets for three provisions (including the library records provision, roving wire taps, and the provision for a terrorism investigation of an individual acting alone) for four years. The conference report lengthens the sunsets to seven years from now, thus diluting congressional oversight. 
                    d.. Although the conference report seems to give the right to challenge orders for records and gag orders, those rights are illusory.. Under the conference report, recipients of record demands could contact an attorney, but only limited court challenge would be available. And, because the conference report gives the FBI a "presumption" of need for secrecy if the FBI claims national security or other interests, the right to challenge a gag order (telling anyone that the order was delivered) is ineffectual. 
                    e.. Fourteen of the 16 sunsetting provisions were made permanent in the conference report. 
                    f.. And, in perhaps the most undemocratic stroke of the conference committee leadership, new provisions (not passed by either the Senate or the House) were added to the conference report, including expansion of the number of crimes for which the death penalty can be imposed and seriously altering the right of habeas corpus for domestic criminal imprisonments.

                  By Thursday night, Nov. 17, members of the Senate and House were in nothing short of a bi-partisan revolt. Experienced "Hill watchers" reported that they have never seen anything like it. Six senators (Feingold (D-WI), Craig (R-ID), Durbin (D- IL), Sununu (R-NH), Salazar (D-CO), and Murkowski (R-AK)) have vowed to use every legislative tool available, including the filibuster, to fight final approval of the conference report as circulated. A bi-partisan group of House members (Sanders (I-VT), Nadler (D-NY), Rohrabacher (R-CA), Scott (D-VA), and Mack (R-FL)) joined the Senators at a Friday morning press conference, standing united in the effort to fight the conference report. They were joined at the press conference by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Specter (R-PA), who hinted that he might oppose Republican efforts in the Senate to cut off debate on the conference report. 

                  This is an historic moment. Please join the tens of thousands of civil liberties advocates across the country letting their congressional delegation know that further increases in law enforcement authority must not come at the expense of U.S. constitutional rights. During this congressional recess, tell the members of your congressional delegation that they must resist the conference report on the Patriot Act reauthorization bill and insist on further bi-partisan consultation before voting on the measure. 
                 
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