House vote: Last bar to USA Patriot Act renewal

updated 7:32 p.m. ET March 2, 2006

WASHINGTON - With the Senate voting Thursday to renew the USA Patriot Act, the measure moves to the House, which is expected to pass the legislation next week.

On or before March 10, President Bush is expected to renew the law that broadens the power of the U.S. government to obtain private records and to conduct wiretaps and searches, despite the deep bipartisan misgivings of some in Congress.

The Senate voted, 89-10, to renew the Act after adding new privacy protections designed to strike a better balance between privacy rights and the government’s power to hunt down terrorists.

One bright spot for Bush
The Senate vote marked a bright spot in Bush’s troubled second term as his approval ratings dipped over the war in Iraq and his administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina. Renewing the act, Bush and congressional Republicans said, was key to preventing more terror attacks in the United States.

Bush applauded the Senate for overcoming “partisan attempts to block its passage.” The House was expected to approve the two-bill package next week and send it to the president, who would sign it before 16 provisions expire March 10.

“This bill will allow our law enforcement officials to continue to use the same tools against terrorists that are already used against drug dealers and other criminals, while safeguarding the civil liberties of the American people,” Bush said in a statement from India.

Critics held their ground. A December filibuster led by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., and joined by several libertarian-leaning Republicans, forced the Bush administration to agree to modest new curbs on the government’s power to probe library, bank and other records.

Feingold bloodied but unbowed
Feingold insisted those new protections are cosmetic. “Americans want to defeat terrorism and they want the basic character of this country to survive and prosper,” he said. “They want both security and liberty, and unless we give them both — and we can if we try — we have failed.”

Some lawmakers who voted for the package acknowledged deep reservations about the power it would grant to any president.

“Our support for the Patriot Act does not mean a blank check for the president,” said Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who voted to pass the bill package. “What we tried to do on a bipartisan basis is have a better bill. It has been improved.”

Not enough even for the bill’s chief sponsor in the Senate, Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. After prolonged negotiations produced a House-Senate compromise, Specter urged his colleagues to pass it even as he promised to introduce a new measure and hold hearings on how to fix it.

For now, Bush and his Republican allies savor a significant victory. For months, their tough-on-terrorism image has been tarnished by the revelation that the president authorized a secret domestic wiretapping program.

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