According to a press release issued late Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee, headed by F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., passed its PATRIOT (Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) Act of 2001 by a 36-0 vote after about six hours of intense debate. A chamber-wide vote on the measure is expected by early next week.

Meanwhile, the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday introduced its own version of the bill, called the Uniting and Strengthen America Act of 2001.

Ranking Republican Senate Judiciary member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said in a prepared statement: "I am pleased to report that our agreement takes into account each of our principled beliefs and is based on our views on the proper balance between the role of law enforcement and our civil liberties."

Broadened Powers

While both versions of the bill call for increased leeway for law enforcement agencies to track suspects through telecommunications and the Internet, the Senate version does not include a so-called sunset clause that would oblige the legislative branch to revisit the broadened monitoring procedures two years after its passage.

Both bills allow federal law enforcement agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to follow foreign-intelligence guidelines when requesting permission to wiretap suspects. Those rules are more expansive in application than the more rigid evidentiary standards presently in place.

Sources have noted, however, that provisions of these bills, which were revised from Attorney General John Ashcroft's draft recommendations, still trouble many legislators, who are fearful such points might trample long-held civil liberties.

Updating Antique Laws

Bill Malik, vice-president and research area director for Gartner Inc.'s information security group, told NewsFactor Network that the attorney general's recommendations are not pushing the envelope with respect to eroding civil liberties. Rather, said Malik, Ashcroft wants to update antique laws that were designed for an era that had no prepaid cell phones and had not heard of the Internet.

Congress passed laws in the late 1950s and early 1960s that ensured that political structures did not have broad powers to act as they did during the McCarthy era, Malik told NewsFactor.

"But there have been great changes since the 50s and 60s," Malik continued. "Now gangsters can buy crates of cell phones, use them once and discard them -- or can use prepaid cell phones that don't even have a traceable phone number." (continued...)

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