Word: patrioteers
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...Alito nomination is not the only issue on which the Administration will have to confront the controversy. It will add to Bush's already difficult struggle to renew the most controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which was passed after 9/11 and gave law enforcement broad new powers that have since unsettled some on both the left and the right. Congress last month disappointed the White House by giving the provisions only a five-week extension, setting a new expiration date of Feb. 3. And some kind of congressional investigation into the NSA spying program seems certain. Specter...
Finally, presidential defenders have argued that efficiency demands bypassing the courts. There again, the clear language of the law does them in. Even pre--Patriot Act law provided a very robust mechanism through which a President, facing what he believes is such an emergency that the short time needed to secure court approval for a wiretap would obviate the need for one, can order a tap without prior court approval as long as he eventually gets an O.K. within three days. If that degree of flexibility does not suit a President, it is hard to imagine what provision would...
...series of eleventh-hour negotiations last month, Congress extended the expiration of key sections of the U.S.A. Patriot Act from Dec. 31 until Feb. 3 to allow more time to debate controversial provisions, including those that empower the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand patron information from libraries. Harvard’s Senior Director of Federal and State Relations, Kevin Casey, wrote in an e-mail that the extension, which Congress passed Dec. 22, was an encouraging sign for members of the Harvard community previously critical of the Patriot Act’s civil-liberties provisions...
...Under the Patriot Act, currently up for renewal in Congress, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can demand that a library release the record of books that an individual has borrowed. But that record must be relevant to an ongoing terrorism or counterintelligence investigation, and the investigation cannot be conducted solely on the basis of an activity protected by the First Amendment, such as requesting a controversial book from the library...
...attempt to force the renewal of the U.S.A. Patriot Act to a final vote in the Senate Friday failed because of bipartisan concern about civil liberties violations. Of particular concern was the ability of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to demand patron information from libraries and other organizations, a capacity that has generated concern in the Harvard community in recent years. With several provisions of the original act due to expire on Dec. 31, the situation in the Senate is tense and uncertain, Associate Professor of Government Barry C. Burden said, especially since Congress has usually adjourned...