Well, well, well. The House shows a little spine. Whoda thunk it?
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 16, 2005; Page A01
The House handed President Bush the first defeat in his effort to preserve the broad powers of the USA Patriot Act, voting yesterday to curtail the FBI's ability to seize library and bookstore records for terrorism investigations.
Bush has threatened to veto any measure that weakens those powers. The surprise 238 to 187 rebuke to the White House was produced when a handful of conservative Republicans, worried about government intrusion, joined with Democrats who are concerned about personal privacy. One provision of the Patriot Act makes it possible for the FBI to obtain a wide variety of personal records about a suspected terrorist -- including library transactions -- with an order from a secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, where the government must meet a lower threshold of proof than in criminal courts.
Under the House change, officials would have to get search warrants from a judge or subpoenas from a grand jury to seize records about a suspect's reading habits.
Some libraries have said they are disposing of patrons' records more quickly because of the provision, which opponents view as a license for fishing expeditions.
House Administration Committee Chairman Robert W. Ney (Ohio), one of three House Republicans who opposed the Patriot Act when it was enacted in 2001, voted yesterday to curtail agents' power to seize the records.
"Everybody's against terrorism, but there has to be reason in the way that we fight it," Ney said. "The government doesn't need to be sifting through library records. I talked to my libraries, and they felt very strongly about this."
Yes, most librarians do feel strongly about this.
That said, even if this passes the Senate -- and, all things considered, it very well might -- it's not a veto-proof majority, and the bill it's attached to is an appropriations bill. It's very likely that the rider will simply be deleted in conference committee, which makes it easy to vote for. You can say, "Well, we tried, but the Senate/the President wouldn't let it through."
That said, I do love this (anonymous, of course) quote:
Interesting how it is that they're only "the crazies on the right" when they're not doing what the Republican leadership wants them to do. Hopefully, it's a feeling that the Republican leadership might get used to, now that we seem to officially be headed into presidential lame duck season.
Posted by iain at June 16, 2005 11:20 AM
