Last Thursday, July 21, 2005, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on a bill reauthorizing the Patriot Act. This action occurred the very same day that the House of Representatives voted on its bill renewing the Patriot Act. The Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to report a compromise bill with amendments. In contrast, the debate in the House was bitter and divided and the House Rules Committee prevented votes on many good amendments.
While the ACLU cannot endorse the Senate bill, it does make significant improvements to existing law and reflects a tremendous amount of hard work on the part of Senator Specter, his colleagues and their staff. The bill that was reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee is much better than the bill voted on by the full House of Representatives.
The Senate legislation:
- Would require the FBI to have a factual basis before seeking a Section 215 court order for the production of personal records.
- Includes time limits on sneak and peak searches.
- Contains more reasonable sunset provisions that those contained in the House bill.
These victories are largely result of the hard work of the ACLU and its allies. We have a lot to feel good about. We need to now think carefully about how we preserve these victories.
We should be commending Senator Specter and his colleagues for making improvements to the Patriot Act. We know that we must continue lobbying to make sure that these improvements stay in the final bill. We should save our criticism for the House bill which contains few improvements to the Patriot Act.
We do not know when the full Senate will be taking up the bill that was unanimously approved by the senate Judiciary Committee. But, it could happen this week . . .
SO HERE IS HOW YOU CAN HELP: MAKE TWO IMPORTANT AND TIMELY PHONE CALLS
1. Call Senator Specter's office in Washington, D.C., at 202-224-4254 and let his staff know that you appreciate the work of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that you support the improvements to the Patriot Act, and that you look forward to Senator Specter's continued leadership in reforming the Patriot Act.
2. Call Senator Santorum's office at 202-224-6324 and let his staff know that you hope that Senator Santorum will support the Patriot Act legislation that was unanimously approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, July 21, 2005.
If you want to be up-to-date on breaking developments in the legislative struggle over reforming the Patriot Act, be sure to check out the ACLU blog.
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