It would require investigators to present facts to get your records.
The Senate bill would require the government to present a statement of facts to a federal judge and show some link between the records they request and a suspected foreign terrorist, under Section 215. It also provides a meaningful right to challenge the secret court orders for medical records, tax records, records about the books you buy or borrow or literally any tangible thing. The House bill does not require any facts to get these secret orders and allows only the narrowest basis to challenge the secret order.
It would include new limitations on secret searches.
The Senate version would allow a much shorter delay on notification when federal agents secretly search your home or business with a “sneak and peek” search warrant under Section 213, with some exceptions and extensions. The Patriot Act was written so hastily and broadly that powers such as these are not limited to terrorism cases and the Justice Department recently conceded that 88 percent of the secret warrants executed since 9/11 have been in non-terrorism cases and often notice is delayed for 30 to 90 days or longer. The House bill would allow notice of such searches to be delayed up to 180 days, with extensions.
It rejects the Bush administration proposal to expand the FBI’s ability to engage in investigative fishing expeditions.
Both the Senate and the House bills wisely reject a proposed expansion advanced by the Senate Intelligence Committee, and favored by the administration, that would give the federal government the power to write its own subpoenas for records held by any business in America —all without any prior judicial approval and without showing any specific and articulable facts connecting the records or things sought to a suspected foreign terrorist. However, some of the Members of Congress who will reconcile the bills still support this ill-advised proposal backed by the FBI.
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