Bush Signs Patriot Act Renewal

[Clara T]

BREAKING NEWS ~ Bush signs Patriot Act renewal
Jeannie Shawl at 3:12 PM ET



President Bush has signed legislation to renew the USA PATRIOT Act , making permanent several sunsetting provisions in the anti-terror law, extending two provisions until 2009, and incorporating a number of new rights protections. Bush approved what Congress presented Wednesday as two separate but related bills: the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 , the actual renewal that reflects the conference report agreed to by Congress last December, and the USA PATRIOT Act Additional Reauthorizing Amendments Act of 2006 , a series of amendments to the renewal legislation reflecting a recent compromise agreement to incorporate more civil liberties protections.

Sixteen key provisions of the Patriot Act were set to expire at the end of last year, but members of Congress were initially unable to reach agreement on the terms of the renewal, prompting instead two short-term extensions , the latest of which was to expire March 10. Fourteen of these provisions now become permanent and the remaining two provisions - Section 206 on "roving" wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Section 215 on subpoenas under FISA - will now expire in 2009. Additional civil liberties safeguards built into the renewal include allowing recipients of Section 215 subpoenas for information in terror investigations to be able to challenge the accompanying gag order; eliminating a requirement that people who receive National Security Letters (NSL) must provide the FBI the names of lawyers consulted about the NSL; and clarifying current law to ensure that libraries functioning in their traditional roles would not be subject to NSLs. AP has more.

The debate on whether the Patriot Act and the renewal legislation provide adequate protections against intrusions on privacy is not over, however. Last week, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) , chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and several other senators introduced a proposal to "enhance the civil liberty protections contained in the USA Patriot Act." The proposal would:
require that the target of delayed-notice search warrants receive notification within seven days of the execution of the warrant;
implement a three-part test to obtain a Section 215 order, requiring the government to provide more information before obtaining the order;
eliminate the "conclusive presumption" of the government's certification of threats to national security for judicial review of NSL nondisclosure requirements; and
add a four-year sunset to NSL provisions in the conference report.

http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/paperchase/2006/03/breaking-news-bush-signs-patriot-act.php