Leahy Leads Bipartisan Coalition
Seeking Extension Of Patriot Act Powers

… Democratic and Republican Senators Introduce Bill To Give Congress
Three Months To Improve Proposed USA PATRIOT Act Conference Report

WASHINGTON (Monday, Dec. 12) – Senator Patrick Leahy, (D-Vt.), the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, has forged a coalition of Republican and Democratic senators that introduced a bill Monday to extend the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act to give Congress more time to improve a proposed rewrite of the PATRIOT Act that they believe is flawed on several counts.

Leahy and the bipartisan group have proposed a three-month extension of the expiration of key provisions in the 2001 law that granted broad law enforcement powers to government agencies shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.  The bill proposes that key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act set to expire at the end of this month remain valid until March 31 next year to give Congress more time to make improvements.

“Congress should not rush ahead to enact flawed legislation to meet a deadline that is within our power to extend.  We owe it to the American people to get this right,” said Leahy.  “A sensible and workable bipartisan solution that protects both Americans’ security and their rights and liberties is within our reach and worth a few extra weeks to get it done.  We have made improvements just since Thanksgiving, and we should make every effort to make this a better bill that will strengthen, instead of jeopardize, the public’s faith and trust.”  

The bipartisan coalition consists of Leahy and Sens. John Sununu (R-N.H.), John Rockefeller, (D-W.V.), Larry Craig, (R-Idaho), Edward Kennedy, (D-Mass.), Lisa Murkowski, (R-Alaska), Carl Levin, (D-Mich.), Richard Durbin, (D-Ill.), Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), and Ken Salazar, (D-Colo.).   

The bipartisan group has offered the bill as an alternative to rushing through Congress this week a Republican-written conference report signed last week that falls short of striking the right balance to protect Americans’ civil liberties and privacy, said Leahy, who served as the Senate’s chief Democratic negotiator for the House-Senate conference committee. A similar proposal is expected to be introduced in the House this week, Leahy said.

None of the Democratic conferees – either in the House or in the Senate -- signed the proposed conference report filed last week.

“The American people have every reason to expect Congress to achieve the right balance in defending their rights while advancing their security, but the Republican-backed conference report fails to do that,” said Leahy. 

Last week Leahy joined with the other Democratic Senate conferees on the bill -- Senators Rockefeller, Kennedy, and Levin – in sending a letter to the conference chairman, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), and to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), urging a three-month extension of the expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act to give Congress more time to craft a bipartisan compromise that could win broad support.  

Leahy was an original co-author of the USA PATRIOT Act, enacted in October 2001, just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.  Several provisions of the 2001 law are set to expire at the end of this year under sunset provisions that Leahy and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) included in the final version of the 2001 law.  The two teamed up on the sunset provisions as a way to improve congressional oversight of the new powers given to the government. 

Earlier this year, Leahy supported and voted for the bipartisan Senate version of the USA PATRIOT Act renewal bill, which included several new “sunshine” provisions advanced by Leahy, to improve oversight and accountability, as well as continuing some of the 2001 law’s sunset provisions.  The Senate bill won unanimous, bipartisan support.  These and other Leahy-proposed sunshine provisions are included in the proposed compromise bill.

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 (Leahy’s Statement On Introduction Of The Bill)

 Senator Patrick Leahy,
Ranking Member, Senate Judiciary Committee
Statement On Introduction Of A Bill
To Extend Expiring PATRIOT Act Powers
December 12, 2005

Mr. LEAHY.  On a September morning four years ago nearly 3,000 lives were lost on American soil, and our lives as Americans changed in an instant.  In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Congress moved swiftly to pass anti-terrorism legislation.  The fires were still smoldering at Ground Zero in New York City when the USA PATRIOT Act became law on October 30, 2001, just six weeks after the attacks. 

Many of us here in the Senate today worked together in a spirit of bipartisan unity and resolve to craft a bill that we had hoped would make us safer as a Nation.  Freedom and security are always in tension in our society, and especially so in those somber weeks after the attacks, and we tried our best to strike the right balance. 

One of the fruits of that bipartisanship was the PATRIOT Act’s sunset provisions.  These key provisions set an expiration date of December 31, 2005, on certain government powers that had great potential to affect the civil liberties of the American people.  Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey and I insisted on these sunsets to ensure that Congress would revisit the PATRIOT Act within a few years and consider refinements to protect the rights and liberties of all Americans more effectively, and we prevailed.

Sadly, the Bush Administration and the Republican congressional leadership have squandered key opportunities to improve the PATRIOT Act.  The House-Senate conference report filed last week by Republican lawmakers falls short of what the American people expect and deserve from us.  The bipartisan Senate bill, which the Senate Judiciary Committee and then the Senate adopted unanimously, struck a far better balance.

The reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act must have the confidence of the American people.  The Congress should not rush ahead to enact flawed legislation to meet a deadline that is within our power to extend.  We owe it to the American people to get this right.

The way forward to a sensible and workable bipartisan bill is clear.  Today I am pleased to join with Senator Sununu and others to introduce a bill to extend the sunsets on the expiring PATRIOT Act powers until March 31, 2006.  Our bill also extends for three months the so-called “lone wolf” FISA surveillance authority, which Congress enacted last year as part the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act. 

The deadline that Congress imposed to ensure oversight and accountability should not now become a barrier to achieving bipartisan compromise and the best bill we can forge together.  This is a vital debate, and these are vital issues to all Americans.  If a brief extension is needed to produce a better bill that will better serve all of our citizens, then by all means, let us give ourselves that time.

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