New Bill By Leahy And Others Seeks To Restore
Privacy And Civil Liberties Protections To PATRIOT Act

…Bipartisan Bill Takes Aim At Measures
Pushed By Bush Administration That Weakened Key Protections  

WASHINGTON (Wednesday, March 8) – Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the ranking Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, has joined in writing and introducing a bill to restore key privacy and civil liberties protections to the just-passed PATRIOT Act Reauthorization bill. 

Leahy, who coauthored the original USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, teamed up with leading Democratic and Republican senators including Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), John Sununu, (R-N.H), and Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) on a bill that would strengthen civil liberties protections weakened as a result of changes pushed by the Bush-Cheney Administration, including a provision that delayed any judicial review of gag orders for one year.  Leahy’s bill would eliminate the mandatory one-year waiting period before challenging a gag order in court.

The senators introduced the bill, S. 2369, on Monday.

“Reauthorizing the PATRIOT Act was a far more difficult and painful process than it should have been because of the partisan tactics and unchecked and unbalanced changes pushed by the Bush Administration,” said Leahy.  “This bipartisan bill makes commonsense improvements to key provisions in the PATRIOT Act that weakened privacy and civil liberties protections that every American has the right to expect.”

Leahy was one of 10 senators who voted against the recent reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act because of provisions that weakened these key protections.

Other features of the bipartisan improvement bill include:

n      Changing the standard for obtaining secret court orders under section 215 so that the government is required to show a connection to a suspected terrorist or spy before obtaining private, confidential information such as library and medical records.

n      Restoring the pre-PATRIOT Act rule, adopted by the Senate, that notice of ``sneak and peek'' searches may be delayed for no more   than 7 days unless extended.

 n      Adding a 4-year sunset to the National Security Letter authorities created in the conference report.

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(Leahy’s Statement on Introduction of the Bill)

Statement Of Senator Patrick Leahy
Ranking Member, Judiciary Committee
On The PATRIOT Act Reauthorization
And Introduction Of PATRIOT Act Improvement Bill
March 6, 2006

Mr. President, the PATRIOT Act reauthorization legislation that the Senate voted on last week has serious flaws and troubling omissions. I have spent several months working closely with Members from both parties in an attempt to improve these defects. Even after the Bush administration and congressional Republicans hijacked the House-Senate conference, I tried to get this measure back on the right track. Working with a bipartisan group of Senators, we were able to achieve some improvements. I regret that the final package is not better and that the intransigence of the administration has prevented a better bill with better protections for the American people.

I remain committed to working to provide the tools that we need to protect the American people. That includes working to provide the oversight and checks needed on the uses of Government power and to improve the current reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. I am therefore pleased to join Senators Specter, Sununu, Craig, Feingold and others in introducing a bill to improve the reauthorization legislation in several important respects.

Most importantly, the Specter-Leahy bill corrects one of the most egregious ``police state'' provisions regarding gag orders. The Bush-Cheney administration used the last round of discussions with Republican Senators to make the gag order provisions worse, in my view, by forbidding any court challenge for 1 year. There is no justification for this mandatory waiting period for judicial review, and our bill eliminates it. Our bill also eliminates provisions that allow the Government to ensure itself of victory by certifying that, in its view, disclosure ``may'' endanger national security or ``may'' interfere with diplomatic relations. These un-American restraints on meaningful judicial review are unfair, unjustified, and completely unacceptable.

I sought to make these changes to the gag orders provisions in an amendment I filed to Senator Sununu’s bill, S. 227l, which modified the conference report in various respects. Senator Feingold filed other amendments aimed at bringing the conference report more in line with the bipartisan reauthorization bill that every Member of the Senate approved last year. Regrettably, the majority leader chose to prevent any effort to offer amendments to S. 227l and effectively stifled open debate.

In addition to fixing the gag order provisions, the Specter-Leahy bill adopts the Senate-passed standard for obtaining secret court orders under section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. Under this standard, the Government can obtain private, confidential records such as library and medical records only if there is some connection between those records and a suspected terrorist or spy. The Specter-Leahy bill also restores the pre- PATRIOT Act rule, adopted by the Senate, that notice of ``sneak and peek'' searches may be delayed for no more than 7 days unless extended. The conference report sets a 30-day rule for the initial delay, more than three times what the Senate, and pre- PATRIOT Act courts, deemed appropriate. Finally, the Specter-Leahy bill adds a 4 year sunset to the national security letter authorities created in the conference report. This sunset provision, like those included in the original PATRIOT Act at the insistence of myself and House Majority Leader Dick Armey, would facilitate oversight and ensure accountability for the use of these administrative subpoena authorities.

Reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act has been a more difficult and far more painful process than it should have been. Under the leadership of Chairman Specter, the Judiciary Committee managed in just a few weeks to produce a bipartisan bill that passed the Senate unanimously. The House-Senate conference took a different course and produced a bill that Members on both sides of the aisle found unacceptable. It has been improved, but critical problems remain. The Specter-Leahy bill corrects the worst of these problems, and I will work with the chairman to enact these commonsense reforms before the end of the year.

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