Last week, President Bush once again sought to take our country in the wrong direction on our nation’s top priority: fighting terrorism.
In speeches in Ohio and Virginia, the president continued to present the American people with a false choice: Reauthorize the USA Patriot Act without any changes or leave our country vulnerable to terrorist attacks. We can both fight terrorism and protect the freedoms of law-abiding citizens; anything less would be a dangerous disservice to the American people.
The president’s speech was a classic bait-and-switch, focusing on many provisions of the Patriot Act that are not controversial and then urging that all 16 provisions due to expire at the end of this year be extended permanently. It’s time President Bush started to shoot straight with the American people by acknowledging that some parts of the act go too far.
Instead, the administration is trying to sell Congress and the American people on renewing and expanding government powers in the Patriot Act. This effort is marked by an arrogance that ignores bipartisan expressions of dissatisfaction in Congress and the concerns of citizens in nearly 400 communities in 43 states – including Colorado, where 14 communities have passed resolutions opposing parts of the Patriot Act.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence also ignored bipartisan cautions when it recently went forward with a secret review of the Patriot Act. These important issues deserve public dialogue, not secret meetings. But what’s worse than this closed process is what has resulted from it: The Intelligence Committee wants to give the government unprecedented new investigative powers.
The committee bill contains provisions that are far worse than anything we saw in the Patriot Act, allowing the FBI to issue secret administrative subpoenas for all types of business records. This new power would provide the FBI with the authority to obtain all types of records – from medical records to library and bookstore records – without the permission of a judge.
But action in the House of Representatives this week confirms that members of Congress from across the political spectrum want to fix the Patriot Act, not expand it. On Wednesday, a strong bipartisan majority of the House voted to curb one of the most controversial provisions of the act, sending a clear message to the White House that Congress will not simply sit back and reauthorize the Patriot Act without fully considering the need for changes.
In its influential final recommendations, the Sept. 11 commission specifically stated that the government must justify any expansion of government power by showing that it would materially enhance security, and it must demonstrate that adequate oversight exists to assure that the power will not be abused. The administration has not come close to explaining why it needs these sweeping new powers, and it has proposed to reduce, not strengthen, oversight and judicial review.
Last year, speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lee Hamilton, vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, spoke of an “astounding intrusion into the lives of ordinary Americans that is routine today in government.” I am proud to be a part of a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats who are working to prevent the intrusions on our freedoms that the Patriot Act permits.
The Security and Freedom Enhancement Act (SAFE), supported by a growing number of members of Congress from both parties, including Sen. Ken Salazar. D-Colo., doesn’t repeal a single provision of the Patriot Act. It simply fixes parts of it that infringe on the freedoms of law-abiding Americans.
The SAFE Act takes the right approach. It will provide the checks and balances that were missing from the Patriot Act when it has hastily passed just six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks. The SAFE Act permits the government to conduct necessary surveillance, but only within a framework of accountability and oversight. It ensures both that our government has the tools to keep us safe, and that the rights and freedoms of innocent Americans will be protected.
President Bush told the nation last week that protecting our rights is one of his goals, and a goal of the Patriot Act itself. The way to prove that those are not just empty words is to engage in an honest debate about fixing the Patriot Act and abandon efforts to expand government powers in ways that threaten our freedoms.
Russ Feingold (Russ_Feingold@ feingold.senate.gov) is serving his third term in the U.S. Senate.
