USA Patriot Act 5-Week Extension
USA PATRIOT ACT 5-WEEK EXTENSION -- (House of Representatives - February 01, 2006)
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I intend to support this short extension today. And doing so will give the Members an opportunity to work together to work on the conference report from the last Congress to include some commonsense improvements to ensure that there are appropriate protections for our citizens' civil rights and civil liberties.
Now, many of the provisions of the original PATRIOT Act for which concerns had been expressed have proven to be noncontroversial and have not operated to threaten civil liberties. Other provisions, however, have become more problematic. This extension will give us the time to look at things like the searches for libraries and other intrusive records; second, a standard for issuing national security letters which are essentially subpoenas without probable cause and without the normal checks and balances and a mechanism for making sure that personal information obtained under these letters is destroyed or properly protected.
A review of wire taps, I think, is appropriate, the roving wiretaps and also review of wiretaps under the President's new NSA policy which many legal scholars believe are just illegal. Those are spying on domestic law-abiding citizens. If there is probable cause that someone is breaking the law, obviously a criminal warrant could be given. We need to look and see exactly what is being done and review the law to determine whether or not they are, in fact, illegal. The elimination of totally unnecessary provisions in the conference report involving habeas corpus and expanding the death penalty had nothing to do with the original PATRIOT Act.
Mr. Speaker, as the chairman has indicated, there are improvements in the PATRIOT Act that are in the conference report, but we need to make sure that we have a version that can pass. We can pass a PATRIOT Act. The Senate has passed the PATRIOT Act several times on virtually a unanimous vote or even unanimous consent. The House Judiciary Committee passed unanimously the original PATRIOT Act until a late-night switch to another version that no one had read. But we can pass a PATRIOT Act; and if we use our time effectively, we can develop an act which serves the needs of law enforcement without allowing the unnecessary spying on law-abiding citizens.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I would hope that we would give this brief extension to the PATRIOT Act and that we would use this time effectively to review the NSA wiretaps and also to use this time effectively to develop a bill that can pass both Chambers.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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