Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions - S. 1709
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. CRAIG (for himself, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. CRAPO, Mr. FEINGOLD, Mr. SUNUNU, Mr. WYDEN, and Mr. BINGAMAN):
S. 1709. A bill to amend the USA PATRIOT ACT to place reasonable limitations on the use of surveillance and the issuance of search warrants, and for other purposes; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the USA PATRIOT Act, the counterterrorism bill that the Bush administration pushed through Congress after the September 11 terrorist attacks, has been the focus of much controversy in recent months. I voted for the PATRIOT Act, as did the vast majority of my colleagues in the Congress. I believed then, and I still believe, that the PATRIOT Act made many reasonable and necessary changes in the law.
For example, the PATRIOT Act tripled the number of Federal agents at the Northern border, an area that had been greatly understaffed. It allocated $100 million to upgrade technology for monitoring the Northern border. It expedited the hiring of FBI translators, who were desperately needed to translate intelligence after 9/11.
Most importantly, the PATRIOT Act updated information technology and enhanced information sharing between Federal agencies, especially the FBI and the CIA. As we learned after 9/11, the failure of these agencies to communicate with each other may have prevented law enforcement from uncovering the 9/11 plot before that terrible day.
However, the PATRIOT Act contains several controversial provisions that I and many of my colleagues believe went too far. The Bush administration placed Congress in a very difficult situation by insisting on including these provisions in the bill. We were able to amend or sunset some of the most troubling components of the bill. However, many remained in the final version. As a result, the PATRIOT Act makes it much easier for the FBI to monitor the innocent activities of American citizens with minimal or no judicial oversight. For example:
The FBI can now seize records on the books you check out of the library or the videos you rent, simply by certifying that the records are sought for a terrorism or intelligence investigation, a very low standard. A court no longer has authority to question the FBI's certification. The FBI no longer must show that the documents relate to a suspected terrorist or spy.
The FBI can conduct a "sneak and peek" search of your home, not notifying you of the search until after a "reasonable period," a term which is not defined in the PATRIOT Act. A court is now authorized to issue a "sneak and peek" warrant where a court finds "reasonable cause" that providing immediate notice of the warrant would have an "adverse result," a very broad standard. The use of "sneak and peek" warrants is not limited to terrorism cases.
The FBI can obtain a "John Doe" roving wiretap, which does not specify the target of the wiretap or the place to be wiretapped. This increases the likelihood that the conversations of innocent people wholly unrelated to an investigation will be intercepted.
Many in Congress did not want to deny law enforcement some of the reasonable reforms contained in the PATRIOT Act that they needed to combat terrorism. So, we reluctantly decided to support the administration's version of the bill, but not until we secured a commitment that they would be responsive to Congressional oversight and consult extensively with us before seeking any further changes in the law.
Unfortunately, the Justice Department has reneged on their commitment to Congress, frustrating oversight on the PATRIOT Act at every turn. Attorney General Ashcroft only rarely appears on Capitol Hill. In fact, he has only testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of which I am a member, once this year. He appeared, along with two other administration officials, for just half a day. The Justice Department regularly fails to answer congressional inquiries, either arguing that requested information is classified, or simply not responding at all.
At the same time, the administration's allies in Congress have argued that the PATRIOT Act's sunset clauses should be repealed before we have had an opportunity to review their effectiveness. Earlier this year, we learned that the administration had secretly drafted another sweeping counterterrorism bill, "PATRIOT Act II," without consulting with Congress. This bill would grant the Justice Department even broader authority, such as the right to strip Americans of their citizenship.
That proposal generated widespread opposition, but, unchastened, the administration went on the offensive again recently.
On the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, President Bush proposed new legislation that would give the Justice Department the authority to issue so-called administrative subpoenas, without judicial review, create 15 new federal death penalty crimes, and mandate pretrial detention for defendants accused of a laundry list of crimes, many of them unrelated to terrorism. These proposals continue the Administration's pattern of seeking to limit judicial oversight and grant broad, unchecked authority to law enforcement.
While they are pushing radical changes in the law, the Bush administration has failed to take commonsense steps to prevent terrorism, like developing fully interoperable information systems and creating a consolidated terrorist watch list. Most of the information systems now within the Department of Homeland Security's jurisdiction were acquired and developed independently within the former agencies in a parochial "stovepipe" fashion, and may be incompatible with other DHS systems. The Bush administration indicated that an initial inventory of these systems would be completed by this spring. I understand that inventory is still not completed.
This April, the GAO concluded that nine different agencies still develop and maintain a dozen terrorist watch lists, including overlapping and different data, and inconsistent procedures and policies on information sharing. The law creating the Department of Homeland Security requires the Department to consolidate watch lists. The Bush Administration promised that these lists would be consolidated by the first day of Homeland Security's operations. Seven months later, the lists are still not consolidated.
The Bush administration has devoted too many resources to counterterrorism measures that threaten our civil liberties and do little to improve our security. For example, John Ashcroft's Justice Department has launched a number of high-profile initiatives that explicitly target immigrants, especially Arabs and Muslims, for heightened scrutiny. These efforts squander precious law enforcement resources and alienate communities whose cooperation we desperately need. They run counter to basic principles of community policing, which reject the use of racial and ethnic profiles and focus on building trust and respect by working cooperatively with community members.
The Justice Department's own Inspector General has found that the Justice Department has not adequately distinguished between terrorism suspects and other immigration detainees. The IG found that the Justice Department detained 762 aliens as a result of the September 11 investigation, exactly zero of whom were charged with terrorist-related offenses. No one is suggesting that the Department should never use immigration charges to detain a suspected terrorist, but the broad brush of terrorism should not be applied to large numbers of every out-of-status immigrants who happen to be Arab or Muslim.
Many of us in Congress have raised concerns with the Justice Department about implementation of the PATRIOT Act and other civil liberties issues, and, rather than respond to legitimate concerns, they have gone on the offensive. In testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Attorney General John Ashcroft warned his critics:
To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terroristsfor they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.
It is unacceptable to dismiss those who raise legitimate concerns about civil liberties as terrorist sympathizers.
For the American people, the PATRIOT Act has become a potent symbol of the Justice Department's poor record on civil liberties. In fact, three states, Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont, and over 180 cities and counties across the country, including Chicago in my home State of Illinois, have passed resolutions opposing provisions of the PATRIOT Act.
Almost 2 years after its passage, I believe that it is time to revisit the debate about the PATRIOT Act. Let me be clear: I do not believe that we should repeal the PATRIOT Act. However, I do believe that we should amend several of its most troubling provisions. Law enforcement must have all the necessary tools to combat terrorism, but we must also be careful to protect the civil liberties of Americans. I believe we can be both safe and free.
Today, I, Senator Craig, and several of our Republican and Democratic colleagues in the Senate introduced the Security and
Freedom Ensured Act of 2003. The SAFE Act is a narrowly-tailored bipartisan bill that would amend the most problematic provisions of the PATRIOT Act, those that grant broad powers to the FBI to monitor Americans with inadequate judicial oversight. The bill would impose reasonable limits on law enforcement's authority without impeding their ability to investigate and prevent terrorism. It would not amend pre-PATRIOT Act law in anyway. The SAFE Act is supported by a broad coalition from across the political spectrum, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Conservative Union.
The SAFE Act would:
Reinstate the pre-PATRIOT Act standard for seizing business records. In order to obtain a subpoena, the FBI would have to demonstrate that it has reason to believe that the person to whom the records relate is a suspected terrorist or spy. The SAFE Act retains the expansion of the business record provision to include all business records, including library records, rather than just the four types of recordshotel, car rental, storage facility and common carriercovered before the PATRIOT Act.
Authorize a court to issue a delayed notification warrant where notice of the warrant would endanger the life or physical safety of an individual, result in flight from prosecution, or result in the destruction of or tampering with the evidence sought under the warrant. It would require notification of a covert search within seven days, rather than an undefined "reasonable period." It would authorize unlimited additional 7-day delays if the court found that notice of the warrant would continue to endanger the life or physical safety of an individual, result in flight from prosecution, or result in the destruction of or tampering with the evidence sought under the warrant.
Limit "John Doe" roving wiretaps by requiring the warrant to identify either the target of the wiretap or the place to be wiretapped. To protect innocent people from Government surveillance, it would also require that surveillance be conducted only when the suspect is present at the place to be wiretapped.
Sunset several of the PATRIOT Act's most controversial surveillance provisions on December 31, 2005. Many of PATRIOT's surveillance provisions already sunset on December 31, 2005. The SAFE Act would simply give Congress an opportunity to assess the effectiveness of several additional controversial provisions before deciding whether to reauthorize them.
Under the SAFE Act, the FBI would still have broad authority to combat terrorism. For example, consider the following hypotheticals:
The FBI would like to search the travel records of a suspected terrorist to help determine if he attended a meeting with other extremists. The FBI has reason to believe the records are related to a suspected terrorist, so the SAFE Act would authorize the issuance of a subpoena.
The FBI suspects that an individual affiliated with an extremist organization is planning a terrorist attack. The FBI would like to search the suspect's computer drive to learn more about the plot without tipping off the suspect and his co-conspirators. The SAFE Act would permit the issuance of a "sneak and peek" warrant, and permit the FBI to delay notice of the warrant for as long as it would continue to endanger the life or physical safety of an individual, result in flight from
prosecution, or result in the destruction of or tampering with the evidence sought under the warrant.
At the same time, the SAFE Act would protect innocent Americans from unchecked Government surveillance. For example:
The FBI is investigating suspected members of a terrorist cell and would like to subpoena the records of a library and a bookstore that they frequent. Currently, the FBI could subpoena all of the records of the library and bookstore, including the records of countless innocent Americans, by certifying they are sought for a terrorism investigation, the exceedingly low standard created by the PATRIOT Act. The SAFE Act would permit the FBI to obtain the records related to the suspected terrorists, but not records related to innocent Americans who are not suspected terrorists.
The FBI is tracking a suspected terrorist who is using public phones at local restaurants to do business. The PATRIOT Act would permit the issuance of a roving wiretap that would apply to any phone the suspect uses. Under the PATRIOT Act, the FBI could monitor the conversations not just of the suspect, but of innocent patrons of these restaurants. The
SAFE Act would also permit the issuance of a roving wiretap that would apply to any phone the suspect uses, but would only permit the FBI to gather intelligence when they ascertain that the suspect is using a phone.
The Justice Department has argued that amending the PATRIOT Act would handcuff law enforcement and make it very difficult to combat terrorism. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is possible to combat terrorism and protect our liberties. The SAFE Act demonstrates that. I urge my colleagues to support it.