Bush Uses Pennsylvania Trip to Urge Patriot Act Extensions

President Bush returned to this battleground state Monday and sought to highlight his efforts to prevent another terrorist attack within the United States, as he called on Congress to extend key elements of the Patriot Act.

The controversial post-Sept. 11 law made it easier for law enforcement and intelligence agencies to gather and share information on suspected terrorists. Some of its provisions are due to expire at the end of next year.

The president’s push for renewal of the law came amid intense public scrutiny of his administration’s efforts to combat terrorism, and amid concerns that terrorists may again strike America before the November elections.

On Sunday, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s national security advisor, said that terrorists might find an attempt at such an attack “too good to pass up.”

Before leaving Pennsylvania, Bush attended a fundraiser in Pittsburgh for four-term Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a moderate who faces a tough reelection fight for his party’s nomination from conservative Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.).

Bush’s 27th visit to Pennsylvania as president was the latest reminder of the crucial role the state is expected to play in November’s presidential election.

On Friday, Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, appeared in Pittsburgh as he wrapped up a tour of college campuses.

Bush addressed a convention of hundreds of Pennsylvania local officials in Hershey, which is about 140 miles east of Shanksville, Pa., where United Airlines Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. As he spoke, a giant photo collage of first responders with the headline “Protecting The Homeland” loomed behind him.

“Many of the Patriot Act’s anti-terror tools are set to expire next year,” the president said. “The problem is, the war on terror continues, and yet some senators and congressmen not only want provisions to expire, but they want to roll back some of the features.”

Such action, Bush said, “doesn’t make sense.”

Provisions of the act that are due to expire in 2005 expanded the surveillance authority of the government in foreign intelligence and law enforcement investigations.

The provisions also helped remove a legal “wall” that prevented criminal and intelligence investigators from sharing information and coordinating their work.

Testimony before the Sept. 11 commission this month suggested that the wall was a major culprit in inhibiting government agents from learning more about some of the Sept. 11 hijackers before the attacks.

Other provisions set to expire next year allow the government to cite terrorism and computer fraud as the basis for requesting wiretaps; allow roving wiretaps to follow suspects, no matter what telephones they use; and allow voicemail to be seized using search warrants. Another expiring provision would require a warrant from only a single court in nationwide investigations for terrorism-related searches, rather than from each jurisdiction involved.

The Patriot Act was passed with overwhelming support in both chambers of Congress.

But opposition has grown from a wide group of opponents, making it unlikely that Congress will find enough common ground to approve an extension before this fall’s election, legal experts said.

Libertarian conservatives and civil rights groups, among others, have attacked the law, saying it gives government too much power. Some conservative Republican lawmakers also harbor reservations about extending the Patriot Act’s provisions, including Sen. Larry E. Craig of Idaho, who has joined Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) in sponsoring a bill to curtail some of the provisions.

Most Democrats in Congress voted for the law, and many continue to support it. Kerry voted for it, but has since expressed concern about how it has worked in practice.

In a statement Monday, a Kerry campaign spokesman accused Bush of “using the Patriot Act to distract attention from the fact that his administration has done a woefully inadequate job of solving the nation’s intelligence problems.”

In Hershey, Bush said the Patriot Act was “making America safer.”

In particular, he cited its measures to break down the barrier between the FBI and CIA to allow them to “share intelligence on a real-time basis.”