Patriot Act Is Called Vital

The Bush administration on Tuesday launched its campaign to preserve and expand the USA Patriot Act, the much-debated anti-terrorism legislation enacted after Sept. 11.

In unusually strong language before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales defended the administration’s use of the law and warned that any effort to dismantle it would be tantamount to “unilateral disarmament” in the war on terrorism.

The law, portions of which will expire at the end of the year unless Congress acts, has drawn opposition across the political spectrum, including civil liberties groups and libertarian conservatives concerned that it gives the government too much power to intrude into citizens’ lives.

Gonzales said the government had used the act’s most hotly debated sections dozens of times to investigate and prosecute terrorism and other crimes.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III -- testifying at the same hearing -- argued for expanding the bureau’s authority to issue administrative subpoenas in terrorism cases, something that would give it access to a wider range of data without having to go to court.

The FBI has that authority in cases that include drug trafficking, healthcare fraud and child exploitation, Mueller said. But Democratic lawmakers have rejected previous administration requests for broader subpoena authority.

Tuesday’s action marked the beginning of what was expected to be a long and wrenching congressional review of how the Patriot Act operated in practice.

The law was enacted with broad bipartisan support six weeks after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, Congress is about to engage in a debate that could last months. Sixteen of the act’s provisions, including some that U.S. officials consider essential, are set to expire this year.

To critics, the law -- which made it easier for the government to investigate and prosecute suspected terrorists -- has become a symbol of the abuses immigrants and others have suffered since Sept. 11. But public opinion remains divided, in part because much of the Patriot Act has been shrouded in secrecy.

Some congressional Republicans, including Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, have expressed concerns about how the law has operated and indicated that they think revisions are needed.

At the hearing, Gonzales disclosed previously classified information showing how the government had used secret warrants obtained under the Patriot Act to amass a host of business and other personal records in terrorism investigations. The unusual public accounting, and Gonzales’ embrace of what he called “technical modifications” in the law, seemed to be an attempt to strike a more conciliatory tone than his predecessor, John Ashcroft, whose support for the law was often viewed in Congress as unyielding.

The new attorney general has agreed to a private meeting to discuss the law with the American Civil Liberties Union, an audience that the group said it never got from Ashcroft.

“It is a grand departure from your predecessor,” Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), a leading advocate of rolling back portions of the law, said at the hearing. “I think it is the right spirit.”

At the same time, Durbin and others indicated that they did not think the changes Gonzales had embraced went far enough. Many of their concerns, while they may seem to be at the legal margins, could become stumbling blocks when it comes to enacting legislation later this year.

Committee members grilled Gonzales over such concerns as the standards the government used in obtaining a new form of search warrant that allowed authorities to delay notifying the target of an investigation, sometimes until weeks after the search had occurred. The authority for that type of warrant under the Patriot Act is one that does not expire this year, but has been targeted for repeal by critics of the act.

Gonzales said the delayed-notification provision -- known to critics as “sneak and peek” -- had been used 155 times in cases that included drug dealing, murder and terrorism. He said that represented less than 1% of all search warrants the department sought.

Others asked Gonzales about the sweeping way that the law defined terrorism, and about fears among some advocacy groups that they could face prosecution for staging protests that sought political change.

Some of the sharpest questioning came from Specter, who asked whether Gonzales would agree to limits on a provision in Section 215 of the law, targeted by library groups as possibly allowing the government to investigate the reading habits of ordinary citizens.

Gonzales told lawmakers that the government had used Section 215 on 35 occasions -- to obtain information about drivers’ licenses, apartment leases and telephone subscribers but never against libraries.

But he declined Specter’s request to rein in Section 215, saying that the department should not be penalized for exercising restraint. He said the Justice Department needed tools in its arsenal even when it was not actively using them, comparing the situation to a police officer who carried a firearm for years and never used it.

“I don’t think your analogy is apt,” Specter said.

The senator indicated that he thought the legal standards the government must meet under Section 215 might have to be changed. A major feature of the law has been that in terrorism investigations, the government does not have to establish probable cause that a crime was committed to obtain records.

Limiting that feature, Gonzales said, would unnecessarily burden investigators.

The attorney general proposed two changes that would make clear that targets of business-records requests would have the right to consult their lawyers and challenge the requests in court. He also said the law should be clarified so that prosecutors had to prove that the requests were relevant to terrorism cases.

But, he said, the government was carrying out those policies.

Gonzales said that the department had used another section of the Patriot Act in 49 cases to obtain “roving” wiretaps. That allows authorities to track multiple phones being used by a single suspect without having to go back to court each time the suspect gets a phone.

The attorney general acknowledged that the government had used portions of the law in some of its most controversial post-Sept. 11 investigations -- including the bungled probe of a Muslim lawyer, Brandon Mayfield, who was detained as a material witness last year in Portland, Ore., in connection with the deadly Madrid train bombing. Mayfield was released after the FBI determined that a fingerprint had been erroneously identified as his.

Gonzales said the department planned to seek legislation that would extend the time that searches and electronic surveillance could be conducted under the Patriot Act without having to go back to court. He said the move would free up thousands of hours for Justice Department lawyers, and was endorsed in the final report of the presidential panel investigating intelligence failures in Iraq.

The House begins its hearings into the Patriot Act today. Gonzales is expected to appear. Specter has set a second hearing for his Senate panel May 10.