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Patriot Act: Congress Sends Obama Short-Term Wiretap Authority
By Tom Diemer - Politics DailyCongress gave President Obama what he wanted Thursday: a bill extending federal authority for use of "roving wiretaps" and other surveillance techniques. But the president wanted the so-called Patriot Act continued until 2013 and this extension is only for 90 days. The caution comes from concern over three sections of the broader law: reauthorizing use of moveable wiretaps that don't require multiple court orders; giving the FBI access to tangible items like library records in international cases; and permitting surveillance of "lone wolf" suspects not connected to specific terrorist groups. ...
Congress Extends Patriot Act Measures for 90 Days
By not in system - AOL NewsWASHINGTON - Congress on Thursday gave itself three more months to consider changes to provisions of anti-terrorism law that have been valuable in tracking security threats but have drawn fire from defenders of privacy rights. The House voted 279-143 to add 90 days to the legal authority of three provisions, including two that were part of the USA Patriot Act enacted shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Senate approved the measure Tuesday evening. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the bill before the provisions expire on Feb. 28. At issue are law enforcement powers to set ...
Chris Lee, Abortion Drama and Legislative Fails: The House GOP's Bad Week
By Torie Bosch - AOL NewsThere will probably be some long faces at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which starts today. It hasn't been a good -- or even just OK -- week for the Republican Party, as a poorly timed sex scandal (is there such a thing as a well-timed one?) coincides with legislative scrums and failures. Here are the many challenges facing the GOP this week. The Craigslist Congressman On Wednesday, Rep. Chris Lee, R-N.Y., resigned hours after the website Gawker published e-mails allegedly between Lee and a woman he met on Craigslist. The pičce de résistance: a photograph of a ...
Why Did 26 Republicans Vote Against Extending the Patriot Act?
By Andrea Stone - AOL NewsWASHINGTON -- House Republican leaders expecting an easy two-thirds vote to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act were handed a rude surprise when 26 of their own opted to side with Nancy Pelosi and the American Civil Liberties Union instead of them. For Speaker of the House John Boehner, who once suggested to his new tea party compatriots that they would need to act like "adults" on tough votes such as raising the debt ceiling, what should have been a routine roll call turned into possibly the first concrete evidence that his caucus may be more unruly than he imagined. The majority party ...
Patriot Act Extended? Jane Harman Fail
By Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL NewsIt's not quite "Dewey Defeats Truman," but it's still pretty bad. On Tuesday night, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., released a statement expressing "reluctant support" for the House's extension of key provisions of the Patriot Act. According to Harman, the bill "passed the House by a vote of 277-148." Except it didn't. Harman is correct that the final vote tally was 277-148, but as we explained last night, that count fell short of the two-thirds majority needed to extend the bill's provisions. For those doing the math at home, there are 435 voting members in the House of Representatives. That ...
Patriot Act: The 3 Provisions the House Failed to Extend
By David Knowles - AOL NewsWere they not patriotic enough? The U.S. House of Representatives failed to muster enough votes today to pass an extension of three key provisions of the Patriot Act. The final tally had 277 votes for the measure and 148 votes against it. A two-thirds majority was required for passage. Twenty-six Republicans and 122 Democrats voted against the measure. Sixty-seven Dems and 210 members of the GOP voted for it. Surge Desk examines the three portions of the Patriot Act that groups as diverse as the ACLU and the tea party movement, to say nothing of so many members of Congress, found so ...
Congress Extends Patriot Act Without Additional Privacy Protections
By Christopher Weber - Politics DailyA bill extending the Patriot Act by one year is headed to President Obama's desk after being passed by Congress without additional privacy measures to protect against civil liberty abuses. The House passed the legislation 315-97 on Thursday, one day after it sailed through the Senate. The anti-terror statute was set to expire Sunday. The White House pushed to extend the Patriot Act because of provisions it says are important in tracking suspected terrorists, Reuters reported. Among the act's extended provisions are the authority to follow individual suspects not members of an organized ...
Congressional Agenda for 2010: Controversy and Budget Busting
By Patricia Murphy - Politics DailyWhen Congress starts its work for the year Tuesday, Democrats in Washington will begin working on two distinct types of legislation leading up to the crucial mid-term elections in 2010 -- the bills they want to do, and the bills they have to do. At the top of the list of to-do's that Democrats are eager to tackle are passing a final version of health care reform, along with a swift pivot to dealing with the economy, or as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refers to it, "Jobs, jobs, jobs." In addition to jobs and health care, a senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells Politics Daily ...
Domestic Surveillance in Doubt as Patriot Act Expiration Looms
By Patricia Murphy - Politics DailyThe House and Senate are working through a stack of must-do legislation before the end of the year, but neither has scheduled time to debate expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act. Without at least a temporary extension, three sunsetting portions of the law that grants domestic surveillance powers to law enforcement will expire on Dec. 31. The looming deadline coincides with a growing concern among law enforcement officials that homegrown terrorism is becoming a more dangerous and immediate threat. In addition to last month's shooting at Fort Hood, reports came this week that a Chicago ...
Massive To-Do List Grows As Senate Health Debate Stalls
By Patricia Murphy - Politics DailyPresident Obama has made health care reform his top legislative priority on Capitol Hill. But several time-sensitive and controversial measures are threatening to derail the Democrats' plans for health care by year's end unless the Senate can quickly pass reform legislation and attend to at least a dozen other looming bills within the next several weeks. From appropriations bills that must pass by Dec. 18 to contested portions of the USA Patriot Act, which expire on Dec. 31, to the estate tax, which will drop from 45 percent to zero on Jan. 1, the items remaining on the Senate's agenda would ...
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