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Keep law to fight terrorism, Bush says

The president continues his push to renew Patriot Act provisions set to expire.

McLEAN, Va. - President Bush campaigned on Friday against weakening the Patriot Act, saying Congress must renew parts of the counterterrorism law that are set to expire on behalf of those "on the front line" of the fight to avert new attacks.

"One of the most important tools to combat terror is the Patriot Act," Bush said in remarks at the National Counterterrorism Center outside Washington. "The Patriot Act has helped save American lives and it has protected American liberties. For the sake of our national security, the United States Congress needs to renew all the provisions of the Patriot Act and, this time, Congress needs to make those provisions permanent."

On his visit to the nation's new facility charged with pooling and analyzing information about terrorist threats, Bush also announced his selection of retired Vice Adm. John Scott Redd as its director. If confirmed by the Senate, Redd, 60, who recently held an operations post in Iraq and was executive director of the presidential commission on intelligence failures, would replace John O. Brennan, the center's interim chief.

Redd served 36 years in the Navy, commanding eight organizations at sea, from a destroyer to a fleet. He founded and commanded the Navy's 5th Fleet in the Middle East in 1995 and has held top policy posts at the Pentagon.

The center Bush visited was created as part of the wide-ranging overhaul of the nation's spy community, spurred by what critics called the government's failure to collect, understand and share critical information before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Computers that flash with sometimes classified information 24 hours a day were shut down for the president's tour. Workers, however, demonstrated for the president visual technology that allowed them, in seconds, to zoom in on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and Boston's Logan International Airport.

The Patriot Act, Congress' nearly immediate reaction to the attacks, allowed expanded surveillance of terror suspects, increased use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado and permitted secret proceedings in immigration cases.

Now, more than a dozen provisions are set to expire later this year. Congress has begun working on renewing them amid fresh criticism - from members of both parties - that the law undermines basic freedoms.

Responding to Bush's back-to-back speeches, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., accused the president of focusing on provisions that are not controversial, and ignoring those who want to fix parts of the act that "infringe on the freedoms of law-abiding Americans."

Separately, the president named members of an oversight board being created to make sure the government's counterterror investigations and arrests do not trample privacy rights and civil liberties.

[Last modified June 11, 2005, 00:26:12]