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Deal reached on antiterrorism bill
©New York Times, WASHINGTON -- Democratic and Republican negotiators in the House reached agreement Monday on an antiterrorism bill that would give law enforcement officials expanded authority to wiretap suspected terrorists, share intelligence information about them and seize their assets. But the compromise bill also makes the wiretap authority temporary and omits or scales back some of the measures the Bush administration sought, notably the authority to detain immigrants suspected of involvement in terrorist activities for an indefinite period without being charged. The administration had been pressing for far more extensive changes in the law and had hoped its proposals would move quickly through Congress with little debate following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The proposal for indefinite detention of immigrant suspects engendered the greatest opposition from civil libertarians inside and outside of Congress. Under the plan agreed to Monday evening by Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Rep. John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, the committee's ranking Democrat, the government could detain an immigrant suspected of terrorism for a maximum of seven days without bringing charges. The two members of Congress and their staffs had worked over the past several days to forge a compromise after several committee members, Democrats and Republicans, complained that the administration's legislative package expanded the government's powers at the expense of long-established civil liberties. Senior congressional aides said Monday that the expiration feature was crucial in forging a bipartisan consensus. One aide said it was easier for some members to accept potential infringements on civil liberties if they were temporary. Further complicating the administration's hope to quickly enact a broad-reaching set of changes in criminal law, the Senate is moving along a separate track to fashion its own antiterrorism legislation, and that bill is not expected to be ready for a floor vote for at least two weeks. At the same time Congress is deliberating changes in the antiterrorism laws, its members are moving swiftly to enact other changes in response to the attacks. Support is building for proposals to put military personnel on border patrol, to triple the number of agents on the Canadian border, to drastically limit student visas and to spend emergency funds on other moves to tighten immigration rules and procedures. Under the antiterrorism bill that will be formally introduced in the House today and could be voted on as early as next week, a foreign national could be detained for up to seven days before being charged on "reasonable grounds" of being suspected of involvement with terrorism. The person could then seek a review of that determination in the federal trial court in Washington. The administration had sought the ability to detain people on a lesser threshold of having "reason to believe" the person was involved in terrorism, a designation that was not designed to be reviewed by a court. The bill would also require that only the attorney general or the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service could deem an individual a suspected terrorist in order to detain that person. The bill would allow officials to obtain authority to wiretap an individual suspected of terrorism, not just a specific telephone as they must do now. Law enforcement officials have complained that the laws are antiquated because they do not allow for terrorists using cell phones. The bill also would put e-mail communications on a level with telephone communications. It would allow authorities to use an easily obtainable subpoena to force Internet service providers to turn over a suspect's e-mail records, including to whom and when messages were sent.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
