House Revolts Over Patriot Act

Posted on June 15, 2005

The House of Representatives voted to limit the Patriot Act, in defiance of President Bush. Bush has aggressively pushed making the Patriot Act even more intrusive into Americans' lives, and lately conservatives have been waking up to the fact that the Patriot Act is as far from the ideal of "less government intrusion into citizens' lives" as you can get.

In a slap at President Bush, lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips. The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.
The vote reversed a narrow loss last year by lawmakers concerned about the potential invasion of privacy of innocent library users. They narrowed the proposal this year to permit the government to continue to seek out records of Internet use at libraries. The vote came as the House debated a $57.5 billion bill covering the departments of Commerce, Justice and State. The Senate has yet to act on the measure, and GOP leaders often drop provisions offensive to Bush during final negotiations.
"This is a tremendous victory that restores important constitutional rights to the American people," said Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., the sponsor of the measure. He said the vote would help "rein in an administration intent on chipping away at the very civil liberties that define us as a nation." Congress is preparing to extend the Patriot Act, which was passed quickly in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Then, Congress included a sunset provision under which 15 of the law's provisions are to expire at the end of this year.

The only part of the Patriot Act that the House voted to get rid of is the sections regarding the government's ability to snoop into library and book sales records. But the fact that the Republican-controlled House passed the provision against the wishes of the White House is significant. Still, they did leave in all the provisions about letting the FBI write its own search warrants without consulting a judge and the ability to search your house without your knowledge, so that must be a relief for Bush's inner circle.