When Congress passed a temporary 60-day expansion of the PATRIOT Act last year, the hope of civil libertarians was that after the break some important reforms to the law's extensive surveillance powers could be made. Instead, the PATRIOT Act was extended last night by voice vote in the Senate.
That means the three provisions scheduled to sunset that civil libertarians most wanted to reform, including roving wiretaps, the 215 orders that the government can use to force a third party to hand over "any tangible thing" the government believes is relevant to a terrorism investigation, and the never used "Lone Wolf" provision, have all been renewed. The part of the statute that allows the use of the widely abused National Security Letters was also left untouched -- despite President Obama's campaign promise that there would be "no more national security letters to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation appeared relieved that the renewal of the three expiring provisions noted above only lasts a year, rather than four years, as Republicans wanted, meaning that there will be time to fight another day soon:
The one silver lining? Despite a push by Republican leaders for a four-year extension, the renewed provisions are now set to expire in one year. So, although this battle's been lost, the effort to roll back PATRIOT's worst excesses is far from over. Thank you to everyone who took action to support PATRIOT reform this past year; we hope that you'll continue the fight with us in the next year.
I'm not as optimistic about the chances for PATRIOT Act reform. With a flood of small government Republicans likely to get elected in 2010 on the promise of fighting government tyranny, it's going to be even harder to get the votes to do something about near-limitless government surveillance.
-- A. Serwer
