The Patriot Act has been gradually transformed from a temporary antiterrorism measure to a permanent one.
Now that both the House of Representatives and the Senate have approved different versions of legislation to renew the controversial law, pressure is mounting for politicians to agree on a single bill that can be sent to President Bush without delay.
Those negotiations will resume in earnest when Congress returns after Labor Day from its August recess--though whatever the result, nearly all sections of the law are likely to be renewed indefinitely.
When Congress hurriedly drafted the original Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, politicians included a so-called sunset provision that said 16 sections would expire at the end of 2005.
Now almost all of those sections are about to become permanent. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved its version of the Patriot Act late Friday--which would affix 14 of the 16 sections permanently into law--and the House took a similar step two weeks ago. (The two sections that would be extended until late 2009 deal with roving wiretaps and police access to stored business records--also known as the "library provision.")
Making those temporary sections permanent has been a top priority of the Bush administration. "The terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of this year, and neither should the protections of the Patriot Act," President Bush said in a speech last month at the FBI's training academy in Quantico, Va.
Though civil libertarians have criticized the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, the American Civil Liberties Union did say the Senate version is more privacy-friendly than the House version because it includes more oversight of police surveillance.
It would, for instance, improve privacy protections for customers of Internet service providers, Web-based e-mail services and phone companies by permitting recipients of "national security letters" to challenge them in court. But the Bush administration has been skeptical of that additional oversight and could try to seek its removal during negotiations this autumn.
For the record, I did vote against Bush in the general election, and I have filed protests against this legislation through ACLU petitions and by contacting my representatives directly.
Google creates an animated doodle that features a boy, a girl, Google's search engine, and a jump rope. But might there be darker, more analytical, more troubling interpretations to this tale?
The Silicon Valley online payments startup grew by 1,000 percent last year and is hopeful it can repeat that level of growth this year. To do that, it's had to move away from its early friends-and-family roots and embrace small businesses.
Chamtech's spray-on antenna uses a nano material to provide a low-power boost to antenna range. The wireless-in-a-can product may some day bring an end to unsightly cell towers.
EnerG2 opens a plant to make an engineered carbon that will improve performance of energy storage devices and make storage for start-stop hybrid cars less expensive.
For the record, I did vote against Bush in the general election, and I have filed protests against this legislation through ACLU petitions and by contacting my representatives directly.
They know not what they do.