Return-Path: <sentto-279987-2572-1001999041-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.1.0) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Mon, 01 Oct 2001 22:05:12 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 13712 invoked by uid 510); 2 Oct 2001 05:04:09 -0000 Received: from n1.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.51) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 2 Oct 2001 05:04:09 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-2572-1001999041-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.222] by n1.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 02 Oct 2001 05:04:01 -0000 X-Sender: fc@big.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 2 Oct 2001 05:04:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 16955 invoked from network); 2 Oct 2001 05:04:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.222 with QMQP; 2 Oct 2001 05:04:00 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO big.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta1 with SMTP; 2 Oct 2001 05:04:00 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by big.all.net (8.9.3/8.7.3) id WAA31535 for iwar@onelist.com; Mon, 1 Oct 2001 22:04:00 -0700 Message-Id: <200110020504.WAA31535@big.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL1] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 22:04:00 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Lawmakers.Put.Brakes.On.Expanded.E-surveillance] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawmakers Put Brakes On Expanded E-surveillance By John Lancaster, Washington Post, 10/1/2001 <a href="http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170665.html">http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170665.html> In the days after Sept. 11, the Bush administration scrambled to write a tough new anti-terrorism bill, with the public squarely on its side. Polls showed that Americans overwhelmingly favor stronger police powers, even at the expense of personal freedom. But Congress is gently applying the brakes. Since its introduction a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the administration's anti-terrorism package has run into strong bipartisan resistance, reflecting broad concern about its implications for the Constitution as well as lawmakers' desire to protect their role as a check on executive branch power. Many lawmakers fear that the bill grants too much clout to police agencies, particularly in the realm of electronic surveillance. They are wary of lowering barriers to the sharing of information among law enforcement and intelligence services. They object to a provision that would permit the indefinite jailing - without trial - of noncitizens suspected of ties to terrorist groups. "My constituents certainly want to give government the tools that it needs, but they are not willing to give government all the power that it wants," said Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr., a former federal prosecutor and a conservative Republican, in a telephone interview from his Georgia district. "They've seen these same provisions on government wish lists several times in the past." Lawmakers emphasize that they are eager to pass anti-terrorism legislation - possibly within the next two weeks - and that they have no quarrel with many aspects of the Bush proposal. They say they share the administration's view that law officers chasing terrorists should have the same powers that apply to cases involving drug trafficking and other crimes - something that is not always true under current law. They agree that surveillance laws need to be updated to take account of technologies such as e-mail. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, last week called the administration bill "a measured and cautious response" that fits "well within the bounds of the Constitution." Nevertheless, the precise language of the bill has been the focus of intense behind-the-scenes wrangling between congressional staff and legal experts from the Justice Department and the White House. On Wednesday, according to a Senate source, "things were in danger of coming off track" after Justice Department officials and aides to Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) hit an impasse in their negotiations. Leahy and Attorney General John D. Ashcroft were able to break the logjam during a phone conversation Wednesday night. Congress was more accommodating in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, when it granted administration requests for emergency funds and a resolution authorizing military action with hardly a whisper of dissent. But lawmakers say the anti-terrorism bill falls into a different category. "This is about how do we equip our anti-espionage, counterterrorism agencies with the tools they want while we still preserve the most fundamental thing, which is the civil liberties of the American people," House Majority Leader Richard K. Armey (R-Tex.) told reporters last week. "There are a lot of members that are acutely aware of the fact that the agencies don't always exercise due diligence in the way they handle information that is at their disposal." History is also weighing on Congress. As more than one lawmaker has remarked in recent days, Americans have sometimes lived to regret the sacrifice of civil liberties - such as the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II - in the name of national security. "It's sort of a reminder that you can do the wrong things for seemingly all the right reasons," said Donald A. Ritchie, the associate Senate historian. "Lincoln said that in times of crisis, the Constitution doesn't have to be broken, but it can be stretched. In that sense, they're looking for some balance to make sure everything they do is appropriate." In stressing the need for haste, Ashcroft has repeatedly warned of "the clear and present danger" of further terrorist attacks; he initially asked Congress to pass the legislation in three days. It quickly became evident, however, that lawmakers had no intention of keeping that schedule. Last Monday, for example, Ashcroft appeared before the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), had scheduled a vote on the measure for the following morning. But Sensenbrenner agreed to postpone the vote until this week after colleagues on the panel rebelled, saying they needed more time to study the bill. In the Senate, Leahy has expressed sympathy with Ashcroft's desire for quick action, but he also made clear his desire for significant modifications. "We've made some progress," Leahy said at a hearing Tuesday. "I think we can make more." Leahy's staff is working with the White House and the Justice Department on a compromise version of the bill; a separate effort is underway in the House. Congress has welcomed many parts of the administration bill, including proposals to block financial transactions among terrorist groups, beef up border patrols and stiffen penalties for terrorists. Lawmakers also are sympathetic to a provision that would permit the use of "roving wiretaps" - which cover all forms of electronic communication as distinct from single phone lines - in terrorism investigations; such wiretaps are now limited to criminal probes. But other elements of the bill have given lawmakers pause. Some proposals, for example, would expand law enforcement access to Internet communications - a step that Armey and others say could violate the privacy of innocent Web users if it is not carefully designed. Another would make it easier for law enforcement agencies to share material, including grand jury testimony, with intelligence services - potentially opening the door to abuses such as "the savage campaign of defamation waged by J. Edgar Hoover as head of the FBI against Dr. Martin Luther King," Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), said at the hearing last Monday. In a similar vein, Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), the ranking Democrat on the House panel, said "we are deeply troubled" by a provision that would allow prosecutors to introduce evidence in federal court that had been obtained overseas by illegal wiretaps. "Permitting information for illegal wiretaps performed abroad against United States citizens to be used in the federal courts as the administration proposes is - well, some have said it's unconstitutional on its face," Conyers said. On both the sharing of investigative materials and the illegal wiretaps, Leahy has made counterproposals aimed at accommodating the administration's goals in a manner that limits the potential for abuse, according to a committee aide. "In most cases it just boils down to there being sufficient checks on these new authorities," the aide said. Perhaps the most contentious proposal would permit the jailing of any noncitizen who the attorney general "has reason to believe may further or facilitate acts of terrorism." At Tuesday's hearing, Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who chairs the panel's immigration subcommittee, criticized the detention standard as unacceptably vague. Ashcroft defended the provision, saying it would apply only to noncitizens already subject to deportation proceedings. Persons undergoing such proceedings are permitted an opportunity to contest their detention before a judge. But a Senate aide disputed that interpretation. "There is nothing explicitly stating that [a detainee] would have immigration violation charges brought against him," the aide said. As a result, the aide said, someone suspected of involvement in terrorism - but not convicted of a crime - could be held indefinitely at the discretion of the attorney general or other Justice Department officials. Ashcroft promised the Senate panel that he would revisit the matter. By the following day, Justice Department officials had rewritten the detention standard, changing "reason to believe" to "reasonable grounds to believe." The subtle modification was supposed to satisfy lawmakers' desire for a higher threshold of evidence. But Democratic staff on the Judiciary Committee were still not satisfied with the changes. They planned to continue negotiations over the weekend. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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