Newsback - House-Senate Panel Reaches Agreement on Patriot Act

By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 - House and Senate negotiators reached agreement today on reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act, the sweeping anti-terrorism measure that granted the federal government new powers after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a Republican Senate leader said.

The accord was reached after arduous negotiations about two of the law's most controversial provisions: involving the government's access to library and business records and the use of roving wiretaps, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in announcing the deal.

Under the accord, those retooled provisions would be extended for four years, Mr. Specter said. The House had wanted them extended for 10 years. In negotiations, there was a move to extend them to seven years, but Mr. Specter said the four-year arrangement was much better, because a seven-year extension would have called for a new debate in a presidential election year.

Fourteen other, less controversial sections of the law will be extended permanently, assuming final passage of the agreement just announced. Mr. Specter said he was confident there were enough votes in the Senate to avoid a legislative stall, or filibuster, and enough votes to defeat a filibuster if one comes, even though vigorous opposition was voiced immediately after Mr. Specter announced the agreement.

"There's no doubt about the need for tools for law enforcement to fight terrorism, both domestically and internationally," Mr. Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican and a former prosecutor, said of the Patriot Act. "But equally clearly, there's been a need for refinement of the protection of civil liberties and civil rights." Mr. Specter said he was satisfied, mostly, with the balance reached in the agreement.

But the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, announced his opposition to the agreement.
New York Times