Bush Renews Patriot Act Campaign

Bush Renews Patriot Act Campaign
By ELISABETH BUMILLER / NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/politics/04bush.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 - President Bush assembled a phalanx of United States attorneys at the White House on Tuesday to bolster his call for Congress to renew the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, intensifying a coming clash with Capitol Hill over civil liberties and national security.

Surrounded in the Roosevelt Room by 19 federal prosecutors, Mr. Bush said Congress was holding up renewal of the law because of politics.

"When it came time to renew the act, for partisan reasons, in my mind, people have not stepped up and have agreed that it's still necessary to protect the country," Mr. Bush said. "The enemy has not gone away - they're still there. And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war and they've got to give us the tools necessary to win this war."

The president's remarks and an appearance by the United States attorneys in the West Wing driveway afterward were part of a stepped-up White House campaign to make permanent the antiterrorism law, which expanded the government's investigative powers after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

The measure was originally passed with bipartisan support, but with time limits built in because many lawmakers were nervous about its broad reach in the wake of criticism that the legislation impinged on civil liberties. Last month, with major provisions of the law set to expire on Dec. 31, the White House made a strong push to make the law permanent, but Democrats and a handful of Republicans balked, and extended the law for only five weeks, to Feb. 3.

The White House efforts were further complicated by a simultaneous uproar in Congress last month over revelations that Mr. Bush authorized a secret spying program to monitor international phone calls and international e-mail messages of people in the United States.

The United States attorneys, all Bush appointees summoned to Washington by the Justice Department, echoed Mr. Bush when they appeared en masse in front of television cameras moments later.

Rosalynn Mauskopf, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, was among those who stepped up to the microphones and said the law had made it easier for the Eastern District "to choke off the supply of money to terrorists."

Specifically, Ms. Mauskopf said prosecutors had used the law, which broadens federal powers to demand financial records, to convict the spiritual adviser to Osama bin Laden, Sheik Muhammad Ali Hassan al-Mouyad, as well as Sheik Mouyad's assistant, for funneling millions of dollars to Al Qaeda and the militant group Hamas.

Administration and Congressional officials said they expected a compromise on the renewal bill in coming weeks between the White House and members of both parties. In mid-December, the House did pass a measure to make 14 of 16 expiring provisions in the act permanent, but that bill became bottled up in the Senate, eventually leading Congress to enact only a five-week extension.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who said he voted to block permanent renewal of the act in part because of the revelations about the spying program, said Tuesday that there was room for a deal.

"Look," Mr. Schumer said, "this is one that should be able to be worked out because the sides are relatively close."

One main sticking point is a provision that gives the federal government the power to demand access to library records on what patrons have borrowed and other information material showing their reading habits. The provision was challenged in a lawsuit in Connecticut by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The other main sticking point is an administrative subpoena, called a national security letter, that gives the federal government the power to demand records without a judge's approval.

Among the other United States attorneys called to the White House on Tuesday were Mike Garcia of the Southern District of New York, Carol Lam of the Southern District of California and Paul McNulty of the Eastern District of Virginia, who is also acting deputy attorney general.