Patriot Act on Path to Renewal

WASHINGTON —  House and Senate negotiators agreed Thursday on extending key parts of the USA Patriot Act, despite complaints that the provisions in the anti-terrorism law infringe on the civil liberties of U.S. citizens.

A small group of senators from both parties vowed to try to block the agreement, which could go to Congress for a vote as early as next week. But to succeed, they must overcome support for the compromise forged by GOP congressional leaders and the White House.

The Bush administration views the law, passed overwhelmingly after the Sept. 11 attacks, as a vital tool in thwarting similar terrorist plots. Its critics charge that the act gives the government too much power to pry into the private lives of Americans and that it needs extensive rewriting.

Thursday’s agreement would make permanent 14 of the act’s 16 provisions, which are due to expire Dec. 31. The remaining two -- which sparked the most contention -- would be extended for at least four years.

One of those two provisions, the so-called library measure, gives the FBI broad leeway in obtaining financial, health and personal information, including the titles of library books people have checked out. The other authorizes roving wiretaps, allowing law enforcement officials to secretly tap any phone line used by a suspected terrorist.

Under Thursday’s agreement, the government’s use of these two measures would face new curbs. For instance, the government would have to explain in more detail why it wanted to use a roving wiretap.

The House had voted to continue the two disputed provisions for 10 years; senators, citing the concerns about possible government abuse, backed the four-year extension.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said that although negotiations had been difficult, he expected the House and Senate to pass a final version of the bill next week.

He also said the compromise improved the original Patriot Act. “All factors considered, it’s reasonably good -- not perfect, but it’s acceptable,” he said.

But three senators from each party who were not part of the negotiations quickly expressed their opposition, including Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.). He vowed to do “everything I can, including a filibuster, to stop this” agreement from becoming law.

The senators will be able to defeat the accord if they muster 41 votes to block a motion ending debate on it.

The other five senators leading opposition to the agreement are Republicans Larry E. Craig of Idaho, John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Democrats Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Ken Salazar of Colorado.

A statement issued by Feingold and his five colleagues said, “By insisting that modest protections for civil liberties be excluded from the conference report,” the negotiators “bear responsibility for any possibility that some provisions of the Patriot Act could expire this year.”

The 14 provisions that would become permanent under the compromise have, for the most part, been less controversial.

One eases restrictions on intelligence agents and criminal prosecutors so they can share information in terrorism cases. Another permits officials to obtain from a single federal judge the authority to conduct nationwide searches. The government says that provision has been crucial in speeding up terrorism-related investigations, in which time can be of the essence.

The agreement includes changes to the current Patriot Act.

For example, it would allow any person or entity served with a “national security letter” -- which the FBI uses to force businesses to turn over financial and communications data on customers without a court order or grand jury subpoena -- to consult a lawyer. Currently, people who receive a national security letter are not permitted to tell anyone.

It also would require that the standards for federal monitoring of suspected “lone wolf” terrorists -- those not working on behalf of a foreign agent or power -- expire in four years so Congress can review them.

The legislative agreement came after intensive lobbying by Vice President Dick Cheney and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card.

The administration had pushed to make permanent all of the law’s expiring provisions. But White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan welcomed the compromise.

The Patriot Act, he said, “helps investigators and authorities dismantle terrorist cells, disrupt terrorist plots and capture terrorists before they strike.... It has also allowed investigators to pursue terrorists with the same kind of tools they already use against white-collar and organized crime.”

Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales issued a statement urging “both houses of Congress to act promptly to pass this critical piece of legislation.”

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and one of those negotiating the compromise, refused to sign the agreement. He said he believed it would fail to protect the rights of “innocent Americans.”

Leahy declined to say whether he would support a filibuster. But he warned that if the bill passed without strong bipartisan support, “the American people will lose confidence in the very law enforcement officials who are there to protect every single one of us.”

He also said that if the reauthorization of the act was defeated in the Senate, he would prod Congress to extend the deadline on the expiring provisions for three months, in the hopes of continuing the negotiations.

The House is expected to vote on the compromise Tuesday. The Senate vote could come as early as Thursday.

The Patriot Act was passed in the weeks after terrorists used commercial airplanes to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon more than four years ago, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Many of its provisions were designed to tear down communication barriers that had existed between criminal law enforcement agencies and the nation’s intelligence agencies -- problems believed to have hampered the discovery of Al Qaeda cells in the United States.

Caroline Frederickson, director of the legislative office for the American Civil Liberties Union in Washington, denounced the compromise as a “sham.”

Frederickson said the agreement would “continue to permit the FBI to access a huge array of extremely private records of innocent Americans without having to demonstrate a connection between the records sought and a suspected foreign terrorist or terrorist organization.”

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Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt contributed to this report.