Title: Patriot Act Extension Signed By Obama | HuffPost
Headings: Patriot Act Extension Signed By Obama
Patriot Act Extension Signed By Obama
Former ACLU head discusses The Patriot Act
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Content: Congress sent the bill to the president with only hours to go on Thursday before the provisions expired at midnight. Votes taken in rapid succession in the Senate and House came after lawmakers rejected attempts to temper the law enforcement powers to ensure that individual liberties are not abused. The Senate voted 72-23 for the legislation to renew three terrorism-fighting authorities. The House passed the measure 250-153 on an evening vote. A short-term expiration would not have interrupted ongoing operations but would have barred the government from seeking warrants for new investigations. Congress bumped up against the deadline mainly because of the stubborn resistance from a single senator, Republican freshman Rand Paul of Kentucky, who saw the terrorist-hunting powers as an abuse of privacy rights. Paul held up the final vote for several days while he demanded a chance to change the bill to diminish the government’s ability to monitor individual actions. The measure would add four years to the legal life of roving wiretaps, authorized for a person rather than a communications line or device; court-ordered searches of business records; and surveillance of non-American “lone wolf” suspects without confirmed ties to terrorist groups.