Question:
Bush Signs Patriot Act Extension at Ranch
By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 42 minutes ago
CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush, unhappy with Congress for not permanently extending the Patriot Act, on Friday signed a bill that renews the anti-terrorism law for a few weeks and pushes lawmakers to take up the debate over its measures.
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The president signed about a dozen other bills, including one funding government agencies and a defense measure that funnels extra money to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Gulf Coast.
Bush is spending the week between Christmas and New Year's Day at his Texas ranch. He plans to return to Washington on Sunday after visiting wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Bush is urging lawmakers to extend permanently parts of the Patriot Act set to expire.
Suffice it to say, our law enforcement community needs this, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said. He's not satisfied with a one-month extension. But we've got to get that in place and we've got to work with them to get it permanently re-extended.
The Patriot Act extension keeps anti-terrorism laws that were due to expire Dec. 31 in place until Feb. 3. The one-month extension means lawmakers must debate again in January the merits of government anti-terrorism powers that some critics fault for not protecting Americans' civil liberties.
The extension allows the FBI to continue to investigate terrorism cases using powers granted in 2001, including roving wiretaps and the authority to intercept wire, spoken and electronic communications relating to terrorism.
Bush and GOP leaders pushed hard for a permanent extension of the expiring provisions but could not overcome a Senate filibuster.
The appropriations bill provides funds for the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. A provision would help ice dancer Tanith Belbin gain American citizenship in time to represent the United States in the Turin Olympics.
If eligible, Belbin and partner Ben Agosto are considered America's best hope for figure skating gold in Turin. A medal of any color would be the country's first in ice dancing since 1976.
The defense bill Bush signed keeps the Pentagon running, provides $50 billion more to military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, and gives $29 billion in hurricane aid to the Gulf Coast. The Gulf Coast aid includes $11.5 billion for community grants to spur economic development, along with money for schools and to start shoring up New Orleans' levees.
The bill provides $3.8 billion to prepare for a possible outbreak of bird flu and liability protections for flu drug manufacturers.
The defense measure also requires the humane treatment of foreign terrorism suspects. The Bush administration initially threatened to veto any bill limiting how the United States detains, interrogates or prosecutes terror suspects, but then reluctantly endorsed the legislation amid pressure from the Republican-controlled Congress and U.S. allies.
The chief sponsor, Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz., had the votes in both the House and Senate to override a veto despite early lobbying against the ban by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The detention and interrogation of captured terrorists are critical tools in the war on terror, Bush said in a statement released by the White House Friday night in Crawford.
U.S. law and policy already prohibit torture, he said. Our policy has also been not to use cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, at home or abroad. This legislation now makes that a matter of statute for practices abroad.
In addition, the measure takes aim at a 2004 Supreme Court ruling that gave Guantanamo detainees the right to fight the legality of their detentions in any federal court. The bill limits their ability to appeal their detention status and punishments to a federal appeals court in Washington.
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Bush.... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)
Answer:
Bush Pushes for Patriot Act Renewal By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 14 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - As the clock runs on Congress' short-term extension of the Patriot Act, President Bush met with federal prosecutors Tuesday and contended that the domestic anti-terror law is vital to keeping Americans safe.
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Many key provisions of the law were to expire Dec. 31. Amid a debate over whether the act sufficiently protects civil liberties, most Senate Democrats and a few Republicans united against legislation that would have renewed several provisions permanently while extending others for four years.
In a move the White House adamantly opposed but later accepted, Congress approved a one-month extension of the law in its current form to allow the debate to continue. The new measure expires Feb. 3.
Bush, his voice rising in apparent irritation, said lawmakers must act on a permanent renewal of the law that expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers. Noting the Patriot Act was overwhelmingly approved not long after the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he said political considerations now were getting in the way.
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, said the president, sitting at a table in the Roosevelt Room with federal officials and 19 district attorneys from around the country.
The enemy has not gone away. They're still there. And I expect Congress to understand that we're still at war, and they got to give us the tools necessary to win this war, he said.
Later, outside the West Wing, district attorneys cited several cases in which the Patriot Act had played a crucial role, from staging an undercover sting on California weapons dealers attempting to sell Stinger missiles to securing convictions of major terrorist financiers in New York.
We use it each and every day to protect our country against terrorists and criminals, said Ken Wainstein, district attorney for the District of Columbia.
We believe this provides adequate safeguards in every respect, said Mary Beth Buchanan, the district attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., said Bush should spend more time negotiating about the Patriot Act with Democrats and others on Capitol Hill and less on staged meetings with hand-picked participants at the White House.
Contrary to the president's misleading comments, nobody wants to see the Patriot Act expire, Feingold said. We want commonsense changes to the act that would give the government the power to combat terrorism while protecting the rights and freedoms of law-abiding citizens.
The White House event drew 19 of the country's 93 U.S. attorneys. They were contacted by officials at the Justice Department to attend, Wainstein said.
Among the provisions the renewal would make permanent are those that allow roving wiretaps so that investigators can listen in on any telephone and tap any computer they think a terrorist might use.
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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Answer:
lets hope it gets defeated. Want to stop terrorism? please, why not focus on the root of the problem rather than just limiting to attacks themselves.
Answer:
u cant defeat terrorism
kill a terrorist....u create at least 1 more
they are people too....that person's family will want revenge on whoever killed them
so stop trying to end terrorism....u are jsut creating more terrorists
