Leahy Criticized For Patriot Act Revisions

(Host) Senator Bernie Sanders and the Vermont Library Association say they're disappointed with some revisions to the Patriot Act that have been supported by Senator Patrick Leahy.

They say the new bill lacks strong civil liberties protections but Leahy says it's a lot better than current law.

VPR's Bob Kinzel reports.

(Kinzel) The Senate Judiciary Committee is reviewing this issue because several provisions of the Patriot Act sunset at the end of this year.

That's the law that passed after the terrorist attacks of 2001 that gave the federal government new intelligence-gathering powers.

Leahy's initial bill was endorsed by the Vermont Library Association because the group felt it prevented the federal government from seeking library or Internet records of their patrons without probable cause.

The controversy started when Leahy offered a second version of the bill that didn't include all of the protections of his first plan.  He says he did this because the stronger provisions received very little support in his committee. When the changes were adopted, the Vermont Library Association said it was very disappointed with several elements of this revised approach.

 

Senator Sanders says he doesn't care for the changes either:

(Sanders) "I'm not happy with the language as it currently stands."

(Kinzel) Sanders says it's possible to fight terrorists and protect civil liberties.

(Sanders) "I would also hope that everybody in this country respects the Constitution of this nation and that you don't go on fishing expeditions and tapping people's phones or securing the books that they're reading or going into the websites that they are looking at without evidence that you have reason to believe that they are involved in terrorist activities. That's what the issue is."

(Kinzel) Trina Magi is the research librarian at UVM and has been actively involved with this issue.

(Magi) "We've been really hoping for significant change to the law and we're hoping especially now that we have a majority in Congress and a Democratic president that we would see change and we're not and that's very disappointing."

(Kinzel) Gail Weymouth is the head of the librarians' committee on privacy issues. She says the bill only protects circulation records from broad government searches.

(Weymouth) "That does not cover what people do in the library for so many people. We use electronic databases all the time that are searching. Those do not fall under the higher protection. So it's disappointing. We're very disappointed with the outcome."

(Kinzel) Leahy is defending the revised bill. He says there was virtually no support for his initial proposal and that some members of his committee think the revised bill offers too many protections.

(Leahy) "The provisions that they like the most, depending upon where they were offered, got between 2 and 4 votes. We passed a bill out. It was very close as it was. It was 11 to 8."

(Kinzel) And Leahy says it's important to remember that his revised bill offers more protections than current law.

(Leahy)

"The alternative that we could not have would have been the stalling tactics we've seen from the Republicans. And eventually they would have ended up removing any protections for libraries. ... I think what the librarians and others ought to be doing is praising what we have because it's a lot better than what we had before."

(Kinzel) The Vermont Library Association says it hopes that the legislation will be amended with stronger protections when it comes to the Senate floor for a vote in several weeks.

For VPR News, I'm Bob Kinzel in Montpelier