Litigation

House Votes to Extend Patriot Act Provisions

By Peter Hardin

The House of Representatives has passed 315 to 97 a bill to extend for a year key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the nation’s main counterterrorism law, the Associated Press reported. The bill, already approved  by the Senate, goes to President Obama for his signature.

As mentioned earlier this week in Gavel Grab, Senate Democrats retreated on new privacy protections when they could not muster enough votes to advance them.

The bill would renew the government’s authority to spy on a “lone wolf,” a non-U.S. citizen suspected of terrorism who may not belong to a known terrorist group; and it would extend provisions for roving wiretap court orders and for court orders to seize “any tangible things” judged relevant to a terrorism probe. You can read about controversy over the legislation in Gavel Grab.

Full post as published by The Gavel on February 26, 2010 (boomark / email).