The Patriot Act will be expanded, not rolled back, it seems.
Forget scaling back the Patriot Act.
Instead, the controversial post-9/11 law would be expanded to give the FBI new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, according to a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee.
The final text of the Senate Intelligence committee's amendments was not immediately available (here's a draft dated last month), and reporters were barred from the secret session during which the vote was held.
But the proposal appears to grant the FBI more power to seek information from banks, hospitals, libraries, and so on through "administrative subpoenas" without prior judicial oversight. The subpoenas are only supposed to be used for terrorism or clandestine intelligence cases.
One other detail: the FBI may designate that the subpoenas are secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison (and five years if the disclosure is deemed to "obstruct an investigation.")
On a tangental note, I'm reading the book edition of Riverbend's Baghdad Burning blog. President Bush must be so proud.
(Here's an interview with Riverbend herself that I just
found out about)
