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Los Angeles Times – January 29, 2004
Ashcroft: Bush would veto bill scaling back Patriot Act
CURT ANDERSON
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration intensified its defense of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act on Thursday (1/29), threatening to veto legislation in Congress that would scale back key provisions.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, in a letter to Senate leaders, said the changes proposed in the Security and Freedom Ensured Act, known as SAFE, would "undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic attacks."
Ashcroft told reporters that President Bush would veto the bill if it reached his desk.
The threat came a week after Bush, in his State of the Union address, urged Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act before it expires in 2005. A few months earlier, Ashcroft embarked on a 32-city speaking tour in a bid to answer critics who contend the law threatens civil liberties and privacy rights.
Ashcroft said the political offensive "reflects the stakes America has in the war on terror. When American lives are at stake, we need to have all the capacities to disrupt and to defeat terrorism that we've been successfully using over the last 28 months."
The Patriot Act, passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, expanded the government's wiretap and other surveillance authority, removed barriers between FBI and CIA information-sharing, and provided more tools for terror finance investigations.
Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union and a staunch critic of the new law, said the veto threat shows that the Bush administration is on the defensive. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a key portion of the law, and 241 state and local governments also have gone on record opposing it. "The attorney general's attack on the SAFE Act shows how out of step the Bush administration is with growing national concern over the Patriot Act," Romero said.
Earlier this month in Los Angeles, a federal judge issued the first court ruling striking down a portion of the law. U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins ruled that provisions barring "expert advice or assistance" to groups designated foreign terrorist organizations was too vague, threatening First and Fifth Amendment rights.
The SAFE Act, which has not yet had a hearing in either the House or Senate, was introduced last fall by Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho; Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; and other lawmakers of both parties who say the Patriot Act
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