Bush Signs Anti-Terror Bill

by James Rosen et al.
Fox News
October 26, 2001

WASHINGTON - President Bush signed the new anti-terrorism bill into law Friday, granting law enforcement sweeping new investigative powers to pursue terrorists.

Flanked by Vice President Dick Cheney, Bush welcomed the law - dubbed the PATRIOT Act - in a White House East Room ceremony, where he thanked his cabinet members, law enforcement agents, and congressional leaders who ushered the bill through Congress.

Acknowledging that the law, targeted at the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 hijackings and recent anthrax attacks, had raised civil liberty concerns, the president told observers that the law will fight terror on the home front while still affording Americans their civil rights.

"Today, we take an essential step in defeating terrorism while protecting the constitutional rights of all Americans," he said.

Bush said the new law will help "counter a threat like no other our nation has ever faced."

"This government will enforce this law with all the urgency of a nation at war," he said.

He also thanked postal workers for continuing to go to work in the face of anthrax poisonings that have killed two and threatened nine other postal workers. Mail facilities in Washington, Virginia, New Jersey and New York have all been struck with anthrax exposures.

"Our country is grateful for the courage the postal service has shown during these difficult times," Bush said, naming the two workers who died.

The ceremony comes more than six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and less than a day after the Senate passed the legislation on a 98-1 vote.

And from the president's point of view, not a moment too soon.

"These terrorists must be pursued, they must be defeated and they must be brought to justice and that is the purpose of this legislation," Bush said.

The terror bill has many provisions to help law enforcement track down and detain suspected terrorists. Among the provisions, the bill will:

- enhance intelligence sharing between federal agencies and local and state law enforcement, and make available grand jury evidence from foreign intelligence services

- increase to seven days the amount of time a foreign suspect can detained before deportation procedures or release

- expand roving wiretap authority to allow investigators to target all phones used by a suspect rather than just one phone line, and

- create broader penalties for bioterrorism crimes.

Legislators also added a sunset provision to phase out the laws in four years.

President Bush said the laws will update previous measures that were written before technology used by the terrorists even existed.

"Existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. This new law that I sign today will allow surveillance of all communicatiosn used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet and cell phones. As of today, we will be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology," he said.

Emboldened by such new tools, Attorney General John Ashcroft vowed to exploit them to the fullest.

"If you overstay your visa by even one day, we will arrest you. If you violate a local law, we will work to make sure you are put in jail and kept in custody. We will use every available statute. We will seek every prosecutorial advantage. We will use all our weapons within the law and under the Constitution to protect life and enhance security for America," Ashcroft told the U.S. Conference of Mayors Thursday.

One senator, along with a handful of civil libertarians and privacy advocates, said he was unhappy with the final product.

"This bill does not strike the right balance between empowering law enforcement and protecting civil liberties," said Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.

Sponsors of the bill said they added provisions to ensure that Americans were not subjected to baseless investigations. Those provisions included a four-year expiration date on the wiretapping and electronic surveillance portion, a requirement that authorities get court permission before snooping into suspects' formerly private educational records and court oversight over the FBI's use of a powerful e-mail wiretap system.

The House passed the bill Wednesday 357-66.

Copyright © 2001 Standard & Poor's

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