House Judiciary Committee Leaders Blast Senate Attempts at Two-Month Patriot Act Extension
Four House Judiciary Committee leaders jointly raised concerns Friday about attempts in the Senate to seek a two-month extension of the USA Patriot Act instead of focusing debate on the House-passed USA Freedom Act (HR-2048). The Senate was expected to…
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continue work into the weekend on its version of USA Freedom (S-1123) and the Patriot Act extension. USA Freedom “is a carefully crafted compromise that has been worked on for nearly two years and was passed overwhelmingly in the House,” said House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and other committee leaders in a statement. The other leaders who signed onto the statement were House Judiciary ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich., Terrorism Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and IP Subcommittee ranking member Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. USA Freedom “has been fully vetted and has won the backing of the intelligence community, civil liberties groups, private industry” and has the White House’s backing, the House Judiciary leaders said. “The Senate should immediately pass this bipartisan bill instead of hastily and irresponsibly trying to scramble something together in the eleventh hour. The short-term extensions and other proposals being discussed in the Senate don’t have the support to pass in the House of Representatives. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has already ruled the bulk collection program as unlawful and extending it any further is unacceptable.”