Congress puts brakes on anti-terror laws

Congress is resisting efforts to fast track anti-terror measure

By BBC News Online's Kevin Anderson in Washington

The US Congress is adopting a go-slow approach towards anti-terrorism legislation despite strong lobbying efforts by President George W Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Within days of the attacks in New York and Washington, Mr Ashcroft called for new laws to strengthen the hand of law enforcement including powers to conduct wiretaps, to search and seize evidence and to detain and deport immigrants with suspected links to terrorist organisations.

Civil liberties groups from the political spectrum denounced the efforts as hasty and overbroad.

But apart from some early calls from Congress to place limits on encryption, legislators appear unwilling to rush passage of an anti-terrorism bill.

The administration's push

The attorney general spent two days this week on Capitol Hill lobbying for passage of the bill.

Mr Ashcroft spent two days on lobbying Capitol Hill

"Terrorism is a clear and present danger to Americans today. ... The American people do not have the luxury of unlimited time in erecting the necessary defences," Mr Ashcroft said.

And President Bush threw his weight behind the effort for fast passage of the bill that would expand

"We're at war, a war we're going to win, and in order to win the war, we must make sure the law enforcement men and women have got the tools necessary within the Constitution to defeat the enemy," President Bush said this week.

But members of Congress signalled that fast passage is unlikely.

Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott said soon after the administration sent its draft bill to Congress that quick action was unlikely, and he reiterated his stance this week.

It is "important we go ahead and do something, (but) we may have to set aside a couple of things that we can't get worked out," he said on Tuesday.

Mr Lott said that the administration might have to accept a compromise bill or wait longer for some of the more contentious issues to be dealt with.

Early criticism

A broad coalition of 150 civil liberties groups first took issue with the administration's Mobilization Against Terrorism Act.

These actions offend the Constitution and are an affront to the millions of law-abiding immigrants in our country

Anthony D Romero, American Civil Liberties Union

"This proposal addresses issues that are well beyond the scope of fighting terrorism," said David Sobel of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre.

The American Civil Liberties Union said that the bill would be a "major expansion of government's power to detain and deport immigrants who he believes may engage in terrorist activity or who 'may endanger the national security.'"

The group fears that potential deportees would have no way to contest these decisions and that this response to an emergency would become a permanent part of US immigration law.

"These actions offend the Constitution and are an affront to the millions of law-abiding immigrants in our country as well as the millions of other citizens who are sons and daughters of immigrants," said Anthony D Romero, executive director of the ACLU.

Critics in Congress

But in addition to civil liberties groups, the Bush Administration has faced a number of critics in Congress.

The administration will most likely get expanded powers for telephone wiretaps

"Past experience has taught us that today's weapons against terrorism may be tomorrow's weapon against law-abiding Americans," said Representative John Conyers, a Democrat from the state of Michigan.

Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa questioned a section in the bill that would allow online surveillance for 48-hour periods without a judge's approval.

Law in the US allows police to gain a record of incoming and outgoing calls in certain situations, and the administration wants that ability expanded to the Internet, allowing the police to intercept e-mail sender and recipient information and a log of websites visited.

But Senator Grassley questioned if the government might get more information than addresses by grabbing e-mail headers, but Mr Ashcroft said that the administration's proposal still requires the government to get a court order to obtain the subject line of e-mail.

Early indications are that the administration would get broader powers to issue wiretap warrants in cases involving national security, and law enforcement will get the power to tap any phone used by a subject, whether it is a landline or a mobile phone.

Current law requires law enforcement officials to receive a separate warrant for each phone used by an individual under surveillance.

A draft compromise bill would also make it a crime to harbour terrorists and would lift the statue of limitations on prosecuting terrorist crimes.