US House endorses Patriot Act

Critics had said Congress should more thoroughly review and amend a law that they contended was passed in haste and could allow government abuses of privacy and civil liberties.

The bill passed on a largely partisan vote of 257-171 after the Republican-controlled House—over Democrat objections — limited debate to less than half the proposed amendments.

In both the House and the Senate, which will take up its version of the legislation soon, the Republican majorities seem to be moving toward something less than the blanket reauthorisation of the Patriot Act that President Bush has publicly urged.

Bush alluded to that possibility in a statement late on Thursday acknowledging the House vote. ‘‘Congress needs to send me a bill soon that renews the (Patriot) Act without weakening our ability to fight terror,’’ he said.

Bush has urged Congress to make permanent all 16 provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of this year. The House measure comes close, making 14 of the provisions permanent.

But it would limit renewal of two of the more controversial sections to 10 years. One permits phone wiretaps to apply to any telephone a suspect uses, including cell phones, and not just a specific telephone number.

The other allows the government to go to a secret court for permission to search a broad array of personal records, including library and medical records.

Civil libertarians oppose the Patriot Act as an unwarranted augmentation of the federal government’s power to mount secret surveillance of suspects and seize records without immediate court review.

Meanwhile, the Bush government yesterday absolved Pakistan for any responsibility for the renewed London bombings, saying the country was a “great ally” in the war on terrorism. “Pakistan is a great ally in the war on terrorism. And Pakistan recognises the threat from terrorists,” White House press secretary Scott Mcclellan told reporters yesterday. “We are working very closely with Pakistan in the global war on terrorism and to go after members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.”

—LAT-WP

Veto threat over monitoring of detainees

WASHINGTON: The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate Bill for $442 billion in next year’s defence programmes if it moves to regulate the Pentagon’s treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere. The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, gave notice to lawmakers that it did not want them legislating on the matter. In a statement, the White House said such amendments would ”interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war”.

Meanwhile, the US is expanding its preliminary missile defense system to address potential threats from the Middle East and China, and from ship-borne missiles off America’s coast, the chief of the Pentagon’s programme said on Thursday. — Agencies