Last Chance To Support Patriot Reform--Call Congress Now & Support Senate Fixes

On Wednesday, by unanimous voice vote, the House approved a ‘motion to instruct’ House conferees to support the four-year sunsets in the Senate bill to reauthorize the USA PATRIOT Act (S. 1389) rather than the ten-year sunsets in the House bill (H.R. 3199).

Thank you to everyone who made calls to support the motion. After the House vote yesterday, the House officially announced its conferees, who will meet with Senate conferees today at 1:30 p.m. to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate reauthorization bills and decide which portions of each bill will become law. The “conference report” reconciling the bills is expected to be completed next Monday, with House and Senate votes expected soon after that.

This is a critical time to ensure that the extensive powers granted by the original Act are not expanded and that new controls are placed on its misuse. Please contact your senators and representative right away, whether or not they are conferees. Conferees’ phone and fax numbers are listed below. Look up numbers for other Congresspersons at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Time is short: please call your representative and senators now. Ask them to urge the conference members to preserve the reforms in the Senate Bill. Visit our web site, www.bordc.org, for updates.

Sample talking points:

Concerned Americans in your district, and throughout the country, are outraged about post-9/11 civil liberties abuses and have been calling for changes to the PATRIOT Act and other anti-terrorism laws and policies for the past four years. To date, seven state legislatures and nearly 400 local governments have passed resolutions expressing concern about these laws and policies, and calling on Congress to uphold civil liberties. (Look up resolutions passed in your state/district at: http://www.bordc.org/list.php?sortAlpha=1).

(Select the provisions you feel it most important to prevent or to support from those below.)

Please prevent the following Patriot Act expansions:

• Amendments to House bill H.R. 3199 that would create new federal crimes and death penalties
• Senate Intelligence Committee provision to give the FBI the power to issue Administrative Subpoenas without any judicial oversight.

Please support the following controls of Patriot Act powers:

• House “Berman amendment” requiring the federal government to report to Congress on the development and use of its data mining technologies
• Senate provisions to improve controls over the use of Sections 215 (business records) and 206 (roving wiretaps)
• Senate provision to allow challenges to uses of Section 505 (National Security Letters)

Please also push for new controls on "National Security Letters," which the Washington Post reported last week have been widely used to spy on ordinary Americans. Mention that neither the House nor Senate bill goes far enough, and that you will be contacting the Congressperson later regarding more reforms needed to restore our rights and liberties.

Thanks for all you do.

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Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Web: www.bordc.org
Email: info@bordc.org
Phone: 413-582-0110
Fax: 413-582-0116