A plan to extend the USA PATRIOT Act, the anti-terrorism law implemented after Sept. 11 that allows circumstantial wiretapping and controversial monitoring of library and business records, is expected to receive final votes in the House and Senate early this week.
Based on a compromise agreement reached by a bipartisan House-Senate committee last week, the Patriot Act may be renewed in a revised form for at least another four years.
However, a group of six senators, including Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., two other Democrats and three Republicans, oppose the reauthorization plan, explaining they 'cannot support a conference report that does not contain modest but critical improvements, similar to those in the Senate-passed bill, to the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act.'
Feingold, the only U.S. senator that voted against the Patriot Act in Sept., 2001, said in a statement that he 'will do everything [he] can, including a filibuster, to stop this Patriot Act conference report, which does not include adequate safeguards to protect our constitutional freedoms.'
In order to defeat a filibuster in the Senate, a cloture is required'60 of 100 senators must vote to overcome it.
The Senate may vote on the bill officially this week, according to chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.
'I don't think there will be a filibuster,' Specter told The New York Times. 'I don't think it will succeed if there is one.'
Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, said the House of Representatives will likely take up the conference report this week as well.
'I remain very concerned about the powers associated with the Patriot Act and believe that Congress should retain strong oversight,' Baldwin said. 'I am proud of Senator Feingold for playing such a key leadership role on The Patriot Act.'
Although Baldwin said she wants to study the final Patriot Act report package more closely, she said it was her understanding that the reauthorized act does not address the concerns she has had previously.
While The Patriot Act's most controversial elements, including government access to semi-private records and wiretapping, would be extended for another four years, certain less inflammatory elements of the law could be extended permanently, including anti-money laundering policies and banking account restrictions.
