The Washington Post
WASHINGTON — The House Friday approved a far-reaching anti-terrorism bill that in most respects mimics legislation that cleared the Senate Thursday, conferring broad new powers on law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to conduct domestic surveillance and share information with each other.
In contrast to the Senate version, several of the more controversial aspects of the House bill relating to wiretapping and other forms of electronic surveillance would expire after five years, at which time they would have to be renewed.
The Senate bill also includes a comprehensive set of money-laundering provisions that House leaders have elected to consider as separate legislation. Those and other, smaller differences will have to be reconciled in a conference committee before President Bush can sign the measure into law, although that could happen as early as next week.
The blistering pace of the legislation through Congress shows just how much the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have altered the political landscape in Washington, D.C. Many of the provisions contained in the House and Senate bills have been sought for years by prosecutors, but rejected by Congress as overly intrusive and possibly unconstitutional. Now lawmakers are eager to accommodate the wishes of the FBI and CIA — alarming civil liberties advocates who warn that Congress is being stampeded into decisions it will later regret.
Bush commended the House’s quick action. "I urge the Congress to quickly get the bill to my desk." Bush said. "We must strengthen the hand of law enforcement to help safeguard America and prevent future attacks-and we must do it now."
Despite the lopsided nature of Friday’s 337-79 vote, many lawmakers were less than thrilled with the process that led up to it. Democrats and some Republicans considered the Senate bill inferior in terms of civil liberties protections to a home-grown compromise version passed 36-0 last week by the House Judiciary Committee. But the Bush administration strongly preferred the Senate bill, which grew out of intensive negotiations led by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
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