Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), chair of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and architect of the act itself, said on Tuesday that Senate Democrats were likely to agree to an extension of controversial provisions in the Patriot Act, but only for a matter of months. The Patriot Act extension suffered a minor setback last week when a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and Republicans voted down the bill extending the Act.
Lieberman, relaying talks that had occurred moments earlier in a caucus meeting among Democrats, said that discussion had centered around keeping the law in place “until May.”
“Then there will be a full-fledged debate on it,” Lieberman told the Huffington Post. “That was what is discussed and that is okay with me. I support the Patriot Act as is. I think these three provisions are very sensible. There is no record that they have compromised everybody’s rights but there is a record that they have helped protect our homeland security.”
A three-month extension of the law, which grants wide powers to the federal government to survey potential terrorist threats, would reflect a scaling back of ambition on the part of the legislation’s boosters, but fall short of pleasing those who view the law as a violation of civil liberties. More