- As the full Senate and House prepare to vote on competing
versions of the 9/11 Commission recommendations this week, most eyes are
on how the government's intelligence services will be revamped.
-
- But civil liberties advocates, immigration groups and
some 9/11 Commission members are criticizing provisions in the House bill
that they say go far beyond the commission's recommendations.
-
- At issue are provisions that would:
-
- * create a de facto national identification card
-
- * allow employers running a background check on an
employee
to obtain records of arrests and detentions -- not just convictions --
without limitation on republishing the information
-
- * speed up the implementation of the newest airline
passenger
screening system, Secure Flight, by requiring congressional approval after
it is deployed, not before
-
- * require the State Department to study the feasibility
of a worldwide database tracking American citizens' and foreigners'
"lifetime
travel history," including information on what countries Americans
traveled to
-
- * require the State Department to intervene with foreign
media outlets and foreign governments to influence media coverage
-
- * make it easier for the government to deport immigrants
to countries where they might be tortured or to countries to which an
immigrant
has no relationship
-
- * expand Patriot Act wiretap provisions and the ban on
material support to designated terrorist organizations
-
- * make it tougher for illegal immigrants to get a hearing
to protest deportation
-
- * prevent states from issuing driver's licenses to
undocumented
aliens by changing what documents are acceptable at Canadian and Mexican
borders
-
- Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Connecticut), who co-authored the
Senate's version of the bill, has serious concerns about the House bill,
according to spokeswoman Leslie Phillips.
-
- "The House bill includes several provisions
regarding
law enforcement and immigration that were not raised by the 9/11 Commission
and (that) the commission has explicitly asked be removed," Phillips
said.
-
- The Senate bill is also superior because it contains
a number of civil liberties and privacy protections, including an
independent
civil liberties board, according to Phillips.
-
- John Feehery, a spokesman for Speaker of the House Dennis
Hastert, defended the bill.
-
- "We think that in a time of war on terror, we have
a duty to make the country safer," Feehery said.
-
- He acknowledged that some of the House bill's provisions
may not make it into the final bill, but believes "they would make
the country safer."
-
- Feehery also defended the provision that would require
that all state licenses be standardized and all driver's license databases
be linked together.
-
- "If you are going to crack down on terrorists, you
have to have minimum (identification) standards," Feehery said.
-
- But civil liberties advocates such as American Civil
Liberties Union legislative counsel Timothy Edgar call the bill an assault
on the rights of noncitizens and a distraction from the task of
reorganizing
the country's intelligence service.
-
- Edgar adds that the House bill does not create an
independent
privacy and civil liberties board as the commission recommended, which
he said would lead to the "worst of all worlds."
-
- "It would give us the centralized authority of a
national intelligence director, without any effective counterweight to
it in a civil liberties board," Edgar said.
-
- Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security
Studies, finds both bills troubling.
-
- "Instead of encouraging government to focus on
actual
terrorists, the House bill encourages a vacuum-cleaner approach,"
Martin said.
-
- Martin faults the Senate version for creating a
searchable
mega-database of the government's criminal and intelligence information
without adequate privacy or civil liberties safeguards.
-
- Both the Senate and the House are scheduled to vote on
the bills and amendments to them Wednesday.
-
- The two versions will then go to a committee to work
out the differences in hopes of having a bill on the president's desk
before
the November election.
-
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