When Patriots Dissent

Surprise: Standing up to the PATRIOT Act can be good politics.

David Weigel from the November 2005 issue

(Page 3 of 3)

In October, as the Ashcroft tour was winding down, Sens. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) introduced the Security and Freedom Ensured (SAFE) Act, aimed at striking down three of the PATRIOT Act's provisions and enumerating limits on the administrative subpoenas authorized by Section 505. The bill picked up 19 co-sponsors and went to committee. In January 2004 Ashcroft sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) threatening that he'd recommend President Bush veto the bill if it was passed. Five months later, the House considered another effort to limit the PATRIOT Act, a bill proposed by Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that would have stopped the Justice Department from searching bookstore and library records under Section 215. The bill was set to pass, winning 219 votes by the end of the roll call, but the GOP leadership held the vote open beyond the allotted time in order to convince Republicans to change their votes. After 38 minutes of voting--extended from 15--the tally in favor dropped from 219 to 210 and the measure died.

At the start of 2005, the year that some parts of the PATRIOT Act must be renewed or allowed to expire, the administration's clout was shrinking and the anti-PATRIOT coalition was growing. In March former Rep. Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican who had been working with anti-PATRIOT groups for years, launched a coalition named Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances. The group includes not just the ACLU and the Libertarian Party but Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation, Grover Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform, the American Conservative Union, and other groups that support right-wing causes. By July the organization was sending its members to stump at high-profile community events and press junkets. At the same time, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee was supplementing the efforts to pass local resolutions with activism and rallies billed as "PATRIOT Days of Action."

The Justice Department had retooled its strategy too. When Alberto Gonzales replaced John Ashcroft as attorney general in February, he brought in staff to beef up and consolidate
the office of public affairs. His P.R. chief, Kevin Madden, had been a spokesman for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign. Before leaving the DOJ for Tom DeLay's office in July, Madden coordinated a new public relations offensive that included revamping LifeandLiberty.gov, encouraging U.S. attorneys to talk to communities, and holding morning "PATRIOT Act Working Group" strategy meetings.

"If you look at the rhetorical content used to criticize PATRIOT, a lot of it is out of tune," Madden says. "They trumpet the fact these communities have passed nonbinding resolutions, but those all contain a lot of misinformation." Misinformation, from the DOJ's perspective, has included rumors that anti-war groups could be prosecuted under Sections 411 and 802, and that government agents are examining ordinary Americans' library records. The job of his office, says Madden, is "to provide facts. Critics can make blatantly false statements, and it's construed as balance, as the counterpoint to what the Justice Department is saying."

In June, as President Bush went on a short tour giving speeches supporting total PATRIOT Act reauthorization, the House held another vote on the Sanders amendment to protect bookstore and library records. This time, in a Congress with a larger GOP majority and under the threat of a presidential veto, the measure passed by a vote of 238 to 187. In late July, one day after a terrorist bombing in London, the House voted on the amended bill, which made 10 of 12 temporary provisions permanent, and it passed by 257 to 171. In most respects, the vote was a defeat for the citizens' movement. But the new PATRIOT Act was more limited than the one passed in 2001, and the margin of support had shrunk by 100 votes.

The Senate and President Bush are expected to reapprove the PATRIOT Act later this year, but the climate has changed dramatically since the frantic days of 2001. Government error and bad publicity resulting from use of the PATRIOT Act have reduced the number of Americans who are willing to trade privacy for security. Politicians who vote against measures like PATRIOT will go home to sympathetic voters. And the struggle has put wind in the sails of civil libertarians on the left and right, who after years of culture wars have a unifying, edifying cause.

Just ask Butch Otter's communications director, Mark Warbis. He has seen this skeptical sentiment at the red-state grassroots in Idaho, where Otter continues to discuss the PATRIOT Act's problems and the SAFE Act's potential remedies with legislators and constituents. "People know," Warbis says, "that whenever government is granted additional authority, it creates the opportunity for abuses in the future."

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