Shays says Patriot Act Essential, Marriage Amendment Expendable
By Brian Dolan
WASHINGTON -Rep. Christopher Shays (R-4 th District) said in an interview Wednesday that President Bush was right to support the USA PATRIOT Act to combat terrorism but wrong to use his State of the Union address to disparage gay marriage.
Bush should not have threatened a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage “because he’s the President of the United States and there are bigger issues,” Shays said. “There’s energy, and the environment, the war on terrorism.”
Shays said he would not support such an amendment, though he voted in 1996 for the Defense of Marriage Act, which gives states the right to deny recognition to gay couples married in other states.
In his address to Congress Tuesday night, Bush said the government must continue to give homeland security and law enforcement officials every tool they need to defend the country from terrorist attacks.
“One of those essential tools is the PATRIOT Act, which allows federal law enforcement to better share information, to track terrorists, to disrupt their cells and to seize their assets,” Bush said. “Key provisions of the PATRIOT Act are set to expire next year. The terrorist threat will not expire on that schedule.”
Shays, a member of the Select Homeland Security Committee, said the PATRIOT Act is essential and criticized those who are “negative” about the law without being specific. Critics argue the law infringes on civil liberties, in part by allowing law enforcement officials to conduct searches of homes and businesses without informing the owners.
“People should not be critical of the PATRIOT Act–we need good intelligence if we want good security,” Shays said.
“If we think you are a terrorist, we are going to want to trace your calls and see what you are reading at the library without telling you we know you are a terrorist. We are not going to look at what books you are reading-not unless you’re checking out books on weapons,” Shays said.
Sen. John Sununu, R-NH, said Congress called for some key provisions of the law to expire at the end of 2005 not because concerns of terrorist threats would disappear, but because these were new powers that may need to be modified.
“I think we should extend some provisions, but I think we should change some provisions,” Sununu said in an interview after the president’s speech Tuesday night. “I introduced legislation to change or modify notification for ‘sneak-and-peek’ search warrants and subpoenas from libraries.”
“Some wholly support [the PATRIOT Act]. Some, like me, favor some changes. Some people want to repeal the whole thing, which isn’t very smart,” Sununu said.
Section 215 of the act “allows the FBI to obtain orders for the production of any ‘tangible things’ (which can include library, travel, genetic, health, business or firearms records) without any meaningful standard of judicial review and no mechanism for the person affected to challenge the order,” Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a press release Wednesday.
“Last year, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Section 215 has not been used, raising the question of why the Bush administration believes such sweeping law enforcement powers are essential for the war on terrorism,” Romero added.
