Don’t Let Hatch Hitchhike

Instead of cataloguing books, many librarians now spend much of their day shredding business records so that the government can’t get its hands on them. These librarians are protesting the PATRIOT Act, a consortium of legislation passed after the Sept. 11 attacks, which has enlarged the federal government’s powers in the fight against terrorism. The powers granted by the PATRIOT Act are set to expire in 2005. But if Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, gets his way, protesting librarians may have much shredding ahead of them.

Backed by other Republicans, Hatch authored a proposal to repeal the PATRIOT Act’s 2005 sunset, or expiration date, making the legislation permanent.

Hatch intends to attach this proposal to a larger, more popular anti-terror bill that aides the government in catching ‘lone-wolf’ terrorists. Attaching a controversial rider to an otherwise constructive bill is shameful. In using this method, Hatch is not allowing for a full and fair debate of the PATRIOT Act.

Debate would help to illuminate the PATRIOT Act’s extensive liberty-limiting provisions. Under it, the government can more easily eavesdrop and access records of American citizens. Hatch’s zeal to quietly pass this proposal as a rider reveals a disturbing eagerness to reduce civil liberties.

Proponents claim that legislation under the PATRIOT Act has worked well as a useful tool for effectively eradicating terrorism. Granted, the PATRIOT Act isn’t all bad, but it was written in haste during a period of anti-terrorism hysteria—its provisions responded to the panic of the time by granting the government overly-extensive powers. And many in Congress, uncomfortable with all of its provisions, voted for the act with the reassurance that the sunset clause would eliminate the legislation a few years later.

During this tenuous time, when terror threats jeopardize our way of life, America needs a new plan for terrorism. But instead of permanently adopting legislation full of affronts on individual liberties, Congress must prevent Hatch’s rider from getting passed. A new anti-terrorism plan may draw on some of the PATRIOT Act’s more successful legislation, but blindly accepting the existing act will inadequately fight terrorism and extensively curb our freedoms.