Patriot Act gets temporary extension

With a bipartisan group of Senators opposed to passing a permanent extension of the Patriot Act as passed by the House, the Senate has voted to give the Act a six month extension so that a much better bill can get the consideration it deserves.

Sen. Russ Feingold released this statement today:

"Today is a victory for the American people and the bipartisan group of Senators who have been fighting against efforts to extend the Patriot Act permanently without protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. I am pleased that the Republican leadership backed down from their irresponsible threat to let the Patriot Act expire and agreed to a 6-month extension of the provisions that would have sunset at the end of this year. This will allow more time to finally agree on a bill that protects our rights and freedoms while preserving important tools for fighting terrorism. Those of us who stood up to demand modest and reasonable protections of our liberties never wanted to stop Patriot Act reauthorization. We just want to get it right this time around.

We could have avoided these last-minute negotiations if the House had just adopted the Senate version of the Patriot Act that passed unanimously earlier this year. As we move forward, I hope that the Republican leadership in the Senate and the administration will continue down the path they started on tonight so that we don't find ourselves in this same situation 6 months from now. One thing is clear - what happened in the Senate over the past few weeks shows that this conference report is dead."

UPDATE: Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and the House have bucked the Senate's request and agreed to a 5 week extension instead. In a short session at 7pm, the Senate agreed to the House bill by unanimous consent. Quite frankly, that's fine by me. The sooner the Patriot Act gets fixed, the better in my book as long as the Senate stands its ground on doing just that. The game resumes next month.