With three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of this year, the Senate Judiciary Commit

With three Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of this year, the Senate Judiciary Committee has the chance to restrict the federal government’s freedom to probe Americans beleived to be terrorists.

The USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 was under consideration by Committees earlier this year who decided that it should be proposed to the House of Representatives as a whole.

Representative Travis Childers from Booneville, Miss. is a member of the House Committee on Financial Services, one of the committees that the bill was referred to for review before it is submitted to the house as a whole.

Dana Edelstein, press secretary for Childers said, “We don’t have any information from Representative Childers concerning this bill or debate surrounding it.”

If passed, the legislation would change key parts of the USA Patriot Act.

First, the bill would only allow the government to obtain financial, communication and credit records of people who are believed to be involved in terrorist activities. In addition, it would require the government to convince a court that a gag order is necessary for matters of national security.

Also, it would terminate the “lone wolf” authority that allows the government to spy on people who are not a part of a terrorist organization, but believed by the government to be terrorists working alone.

Finally, the bill would not allow the federal government to collect library and bookstore records if they contain information on patrons.

The “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act” or USA PATRIOT Act was passed in 2001 by the Bush Administration following the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York.

The legislation was pushed through the House and Senate within weeks after its proposal in October with widespread support from both sides of the aisle.

The Patriot Act, as it is commonly known, was signed into law by president George W. Bush on October 26, 2001, only seven weeks after the attacks.

According to a press release by the ACLU, the Patriot Act “has become a symbol of out-of-control government invasions of your [American’s] privacy.”

This USA Patriot Amendments Act of 2009 is still in the early stages of the legislative process, and has not gained the attention of the political science department here at USM.

Allen Mcbride, the chair of the USM Department of Political Science, said, “We certainly know about the Patriot Act, but we don’t know what changes are being made to it at the moment.”