Although observers say that the Bush administration has been leaning on House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., to scuttle the House bill in favor of Senate language that gives the administration more of what it wants, Hastert now appears poised to let the House bill come up for a vote on Thursday or Friday, said the staffer, who asked to remain anonymous.
As recently as Tuesday evening, supporters of the House bill -- called the Provide Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (PATRIOT) Act of 2001 -- had feared the legislation would be blocked.
Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) policy analyst Ari Schwartz, said a handful of vocal lawmakers are forcing Congress to address the anti- terrorism issue at a more measured pace.
"There have been a few brave members who have really stood up and said that if were going to do this in a bipartisan way, we need to have bipartisan discussions," Schwartz said.
In the Senate, Schwartz said the protests of Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., was been instrumental in forcing the Senate leaders to slow their push to pass legislation. On the House side, members of the House Judiciary Committee are circulating a letter urging Hastert to allow a floor vote on PATRIOT.
Last week the House Judiciary Committee unanimously passed PATRIOT, which broadly expands federal law enforcement powers, as per the Bush administrations request, but establishes a two-year "sunset clause" for many of those provisions.
On the same day that the House Judiciary Committee passed PATRIOT, leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced they had reached a compromise with the Bush administration after days of closed-door negotiations.
The fruit of that compromise, the Uniting and Strengthening America Act of 2001, includes many of the same provisions contained in PATRIOT, but does not include a sunset clause. Unlike PATRIOT, the Senate bill has not been vetted through the normal committee markup process.
Both versions of the controversial bill would expand phone and Internet surveillance authority, lower the threshold for obtaining phone and Internet records of suspects and allow immigration authorities more leeway to detain suspects.
Administration officials have resisted a sunset provision.
"We prefer the Senate bill over the House bill," Justice Department spokeswoman Lori Rabjohns said Tuesday. "We think the Senate bill reflects a better balance."
The surveillance provision in both bills that has garnered some of the most vocal opposition is one that would allow federal law enforcers to apply for wiretap orders under foreign intelligence rules rather than more stringent criminal evidentiary standards, even when seeking evidence in criminal cases.
Also raising the hackles of some civil libertarians is a provision that allows law enforcers to obtain Internet records under the same type of easily obtained court order used by investigators to obtain phone records.
David McGuire, Newsbytes
