Although the Senate has the option of simply approving the bill that the House passed late last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. -- who helped draft the Senate bill -- favors initiating a formal House-Senate conference to work out the differences in the bills, Leahy spokesman David Carle said on Monday.
"A formal conference would be the fastest way to do it," Carle said, noting that if lawmakers maintain a "bipartisan spirit" in the negotiations, a compromise bill could be completed this week.
A House Judiciary Committee staffer agreed, predicting that congressional leaders would either convene a formal conference committee or would attempt to launch an expedited conference, in which House and Senate leaders informally hammer out the differences in the bills.
"It appears that the Senate is just not going to take up [the House bill]," said the staffer, who asked to remain anonymous.
Although both versions of the anti-terrorism legislation broaden federal phone and electronic surveillance capabilities and make it easier for government officials to obtain suspects phone, Internet and business records, the bills do differ substantively from one another.
For civil libertarians, who have campaigned hard against both bills on constitutional grounds, the most important difference between two versions is that the House language contains a "sunset provision," under which Congress would have to reevaluate the surveillance provisions contained in the legislation after five years.
Many congressional Democrats and public-interest groups, such as the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), would have preferred that the House pass a two-year sunset provision that was contained in an earlier House anti-terrorism proposal. They remain adamant that some sort of expiration clause be kept in the final bill.
Leahy did not include a sunset provision in the Senate bill, but he has signaled that he could "see himself supporting a sunset provision at conference," Carle said.
CDT policy analyst Ari Schwartz said that he is somewhat optimistic that the sunset provision will remain in the final version of the legislation.
David McGuire, Newsbytes
