I want to celebrate this as a lovely victory, but I don't want to jinx it.
From today's Boston Globe:
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Capping another tough week for President Bush and top Republicans in Congress, a bipartisan backlash yesterday forced congressional leaders to shelve a bill to extend provisions of the USA Patriot Act that expire at the end of the year.
Sidetracking the White House's push to preserve the expanded police powers authorized after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a rare coalition of liberal Democrats and conservative Republican lawmakers are demanding that the bill's more controversial provisions - set to run out at the end of December - should include more civil-liberties safeguards.
They want federal authorities to notify targets of secret, "sneak-and-peek" searches within seven days of executing the warrant; get a judge's approval before searching medical, financial, and library records; and allow the subjects of an investigation to challenge court gag orders issued against them.
"We can protect civil liberties and still fight the war on terrorism," said Senator John E. Sununu, Republican of New Hampshire, who joined a group of senators threatening to filibuster the measure as crafted by the Bush administration and House leaders. "We think we can work out bipartisan compromise, a reasonable compromise."
Earlier this year, the House and Senate passed versions of Patriot Act extensions. But members of both legislative bodies are at odds over the final draft of the bill that they will send to President Bush.
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