SENATE BILL REWRITES SEARCH-SEIZURE LAWS

Congress Likely To 'Stuff' Provision In Last-Minute Spending Legislation

Just months after a public outcry scuttled a bill sailing through Congress
that would have given federal law enforcement authorities the right to
conduct secret searches, a new threat to the Fourth Amendment has arisen
that will allow federal agency employees, rather than judges, to authorize
certain searches of personal information.

In May, WorldNetDaily reported on a bill, the Methamphetamine
Anti-Proliferation Act, which contained a section that would have
authorized federal agents to enter a citizen's home or office with a
warrant, to search and copy files from his computer and not tell him what
items were taken until months afterwards. The bill also exempted law
enforcement officials from ever telling suspects that certain "intangible"
items were seized or copied.

After a bipartisan coalition of Republican and Democratic members of the
House Judiciary Committee, including Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. D-Texas, and
Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., expressed serious reservations about the so-called
"sneak-and-peak" searches, the measure was pulled from the bill.

The latest assault of the Fourth Amendment is contained in section 3(g) of
the Fugitive Apprehension Act, S. 2516, which would authorize the attorney
general to issue "administrative subpoenas" for personal information and
records without court authorization. A delayed reporting requirement also
found in the bill allows Department of Justice attorneys to ask the court
to conceal the subpoena from the target of the investigation.

The bill has already passed the Senate, and opponents of the measure are
concerned that it might be brought to a vote in the House as early as this
week.

David Kopel, an attorney and constitutional expert for the Denver-based
Independence Institute told WorldNetDaily the U.S. Marshall Service is
pushing the administrative subpoena provision to broaden their search
powers in fugitive cases, but that the provision is unneeded.

"There is absolutely no reason for this provision, because any agency
pursuing a fugitive can go to court and get the search warrants they need
almost immediately," Kopel said. "What this provision does is cut the court
out of the process, which is a very dangerous precedent. The Fourth
Amendment envisions courts issuing warrants, not unaccountable bureaucrats."

Rachel King, legislative counsel for the ACLU's Washington, D.C., office,
says the current battle illustrates the problems of protecting personal
privacy in the digital age at a time when government officials are playing
with the boundaries of the search and seizure requirements of the Constitution.

"A lot of this debate is what kind of privacy you have with personal
documents and information that used to be kept by individuals in their
homes, but now is kept by third parties," King said. "Now that most private
records are not kept solely at home, the government is arguing that the
Fourth Amendment doesn't apply any longer. Not recognizing the
constitutional protection that the Fourth Amendment gives to items like
this would give the government huge power and access to most of our
personal information."

King also said that while House leaders may not allow the bill to be
brought up to a vote, it could reappear in the closing days of this session
in one of the mammoth appropriations bills that will need to be passed
before Congress adjourns before the November elections.

"The problem with something like this is that the threat is not so much
that it might pass the House, which we are trying to stop, but that it will
end up getting stuffed in one of the spending bills in the next few weeks,
and then we will never be able to get it taken out," King said.

If supporters of the administrative subpoena authorization are able to get
the provision inserted into appropriation legislation, the entire spending
bill would need to be voted down in order to defeat the measure.

Events at the end of congressional sessions in recent years indicate that
such a scenario might be likely:

In 1998, Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fl., successfully inserted a roving wiretap
provision into the "Intelligence Authorization Act," a spending bill that
funded various intelligence agencies, after that bill had already been
voted on by both the House and Senate.

In 1996, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, included a bill establishing national
ID card regulations in the 1,600-page Omnibus Appropriations Act. After a
massive response by the public to the regulations issued by the Department
of Transportation, Congress revisited the issue and de-funded the program.

In 1994, Congress enacted the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act in the closing hours of the congressional session, which required
telephone firms to make it easy to wiretap the nation's communication
system, even after Justice Department lobbyists had told civil liberties
groups that they would not push the measure. If you'd like to sound off on
this issue, please visit WND's daily poll.

Editor's note: Readers who would like to express their views or ask a
question of the White House, their congressional representative, or even
their local media -- about this or any other issue -- may use
WorldNetDaily's state-of-the-art Legislative Action Center.