Senate votes 98-1 for anti-terror bill

WASHINGTON – President Bush is expected to sign anti-terrorism legislation as early as today after the sweeping measure flew through Congress with overwhelming support this week.

The bill, approved by a 98-1 vote in the Senate on Thursday, seeks to grant authorities expanded muscle in tracking and detaining suspected terrorists. The House approved the measure Wednesday.

The legislation bolsters the FBI’s power to wiretap phones, monitor the Internet and e-mail, and conduct searches. It also aims to fight international money laundering and impose stronger penalties for harboring or financing terrorists.

Although weaker than what Attorney General John Ashcroft first proposed only five days after terrorist attacks left more than 5,000 Americans dead, the bill passes muster of both Republicans and Democrats.

“These laws will help ensure that Americans will never be violated in the way we were on Sept. 11,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

While the bill has been criticized for allowing the potential abuse of civil liberties, the Senate’s Judiciary Committee chairman, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., expressed confidence in four-year sunset clauses attached to certain provisions. A four-year expiration date was set on the wiretapping and electronic surveillance portion, court permission before snooping into suspects’ formerly private educational records, and court oversight over the FBI’s use of a powerful e-mail wiretap system.

The sweeping anti-terrorism bill also aims to triple the number of border patrol agents, customs officers and Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors along the Canadian border. While some 9,091 border patrol agents now stand guard over the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, just over 330 agents are posted along the sweeping 4,000-mile northern frontier with Canada, according to the INS.

So far, however, the money to pay for beefing up the northern border has yet to be found. Lawmakers need to find an estimated $406 million for personnel and another $100 million for new technology to improve monitoring of the border, according to Senate sources.

On Thursday, a bipartisan coalition of more that 22 senators representing states neighboring Canada requested that the White House open the funding spigot immediately by using part of the $20 billion in emergency funds that Congress approved following the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. So far, the administration has agreed to release only $29 million to beef up border security, saying it has other spending priorities for waging the war on terrorism.

“We are performing triage right now,” said Chris Ullman, spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.

While the number of Canadian border patrol agents has been increased since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, more staffing is needed now on the U.S. side, said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, a supporter of immediate funding.

“In the aftermath of the tragic attacks of September 11th, safeguarding our northern border is more important than ever,” she said in a prepared statement released Thursday. “After all, we share a 4,000 mile border with Canada – including 611 miles in Maine alone. In Maine, remarkably, our Border Patrol has actually lost agents in the last decade, dropping from 40 to just over 30.”

Snowe added that increased security also would ease traffic congestion at the border. “We must also maintain our important trade relationship with our northern neighbors – but new security requirements and personnel shortages are leading to significant backups at the northern border.”

Some senators believe that without immediate funding from the emergency spending bill, finding the money through Congress may take months because the appropriations process for the coming year is coming to a close.

“We desperately need the money now,” said Jennifer Crider, spokeswoman for Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., a leading voice for strengthening border security with Canada. “Another emergency bill would be difficult to approve this late in the year and we may have to wait until 2003 before funds become available.”

Ever since the arrest in December 1999 of Ahmed Ressam, who was caught entering the United States from Canada with explosives in his car trunk, lawmakers have been increasingly concerned about beefing up northern border security. Ressam was found guilty this year of planning to bomb Los Angeles International Airport and is suspected of having trained in a terrorist camp sponsored by suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The attacks of Sept. 11 only heightened the alarm, with several of the 19 suspects believed to have entered the United States through Canada.

“Agents on the northern border are 14 times more likely to encounter aliens smuggling weapons, and nine times more likely to encounter drug smugglers, as compared with those on the southern border,” Snowe said.

One of the most divisive provisions of the terrorism bill endorsed by President Bush would have given the attorney general power to indefinitely detain any immigrant suspected of terrorism. Lawmakers hammered out a compromise agreement that would require the attorney general to act within seven days by either initiating deportation procedures, charging the person with a crime, or releasing the suspect.

The only senator voting against the bill was Russell Feingold, D-Wis. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., did not vote.