President Bush on Monday urged the nation to stay the course in its
"urgent mission" to fight terrorism, and he called on Congress to move
quickly to extend sweeping law enforcement powers under the USA Patriot
Act. "We must not allow the passage of time or the illusion of safety
to weaken our resolve in this new war," Mr. Bush said in a speech at
the Justice Department. "To protect the American people, Congress must
promptly renew all provisions of the Patriot Act this year." The
president's remarks came at the formal swearing-in of his friend and
longtime adviser, Alberto R. Gonzales, as the nation's 80th attorney
general. Mr. Gonzales won Senate confirmation 11 days ago by a vote of
60 to 36 after a sharp debate that focused on the administration's
terrorism policies and their impact on the treatment of prisoners. Mr.
Bush built his re-election campaign last year around the assertion that
he was the candidate best able to defend the country against another
terrorist attack. In taking on the subject of the Patriot Act once
again, he showed no signs of backing away from that approach. A number
of measures in the act that expand the government's ability to conduct
secret surveillance and use other law enforcement powers will expire at
the end of the year unless Congress extends them. Many Democrats and
some Republicans have voiced skepticism or outright opposition to an
extension, and some lawmakers have offered competing proposals that
would restrict the ability of federal agents to demand records from
libraries and use other powers granted by the act. Mr. Bush's
renewed call for an extension met with skepticism from the American
Civil Liberties Union, which called on "cooler heads" in Congress to
scrutinize and fine-tune the law to meet civil liberties concerns. "The
president and the attorney general must realize that security and
liberty are not - and cannot be - mutually exclusive," the group said
in a statement. [more]
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