Patriot Act Reform Outreach Scuttled

Corporate America mobilized this week to break a nearly four-year silence on the FBI's expanded powers to demand sensitive customer information, but persistent cold feet on the part of several business groups killed the initiative at the last minute, sources close to the initiative said.

Congress is moving rapidly to renew sections of the 2001 Patriot Act that are scheduled to expire at the end of the year, including one that permits the FBI to seize business records without showing probable cause that the subject is connected to criminal activity.

Several bills are pending, including a Senate bill that would make it even easier for the FBI to conduct secretive searches and a House bill that would renew the Patriot Act without modifications for as long as 10 years.

Realizing that it could be a decade before the powers come up for re-examination, business organizations across the nation raced to present a unified position on Capitol Hill this week.

Read the rest of this eWEEK story: "Patriot Act Reform Outreach Scuttled"

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.