US extends Patriot Act

The House of Representatives approved the Bill by 315-97, a day after it cleared the Senate.

President Barack Obama is expected to sign it into law this weekend.

Privacy protections that would have restricted the government’s authority to spy on citizens and seize their records were cast aside because Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them.

Legislators renewed three sections of the Patriot Act, which was originally rushed through both houses of Congress in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks.

One authorises court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones.

Another permits surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-US citizen deemed to be involved in terrorism who may not be part of a recognised terrorist group.

And the controversial section 215, known as the “library records provision,” allows government agencies to access an individual’s library history.

Democratic representative Dennis Kucinich said that, despite years of documentation showing abuse of these provisions during the Bush administration, “the Department of Justice has failed to hold Bush administration officials accountable for illegal domestic spying by barring any lawsuits to be brought against those officials.”

Mr Kucinich cited a recent New York Times article which reported that the National Security Agency had intercepted private email messages and phone calls of US citizens in recent months “on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits” and that the practice was “significant and systematic.”

He charged that the passage of this legislation “continues to make Congress complicit in these violations of our basic constitutional rights.”

Mr Kucinich pointed out that members of Congress are sworn to protect the rights and civil liberties afforded by the US constitution.

“We have a responsibility to exercise our oversight powers fully and significantly reform the Patriot Act, ensuring that the privacy and civil liberties of all Americans are fully protected,” he declared, warning that citizens were now witnessing the rise of an “American surveillance state.

“We have come to love our fears more than we love our freedoms,” Mr Kucinich lamented.