Inquirer Editorial: Rethink the Patriot Act

The House's refusal to reauthorize three of the most sweeping federal antiterrorism powers likely will be a temporary victory for Americans' cherished civil liberties, but that denial sent an important message nonetheless.

Nearly a decade after 9/11, it's long past time to redress the overbroad measures contained in various versions of the Patriot Act that risked violating citizens' rights to privacy. Such knee-jerk repression, in effect, plays into the goal of terrorists who want to change the very nature of a freedom-loving nation.

In a vote Tuesday that required a supermajority, more than a third of House members, including both Republicans and Democrats, voted against renewing the Patriot Act provisions through year's end. While House leaders likely will prevail if they bring the issue back for a simple majority vote, the dissenters already have made their point.

In their ranks are Democrats as well as conservative Republicans with tea-party leanings. It's an unusual and rare coalition, but one that apparently no longer regards the Patriot Act as some sort of holy grail that cannot be touched for fear of risking the nation's security.

In fact, the three provisions under review need to be retooled or simply scrapped:

Federal authorities should be required to disclose to a court the targets of roving wiretaps.

Congress should sharply limit and provide an appeal forum for the government information sweeps of other materials (such as library records) conducted with so-called national security letters.

Finally, the "lone wolf" provision that allows domestic surveillance of noncitizens should be allowed to lapse, since it poses a major risk of abuse, and has never even been used.

Granted, the politics of Patriot Act renewals are Byzantine, with both political parties using them to seek an advantage. By pushing for a three-year renewal, for instance, President Obama would remove the issue from his reelection campaign.

Meanwhile, GOP leaders are pushing for the permanent renewal of the law, knowing full well that many Democrats rightly would oppose that and perhaps pay a price at the polls.

But the takeaway message from Tuesday's House vote should be that it's time to have a serious discussion of how best to recalibrate the nation's antiterrorism powers.

Congress and the president need to ensure that, while taking reasonable steps to thwart new attacks, they also honor the nation's core values by safeguarding its citizens' freedoms.