PATRIOT Renewal Falls Short on Privacy, Civil Liberties - House-Senate negotiators have agreed on a PATRIOT Act renewal bill that falls far short of balancing the legitimate demands of national security with the need to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of ordinary, law-abiding Americans. There was bipartisan support in Congress for fixing the PATRIOT Act, but at the last minute the reforms got watered down. While the new bill includes some additional oversight measures, Congress is going to have to return to these issues soon and develop some genuine limits on the PATRIOT Act and other surveillance powers, especially because changing technology is exposing more personal information to government access. November 16, 2005

• Press Release: PATRIOT Reforms Fall Short, Fail to Protect Civil Liberties [PDF] November 16, 2005
• NPR story, quoting CDT's Jim Dempsey November 17, 2005 [off-site]
• Bipartisan Senate letter opposing conference report [PDF] November 17, 2005
• More on PATRIOT
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