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U.S. Congress Approves Anti-Terrorism Bill
WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - One day after the Senate voted 96-1 to pass President George W. Bush's anti-terrorism bill late Thursday night, Congress followed suit passing their version of the bill with a 337-79 vote.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted to approve the measure that gives federal law enforcement agencies broader wiretap powers as well as new rights to keep immigrants in detention, news agencies reported.
Differences between the bills will have to be ironed out in conference between members of both chambers.
Democrats in both the House and Senate criticized the House version however, which does not contain measures to fight money laundering.
"You can't deal with counter-terrorism unless you take up money-laundering," said Senate Democratic Majority Leader Thomas Daschle.
"A bill that gives full powers and weakens the constraints is an inadequate bill," echoed Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts.
Bush commended the vote and urged quick passage of a compromise bill, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"The House and Senate bills are virtually identical," he said. "I urge the Congress to quickly get the bill to my desk."
"We must strengthen the hand of law enforcement to help safeguard America and prevent future attacks, and we must do it now," he said.
The legislation, which grants to the Bush administration considerably enhanced powers, was ironed out during difficult negotiations, in which lawmakers and administration officials pointed to the need for granting the government new tools to fight terrorism while protecting personal freedoms.
Both versions facilitate wiretapping of telephones used by terrorism suspects, provide for monitoring their activities on the Internet, and reinforce considerably powers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Authorities will be able to keep a foreigner suspected of terrorist activity in detention for seven days without intervention of the courts.
In addition, the bills harden punishment for those convicted in terrorism cases by making it a crime to provide shelter to a person suspected of terrorist activity.
Civil libertarians complained that the bill was anti-democratic.
"This bill has simply missed the mark of maximizing security and, at the same time, minimizing any adverse effects on America's freedoms," said Laura Murphy, director of the national office in Washington of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
"Most Americans do not recognize that Congress has just passed a bill that would give the government expanded power to invade our privacy, imprison people without due process and punish dissent."
House Democrats, for their part, criticized the process used by the Republican leadership to submit the bill to a vote, which robbed them of the possibility of amending the text during debate.
Civil rights leaders are gravely concerned that an already threatened American Muslim and Arab community would bear the greatest brunt of the bill, as they did after the passage of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which came in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing - citing the increasing anti-Muslim and Arab sentiment on the street both before and after the attacks on September 11th.
Despite the fact that it was American dissident Timothy McVeigh who masterminded the deadly attack in Oklahoma, Muslims and Arabs were unequivocally the main victims of the secret evidence clause imbedded in the act, which allowed for the Department of Justice to imprison them, some for over 4 years, without ever charging them with a crime and without disclosing the evidence against them, denying them their constitutionally granted right of due process.
Of the roughly 30 people held on secret evidence, at least 25 were Arab and/or Muslim- most of whom were released when immigration judges received the evidence, some immigration judges even deeming the evidence "laughable".
Republican leaders resorted to a procedure that shortcuts debate and submitted a modified text, which was closer to the positions of the Bush administration, rather than the text unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee last week.
In the Senate version, the measures do not expire, but if passed, the House bill "sunsets" the provisions - or lets them lapse - after two years.
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