Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent

www.nytimes.com...


Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent
By ERIC LICHTBLAU


WASHINGTON, April 8 � Working with the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said today.

The move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress who believe that the Patriot Act, as the legislation that grew out of the attacks is known, has already given the government too much power to spy on Americans.

The landmark legislation expanded the government's power to use eavesdropping, surveillance, access to financial and computer records and other tools to track terrorist suspects.

When it passed in October 2001, moderates and civil libertarians in Congress agreed to support it only by making many critical provisions temporary. Those provisions will expire, or "sunset," at the end of 2005 unless Congress re-authorizes them.

But Republicans in the Senate in recent days have discussed a proposal, written by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, that would repeal the sunset provisions and make the law's new powers permanent, officials said. Republicans may seek to move on the proposal this week by trying to attaching it to another antiterrorism bill that would make it easier for the government to use secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" terrorism suspects.

Many Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated by what they see as a lack of information from the Justice Department on how its agents are using their newfound powers, and they say they need more time to determine whether agents are abusing those powers.

I'd say you're already going to have this stuff for the next hundred years at least, terrorists or no terrorists. These things are so easy to implement, hardly ever rescinded.

Which was the idea all along...

Controll all Media. Think of FOX News style reporting on all outlets and all newspapers.

G.M. Set to Sell Hughes Unit to News Corp.
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN


he board of General Motors is planning to meet today to approve a deal worth about $7 billion that would give control of its Hughes Electronics unit and the DirecTV satellite operation to the News Corporation, executives close to the negotiations said yesterday.

The executives said the deal, if approved, could be announced as early as today.

The deal would end a three-year effort by Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation, to take over DirecTV and its 11 million subscribers and add a United States outlet to his global satellite empire.

In 2001, he lost a bidding war for control of Hughes to EchoStar Communications, the largest satellite television company, which struck a deal with G.M. However, antitrust regulators in Washington rejected that transaction last year after Mr. Murdoch waged a behind-the-scenes campaign to block the agreement, giving him a second chance.

Where's Bond when we need him?