Lawmakers Question Controversial Section of Patriot Act The provision lets ISPs give personal information to the government without usual checks and balances, lawmakers say. Erik Larkin, Medill News Service Thursday, May 05, 2005 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle today strongly questioned the need to extend a controversial part of the federal Patriot Act that allows Internet service providers to give e-mail messages and personal data to federal law enforcement without a warrant or any notification to the person in question.   Liens Commerciaux At the meeting of the Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security subcommittee, the Department of Justice said Section 212 of the act has been used often and has saved lives. But committee Democrats and Republicans alike voiced concern about the lack of checks and balances in the provision, which allows ISPs to voluntarily give information to the government in emergency situations where there is a risk of death or serious physical harm. Unless Congress extends it, the Patriot Act will expire at the end of the year. "We can very easily, in good faith, trample on somebody's rights," said Representative Bobby Scott (D-Virginia). Success Stories William Moschella, an assistant attorney general, said the provision helped the FBI rescue a 13-year-old Virginia girl kidnapped by a 38-year-old man she had met online. Information voluntarily provided by an ISP during the search led to the man's home, where authorities found the girl chained in a "dungeon" with torture equipment. The law also helped the FBI find Lisa Montgomery, a Kansas woman arrested last year and charged with killing a pregnant woman in Missouri and cutting the fetus out of her womb, said Willie T. Hulon, assistant director of the FBI's counterterrorism division. Information provided by the slain woman's ISP helped authorities find Montgomery and rescue the baby, he said. Not extending the law "would severely impact the FBI's ability to respond to certain situations," Moschella said. Most of those present, including privacy advocates, favored extending part of the law that gives the government fast, warrantless access to personal online data in emergency situations, which matches existing law for physical searches. But, said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, the law needs to be revised to provide necessary checks and balances. "There are cases where this [warrantless] authority is appropriate," Dempsey said. But he urged strengthening the law to cover other "key protections" of the Fourth Amendment, including judicial review, notifying the individual in question, and ensuring that the government faces consequences--such as the inability to use the evidence in court--if it acts in bad faith. None of those necessary safeguards currently apply to this section of the Patriot Act, Dempsey said. For example, an innocent person whose information was wrongfully handed over would never be notified, he said. Too Broad? Representative Dan Lungren (R-California) sharply questioned why the FBI would oppose modifying the law to allow the courts to review emergency uses of the law and decide if the person in question should be notified. "It's an exceptional power," he said. "I am concerned about no judicial review whatsoever." Other lawmakers charged that the law has been used widely for crimes beyond terrorism, and that the definition of "emergency" may have been stretched on occasions when obtaining a subpoena would not have hampered law enforcement. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said that as a judge she issued plenty of midnight subpoenas. "We are a nation of laws," Jackson Lee said. "But we are also a nation of civil liberties and balance."