[Clips] Bush Antiterror Plans Irk Big Business

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Mon Nov 28 12:03:25 PST 2005


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 Subject: [Clips] Bush Antiterror Plans Irk Big Business
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 <http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB113313690613407756.html>

 The Wall Street Journal

  November 28, 2005

 Bush Antiterror Plans Irk Big Business
 Corporate Groups Join ACLU in Demanding
  Changes to Patriot Act's Data-Access Rules
 By ROBERT BLOCK
 Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
 November 28, 2005; Page A4

 WASHINGTON -- As President Bush and Republican leaders in Congress scramble
 to renew the USA Patriot Act before it expires on Dec. 31, they are meeting
 surprising resistance from a group they usually consider an ally: big
 business.

 Joining the American Civil Liberties Union, organizations such as the U.S.
 Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the
 National Association of Realtors and the Financial Services Roundtable are
 demanding changes in the antiterror law's rules on government access to
 confidential business records.

 Corporate objections played a major role in blocking final legislative
 action on a new Patriot Act before the Thanksgiving break. Now, with
 pressure mounting to get the law passed by year end, business lobbyists say
 they see signs that key lawmakers are open to altering some provisions,
 offering companies clearer legal protections and avenues for appeal.

 In particular, business groups want to inject new checks on law-enforcement
 requests for records on customers, suppliers and employees. Companies want
 government officials to shoulder a greater burden of proof in showing a
 connection between the documents demanded and a specific terror
 investigation, and they want greater power to challenge the record orders.
 Corporate lobbyists also want to prevent the renewed Patriot Act from
 toughening the law in ways they dislike. One proposed change would make it
 a felony for a company to disclose a secret subpoena.

 "The business community stands with all Americans in the war on terror, and
 we remain prepared to do our part to keep the nation safe," reads a recent
 letter from six business groups to lawmakers trying to craft a final bill.
 "That said, we are concerned that the rights of businesses to confidential
 files -- records about our customers or our employees, as well as our trade
 secrets and other proprietary information -- can too easily be obtained and
 disseminated under investigative powers expanded by the Patriot Act."

 The business backlash to the Patriot Act -- which was passed in a rush,
 just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- is part of the new
 opposition to post-9/11 security policies from normally loyal friends of
 the Bush administration. Senate Republicans are pushing for new limits on
 the administration's treatment of prisoners detained as suspected
 terrorists and are demanding more accountability on the war in Iraq.

 Taking on the role of accidental civil libertarian hasn't been easy for
 business, which had rarely challenged the Bush administration over the past
 four years. After Sept. 11, the U.S. government often asked companies to
 act as the eyes and ears of federal law enforcement. Business was initially
 receptive, in part because companies wanted to prevent the disruption and
 bad publicity that would come from terrorists using their systems.
 Cooperation between businesses and federal law-enforcement agencies wasn't
 generally advertised, and customers were seldom aware of it.

 But corporate executives have since grown wary of Bush administration
 law-enforcement efforts -- and not just those designed to fight terrorism.
 Laws aimed at white-collar crime have put other compliance burdens on
 business. Now lobbyists and business groups say that Patriot Act compliance
 is proving costly. They say that their members each year are getting tens
 of thousands of National Security Letters, or NSLs -- a form of subpoena
 used to demand basic information contained in credit reports,
 Internet-service-provider records and financial records.

 Justice Department officials deny that NSL demands have reached those
 levels but won't provide details because the number and identify of the
 recipients are classified.

 Financial institutions also complain about the existing Patriot Act
 requirement that they verify customer identities and notify regulators if
 their customers appear on terrorist watch lists. Micki Carruthers, senior
 vice president and chief financial officer at Regal Financial Bank in
 Seattle, says that her two-year-old, 31-employee bank spends between
 $100,000 and $150,000 -- or 10% to 15% of its annual operating expenses --
 on Patriot Act compliance. "You can talk to any bank and they will say the
 same thing about how these demands ruffle our feathers and are a costly
 burden," she says.

 Beyond costs, businesses fear that the Patriot Act puts at risk trade
 secrets and confidential financial data, according to Susan Hackett, senior
 vice president and general counsel for the Association of Corporate
 Counsel, a trade group representing the legal departments of major U.S.
 corporations. Multinationals are afraid that, by complying with government
 demands for financial records of overseas operations, they will violate
 more stringent privacy laws in other countries -- particularly in Europe.

 For much of the past year, efforts on Capitol Hill to renew the Patriot Act
 had attracted the more predictable opposition of civil-rights groups,
 privacy advocates and libertarians. Brushing aside those protests, both the
 House and Senate passed separate versions of bills to renew expiring
 provisions. They then faced what seemed a fairly routine effort to
 reconcile the two bills into a consensus conference committee report for
 final approval by Congress.

 But in October, business groups jumped into the debate and began
 coordinating strategies and communicating with the ACLU, according to both
 Ms. Hackett of the corporate counsel group and Lisa Graves of the ACLU. "We
 were very, very surprised by the business community's position and some of
 their concerns so late in the process," said Justice Department spokesman
 Brian Roehrkasse.

 It was business intervention, Ms. Hackett said, that has changed the course
 of the debate. "People from the business community are saying to people
 they are normally allied with, 'get out of my file drawer.' That's what's
 making the difference."

 Justice officials have responded by trying to assure business groups that
 the administration wouldn't abuse the powers. But business lobbyists say
 the tone of conversations with the administration turned nasty earlier this
 month[nov.], when it became clear that congressional negotiators didn't yet
 have an acceptable consensus version of a new law. Angry, White House
 officials called members of the business groups to remind them of all that
 the administration has done -- from tax cuts to sympathetic regulatory
 policies -- for America's manufacturers, retailers, bankers and service
 industries.

 A senior Justice Department official denied that business groups have come
 under any pressure from the administration and dismissed the significance
 of their opposition to the counterterror law.

 But with time running out to renew the act, some lawmakers are reportedly
 telling business groups they will get more of what they want. That includes
 language that would explicitly give companies the right to consult an
 attorney when protesting government record requests; the current law is
 silent on the question. The new law also looks likely to include language
 giving companies the ability to challenge Patriot Act secret court orders
 on the grounds that the information requested is proprietary or privileged
 or the request overly burdensome, similar to rights they have when
 receiving a grand-jury subpoena. Also on the table, according to Ms.
 Hackett, is a concession that would make inadvertent disclosure about
 receiving Patriot Act orders no longer a crime.

 "I think everybody is pretty satisfied," says Bob Shepler of the National
 Association of Manufacturers.

 Still, Ms. Hackett says some issues remain outstanding, especially the lack
 of a hard requirement for investigators to show how a request for records
 is connected to a specific terrorism investigation. "We're keeping our
 powder dry for the return to the issue in December and following closely
 the continuing efforts of our coalition partners at the ACLU," she said.


 --
 -----------------
 R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
 The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
 "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
 [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
 experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
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-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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