WASHINGTON _ The House overwhelmingly passed historic legislation Wednesday to give federal law-enforcement officials broad and controversial new powers to track down suspected terrorists by monitoring their communications by telephone, voice mail and the Internet.

Congress has long balked at expanding police authority in the domestic fight against terrorism because of concerns about civil liberties and a citizen’s right to privacy. Legislation passed after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was scaled back to the point that it is considered largely ineffective.

But in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, lawmakers acted quickly at the Bush administration’s behest to update and expand wiretap laws; strengthen money-laundering laws; allow the FBI to secretly search suspects’ property without notification; and expand the federal government’s authority to arrest, hold and deport people suspected of terrorism.

Though it is billed as an anti-terrorism measure, some of the bill’s provisions apply to all federal criminal suspects and give officials broad latitude in implementing them.

Lawmakers passed the bill 357-66, sending it to the Senate where it is expected to pass easily as early as Thursday. Leaders hope the legislation will reach President Bush’s desk by the end of the week.

“I am pleased Congress has reached an agreement on counterterrorism legislation that will give our law-enforcement officials the tools and resources necessary to disrupt, weaken and defeat terrorists,” Bush said. “I look forward to signing this strong bipartisan plan into law so that we can combat terrorism and prevent future attacks.”

To ensure passage and appease liberals and conservatives, House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and the administration were forced to allow many of the new provisions to expire in four years. If lawmakers believed some of the expanded powers were being abused, they could decline to renew them in 2005.

“Some of these things need to be field-tested,” said Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., chairman of the House International Relations Committee and former chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

A key provision in the bill allows the FBI and other federal agents to seek only one court order to listen in on a particular suspect’s conversations on multiple phone lines. Federal agents now need a judge’s permission to tap each phone line used by a suspect, making it difficult to monitor conversations on multiple lines and cell phones.

“Terrorists are up-to-date in their technology; we just have to have the government up-to-date,” said Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.

The legislation also would substantially increase the federal government’s ability to arrest, hold and deport people, particularly immigrants, creating a particular concern for civil libertarians. For example, if the attorney general has “reasonable grounds to believe” that a legal immigrant is engaged in terrorism or endangers the national security, the attorney general may detain the person indefinitely and begin proceedings to remove the person from the country.

“This unprecedented power can be used against any non-citizen about whom the attorney general has no more than a mere suspicion of involvement in terrorist activity, a level of suspicion that ordinarily would justify only a brief stop and frisk on the street,” said Elisa Massimino, director of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in Washington. “Now it can result in a virtual life sentence, and the bill provides only the barest of judicial oversight of the attorney general’s new power.”

Many special interest groups and numerous lawmakers also expressed uneasiness over the expanded powers.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., voted against the measure and said he is worried that the legislation in some instances changes the traditional burden-of-proof requirements, forcing citizens to prove they have done nothing wrong.

For example, the legislation makes harboring a terrorist a criminal act. If a landlord rents a room to a terrorist, the landlord must prove he or she did not know the tenant was involved in illegal activities, Frank said.

“This legislation is based on the faulty assumption that safety must come at the expense of civil liberties,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington National Office. “We can be safe and fight terrorism without substantially surrendering our civil liberties.”

Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a longtime critic of expanding police powers, voted for the bill but said he will work to undo the provision allowing secret searches of property without notifying the suspect. Officials still will have to get a search warrant.

“It takes away a citizen’s ability to know if the government is acting within the bounds of constitutionality,” he said.

Despite those concerns, Congress has been eager to help the FBI and intelligence officials locate and capture terrorists before they strike again on American soil and hinder or halt their activities elsewhere.

To that end, the bill would strengthen money-laundering rules to ban the undeclared movement of more than $10,000 across U.S. borders. It would give the Treasury Department new means to track and investigate foreign financial institutions, accounts and transactions considered to be vulnerable to money laundering.

U.S. banks maintaining private accounts for foreigners would be required to identify the accounts’ owners and the source of the deposited funds, and to report suspicious transactions. Securities brokers and dealers also would be required to report suspicious transactions to the federal government.

Passage in the Senate seems certain.

“I expect a pretty overwhelming vote, and I think that’s as it should be,” said Senate majority leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.

___

© 2001, Chicago Tribune.