USA PATRIOT ACT Momentum is away from renewal

Sixteen provisions are set to expire by the end of this month.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In Congress, where numbers are everything, the math on the Patriot Act suddenly seems to be moving in favor of Sen. Russell Feingold.
He was a minority of one four years ago, when the Wisconsin Democrat cast the lone Senate vote against the USA Patriot Act in the traumatic weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The law, he said then, gave government too much power to investigate its citizens. Ninety-nine senators disagreed.
Now add more than two dozen senators to Feingold's side, including the leaders of his party and some of the chamber's most conservative Republicans, and the balance of power shifts.
The new Senate arithmetic that emerged this week is enough to place the renewal of major portions of the law in doubt. It was enough to inspire Senate Republican leaders to consider a backup plan in case Feingold's filibuster threat succeeded. Enough to prompt President Bush to dispatch Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to Capitol Hill twice in two days to lobby on the accord's behalf.
No luck so far, said the chief Senate sponsor.
'Battle on our hands'
"We've got a battle on our hands," Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., told reporters after Gonzales had departed Wednesday.
Bush weighed in personally Thursday, urging opponents of the renewal to abandon the filibuster threats.
"That is a bad decision for the security of the United States," the president said. "I call upon the Senate to end the filibuster and to pass this important legislation so that we have the tools necessary to defend the country in a time of war."
Moments later, the senior Democrat on the issue, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, told reporters that more than 40 votes exist to sustain a filibuster in a test vote today. White House allies said they would rather see the law's 16 temporary provisions expire entirely than give opponents another three months or more to keep whittling away at them.
"A short-term extension is irresponsible," said House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., a day after his chamber passed the conference agreement, 251-174.
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