Congress Sends Anti-Terrorism Bill To President

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 18) -- As expected, the House passed an anti-terrorism bill today that the Senate voted overwhelmingly for Wednesday. President Bill Clinton is expected to sign the measure when he returns from a week-long diplomatic trip.

Timed with the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing, the measure "has some very effective tools that we can use in our efforts to combat terrorism," Attorney General Janet Reno said. Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) praised the bill as giving federal law enforcement "a strong upper hand in the battle to prevent and punish domestic and international terrorism."

But there were interesting twists along the way to the bill's passage. An unlikely coalition of conservatives and liberals almost sunk the bill over expanded wire-tapping provisions favored by the administration and some Republicans. "The world is turning around," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), author of the provision. "When I got here...the conservatives wanted to increase wiretaps and the liberals didn't."

Democrats were wary of new limits on death row appeals pushed by Republicans. The Republicans won that battle, but some expressed skepticism the bill would be effective.

"Will it stop any acts of terrorism, domestic and international?" Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) queried from the Senate floor. "No." Nor, he said do Americans "want a police state."

But Reno said new powers to ease the deportation of alien terrorists would be useful, in addition to bans on fund rasing for terrorist organizations and tracing mechanisms for explosives.

Related Story:

• Terrorism Bill Nears Passage -- April 16, 1996

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