By LARRY MARGASAK
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON – Democrats have retreated from adding new privacy protections to the nation’s primary counterterrorism law, stymied by Senate Republicans who argued the changes would weaken terror investigations.
The proposed protections were cast aside when Senate Democrats lacked the necessary 60-vote supermajority to pass them. Dashing the hopes of liberals, the Senate Wednesday night instead passed – by voice vote without debate – a one-year extension of key parts of the USA Patriot Act that would have expired on Sunday.
Thrown away were restrictions and greater scrutiny on the government’s authority to spy on Americans and seize their records.