Last week, the U.S. House voted to instruct the conference committee of Senators and Representatives to renew three key police-state powers for only four years rather than 10. The conference committee is working on making permanent or renewing for four to 10 years. Some provisions added to the bills, among other extremely modest checks, would have federal agents provide just a hint of evidence before exercising these search and surveiallance powers

Enraged, the White House has leaned on its Congressional allies to add draconian police-state provisions unrelated to the USA PATRIOT Act to the bill.

First among these might be a plan to suspend habeas corpus -- the simple right of a prioner to appear before a judge and hear the charges against him.

Also possibly to be added to the PATRIOT renewal is the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Previous versions of the VAWA reauthorization in this Congress have included a provision providing for the contruction of a DNA databse of everyone arrested, much less conviceted.

Congressional staff has been pulling all-nighters on PATRIOT since last week. Should you want to contact the Judicary staff to tell them America is watching, the Senate Judiciary Committee can be reached at 202-224-2525 and the House Judiciary is at 202-225-3951.

Congressional leadership wants the conference report done by either Wednesday or Thursday so the Congreess can pass it next week before Thanksgiving.

Particularly interesting will be the reaction of Hpouse Judiciary Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner who earlier this year went batshit crazy when Democrats tried to bring up anything related to the USA PATRIOT Act outside the the 16 expiring provisions. Sensenbrenner has been insisting that White House and DOJ operatives sit in on Conference staff meetings. Will Sensenbrenner hypocritically back an expanded PATRIOT bill if the White House tells him to?