http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/11/MNG59D78C81.DTLWashington -- After repeated Democratic criticism of the Bush administration, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee on Friday gaveled a hearing to a close and walked out while Democrats continued to testify -- but with their microphones shut off.
The hearing's announced topic was the USA Patriot Act, which granted broad new powers to federal law enforcement after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Republicans presented several witnesses who supported the administration's call for reauthorizing the legislation. But when four witnesses handpicked by the Democrats launched into a broad denunciations of President Bush's war on terror and the condition of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., showed his pique.
He urged witnesses to "wrap it up" and repeatedly told Democratic committee members that their time for questioning had expired.
"We ought to stick to the subject," the chairman scolded at the end. "The Patriot Act has nothing to do with Guantanamo Bay."
"Will the gentleman yield?" asked Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas.
"No, I will not yield," replied Sensenbrenner. He completed his reproof of the witnesses and left the Rayburn House Office Building hearing room amid a cacophony of protests from Democrats seeking to be recognized.
Democrats charged that the episode was another example of Republicans abusing their control of Congress and trying to stifle dissent over Bush's approach to counterterrorism. At one point in the two-hour hearing, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., accused Amnesty International USA of endangering the lives of Americans in uniform by referring to the prison at Guantanamo Bays as a "gulag. " Sensenbrenner refused to allow the Amnesty representative, Chip Pitts, to respond until Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., raised a "point of decency."
James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute, speaking immediately after Sensenbrenner left, voiced dismay over the proceedings. "I'm troubled about what kind of lesson this gives" to the rest of the world, he told the Democrats remaining in the room.
Congress is debating what changes it should make when reauthorizing the USA Patriot Act. For the second day in a row, Bush said federal, state and local law enforcement officials will be hamstrung if Congress fails to renew and make permanent the 16 provisions of the act set to expire at the end of this year.
"The Patriot Act has made a difference for those on the front line of taking the information you have gathered and using it to protect the American people," Bush told employees at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Va.
Bush, meanwhile, tapped Houston lawyer Carol Dinkins on Friday to head a new government panel charged with making sure that fighting terrorism does not take an unnecessary toll on civil liberties.