Gore Urges Repeal of Patriot Act

Gore said Bush should renounce his policy, which has been used twice, of indefinitely detaining American citizens that the president designates "enemy combatants."

Gore also said the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban members held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be allowed to petition for status as prisoners of war, and he argued that Congress should authorize any military tribunals used against suspected terrorists. Bush has asserted the right to try suspected terrorists before such tribunals but has not yet done so.

Most important, Gore said Congress should repeal the Patriot Act, which passed the Senate, 98 to 1, shortly after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Gore equated the law with the resolution that ultimately authorized the war in Vietnam.

"I believe that the Patriot Act has turned out to be, on balance, a terrible mistake, and that it became a kind of Tonkin Gulf Resolution conferring Congress' blessing for this president's assault on civil liberties," Gore charged.