Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter's amendment that would prohibit funding for sneak and peek searches is officially dead. The attempt to scale back the Patriot Act provision that authorized the delayed notification of search warrants will not make it through Congress this year. And the Justice Department sounds pretty cocky that it won't ever make it through Congress:

Otter, an Idaho [Republican] congressman, was successful in July at getting the House to approve a prohibition on the use of federal funds for such searches, which are executed without the property owner's or resident's knowledge and with warrants delivered afterward.

Senate and House leaders, though, refused to place that provision in the massive omnibus spending bill coming up before Congress next week, killing it for the year.

Otter's measure would have prevented federal dollars from being spent to implement warrants that delay notification that a covert search is being conducted. The Patriot Act.... permits agents to search the home of a suspected drug dealer, or plant a listening device in the car of a reputed mobster, or copy a computer hard drive of a terror suspect, without notifying the suspect until a later date.

Otter says he will try again next year.

The Justice Department, however, says it doesn't expect that Congress will ever pass Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter's legislation banning "sneak and peek" searches.

The SAFE Act is still on the drawing board. Officially known as S. 1709, the Security and Freedom Enhanced (SAFE) Act of 2003, it needs your support. Send a letter to your Senator today.