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Those politicians are mostly lying (yes, I know it's hard to believe politicians lie).

The House had earlier passed a version that would have been aptly titled "The Immigrant and Illegal Immigrant Protection Act", just awful, with probably more 'non-critical stuff' in it.
The final bill was the Senate version- which was about the same as what Sensenbrenner had introduced earlier in the House- with the money-laundering bill's language added.

"Those politicians are mostly lying"

Yes, of course they're all liars. Politicians wrote and amended the bill. They're all honest. Politicians later came out to say that now that they've had a chance to actually read what was passed, they're shocked and appalled at parts of it. They're all liars. Fascinating.

Somehow, I tend to believe Butch Otter's comments on the subject. "This PATRIOT Act that we have been having to deal with for the last 3 years was snuck in at the very last minute." - Congressman C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID) 7/8/04 He's been fighting to fix it with amendment and amendment. Don't bother trying to claim he's just another RINO - he's got himself a 94% lifetime rating from the ACU. His criticisms have been joined by dozens of others. Liberals like Coyers and Lee have been joining with conservatives like Barr and Otter regularly to slam the sneaky way PATRIOT was slipped past everyone, as well as some of the nastier provisions of PATRIOT.

Funny you should mention Sensenbrenner. I found his comments on making the sunsetting provisions of PATRIOT permanent both telling and amusing. He said: "That will be done over my dead body". Not exactly a ringing endorsement for at least part of PATRIOT.

Ran across this from a Fox news article: "as of this month, 363 communities and counties, including major cities like Dallas, Denver and New York, have passed resolutions protesting or boycotting Patriot Act provisions. Four states — Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont and Maine — have done the same."

Not exactly a ringing endorsement of PATRIOT. When the other 46 states do the same, I wonder where that'll leave the Federal government... I can easily see California, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Virginia joining these four states. The others will be along shortly.