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WASHINGTON - House and Senate negotiators approved an extension of the controversial USA Patriot Act on Thursday, but a bipartisan group of senators pledged to try to block final passage, and at least one lawmaker, Sen. Russell Feingold, threatened a filibuster.

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the new legislation, which would extend and modestly alter a group of anti-terror laws hastily passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was ''not a perfect bill, but a good bill.''

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who was on the committee that negotiated the final version of the bill, said the act gives prosecutors the same tools to pursue terrorists as they have to go after mobsters or pedophiles. He said he expects senators will approve the act "so crucial in protecting our country from international terrorists. Anybody who refuses to do that I think is going to pay a big price politically, and

they should."

Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, wasn't so sure. ''There is no justification for not fixing this thing now,'' he said. ''There was a unanimous vote in the Senate to change it in important areas and the conference committee disregarded the view of the Senate, ran amok, and said we are going to try to jam this thing through, and that is plain unacceptable.''

Feingold vowed to filibuster the bill if it came to the Senate floor in its current form, but conceded that Republicans might be able to get enough votes to cut off debate.

The House and Senate are expected to vote on the bill next week.

While there is little debate from Feingold or anyone else in Congress about the need for police agencies to have enhanced information-gathering powers to thwart terrorism, the Patriot Act has been shadowed by unease about whether there were enough safeguards built in to keep authorities from abusing extraordinary power.

As a hedge against government overreach, lawmakers specified that 16 provisions of the act would expire at the end of the 2005 unless renewed, setting the stage for the current debate.

Initially, the strongest push for reforms came from an unusual coalition of conservatives and liberals who are civil libertarians and dub themselves Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances.

By October, reformers received an unexpected boost from powerful corporate business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, worried about the breadth of government requests for information.

The government consistently has downplayed fears of abuse. In calling for swift passage of the legislation, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Thursday noted that the Patriot Act has a four-year track record and ''people have seen how the Department of Justice has been very responsible in exercising [its] authorities.''

But in late October, The Washington Post reported that the FBI had employed the provisions of the act covering expansive records-gathering to annually issue more than 30,000 specialized subpoenas, or national security letters, seeking information from businesses.

Thursday's compromise version of the Patriot Act did little to allay opponents' concerns.

''It does not require a connection between records secretly sought and a terrorist,'' said Lisa Graves, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. ''We want our federal agents focused on apprehending terrorists and not on innocent Americans.''