Passage of the Safe Act would restore much-needed checks and balances and ensure the Patriot Act would be used solely in terrorism cases, said Dani Eyer, executive director of the ACLU of Utah. As it now stands, she said, the act's powers can be used in all types of government investigations.

"Utahns have a strong tradition of skepticism for governmental power, especially surveillance power," Eyer said, citing the state's recent extraction from MATRIX, a nationwide data-sharing program intended to help fight terror- ism.

Additional concerns, voiced by both former assistant Utah attorney general Frank Mylar and Bruce Cohne, of the Utah Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, included fear of how the act would be used under future presidential administrations. The law could conceivably make terrorists out of outspoken members of pro-life organizations or gun-rights advocates, Cohne said.

Despite the criticism, top law enforcers testified Wednesday the Patriot Act offers necessary tools to safeguard American citizens.

Comey said the act has made Americans "immeasurably safer" by removing communication barriers between intelligence gatherers and criminal investigators. Further, he said, the legislation has extended for wider use tools available for decades in fighting organized crime, pornography and the war on drugs.

"When you know how I'm using this, you're going to want me to have these tools," Comey said.

U.S. Attorney for Utah Paul Warner noted that the potential for abuses under the act are lowered by close monitoring by the U.S. Department of Justice, Congress and the courts.

"I am personally much more fearful of unchecked terrorism in America, for a lack of tools to fight it, than I fear the potential abuse of the law by federal agents and prosecutors we have entrusted with these tools," Warner said.

Unless reauthorized by Congress, portions of the Patriot Act will expire in October 2005. Such a move, Department of Public Safety Commissioner Robert Flowers said, would be detrimental.

"I understand the debate. It's a good one and it needs to be heard," he said. "But if the Patriot Act is not reinstated, I can't imagine what would happen to us."

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E-mail: awelling@desnews.com