KEVIN B. KLAUS/Arizona Daily Wildcat U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., made a stop at the UA College of Law yesterday to speak to about 80 students on how the Patriot Act should be made permanent. After speaking at the College of Law, Kyl went to the University Marriot, where he spoke to students about the United States and terrorism.

Lawmakers must make the Patriot Act permanent if they want to fight terrorism effectively, Republican Senator Jon Kyl told an audience of about 80 people at the James E. Rogers College of Law yesterday.

Many of the act's provisions simply extend current laws, like allowing government seizure of business documents in pursuit of drug smugglers, so there's little reason why they shouldn't be permanently enacted, he said.

"In effect, we added 'and terrorism' to those laws," Kyl said.

The Patriot Act also needs to give the government more freedom to conduct searches on

suspected terrorists even if they can't be connected to a specific organization, Kyl said.

Such a rule would prevent "lone-wolf terrorists," he said.

Since the act's passage, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have been able to communicate much more freely, he said, a possibility that was only made legal under the Patriot Act.

"They were precluded from that by the law," he said.

The Patriot Act was passed in October 2001 to give the government wider power to investigate potential terror suspects. Since then, it has come under fire from critics who say it infringes on peoples' civil liberties.

In his wide-ranging talk yesterday, Kyl also decried governments that knowingly allow crimes to be committed, saying they undermine the rule of law.

He pointed to cities that build shelters for day laborers, many of whom have entered the country illegally, as institutions that foster disrespect for the rule of law.

"I can't imagine anybody interested in the law to (accept) that society exists with this kind of cheating going on," he said.

President Bush's recent proposal to create a program that would offer immigrants a chance to work in the United States is a good first step in solving the nation's immigration problem, Kyl said. But he warned that unless people are sure the government will enforce the law, they won't back it.

"I'm glad the president finally put the issue on the table," he said.

Kyl, who earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the UA, also told the law students in attendance that he realized during law school how much he valued public service.

"It was in law school where I ... became convinced that it was important to give back to society," he said.

Though Kyl discussed controversial issues, one student who attended said he didn't think the speech was overly political.

"People didn't ask very political questions and he didn't go into very political areas," said third-year law student Jonpaul Barrabee.

But another student said she thought Kyl was too vague, especially with his thoughts on how he would revise the Patriot Act.

"He didn't really say what he was going to do except that he didn't want to sunset it," said economics freshman Rhonda Tubbs.

About 80 people, including law students and community members, attended the speech, which was co-sponsored by the College of Law and the Federalist Society.