The Bush administration’s urgent quest for new anti-terrorism laws bogged down in Congress yesterday as lawmakers from both parties expressed concern that the hastily prepared package could greatly expand police powers at the expense of privacy and other civil liberties. At a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, skeptical members confronted Attorney General John Ashcroft and other senior Justice Department officials on a number of administration proposals, including one that would permit the indefinite detention, without trial, of immigrants suspected of ties to terrorist groups. They also said the administration is trying to force the package through Congress without giving lawmakers time to adequately digest proposals that could have serious unforeseen consequences for rights that Americans now take for granted. Right-wing Congressmember Bob Barr, the conservative Georgia Republican, asked, “Why is it necessary to rush this through? Does it have anything to do with the fact the department has sought many of these authorities on numerous other occasions, has been unsuccessful in obtaining them, and now seeks to take advantage of what is obviously an emergency situation to obtain authorities that it has been unable to obtain previously?” At the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, meanwhile, Ashcroft’s proposed expansion of a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which governs wiretapping of non-Americans inside the United States, ran into trouble not only with the Democrats and civil liberties advocates, but also with at least one Republican member of Congress.