WASHINGTON (AP)

The White House is expressing disappointment in Egypt's decision to extend a controversial emergency law for two years and is calling for it to be replaced with a counterterrorism measure that would protect Egyptian civil liberties.

"We believe Egypt missed an opportunity today to signal its embrace of ... universal values to the rest of the world, and we again urge the Egyptian government to move quickly to fulfill the previous promises it has made to its citizens," Robert Gibbs, President Barack Obama's press secretary, said in a statement.

Opponents of the law say it has been used to silence critics of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

In place since 1981, the law gives the Egyptian police broad powers to arrest people and to hold them indefinitely without charge. Egypt has said it would only use the law in counterterrorism and counternarcotics cases, but human rights activists have warned that the law will continue to be used to suppress dissent.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also criticized the extension of a "state of emergency" in Egypt. A statement issued in Clinton's name said the extension ignored "a broad range of Egyptian voices" seeking an end to the emergency. Critics of the declaration charge that it's used by the government to suppress dissent.

Clinton welcomed a suggestion in the Egyptian statement that the government would work to enact counterterrorism legislation to allow lifting of the state of emergency.

That "would be a step forward if it means greater protection of civil liberties for Egyptian citizens in practice," she said.

Successive U.S. administrations have in varying degrees urged Egypt, a U.S. ally in the Middle East, to improve its human rights record.