Patriot Act renewal? What Patriot Act renewal?
“Shhh! Shhh! It’s oh so quiet, Shh! Shhh!,” as Bjork would sing.
Last night, the House reauthorized key provisions of the Patriot Act while national attention was focused on Demcare Theater. But it’s still Kick the Can. Via Politico:
After a wave of news about attempted domestic terror attacks, Democrats facing a tough election year quietly voted this week to extend the Patriot Act legislation that many of them had decried under former President George W. Bush.
The House passed a one-year reauthorization of the Patriot Act Thursday night 315-97, just a day after the Senate moved the bill on a late-evening unanimous voice vote.
With the law facing a sunset date of Feb. 28, the Senate opted to vote for the extension of three crucial provisions of the act rather than opening debate on a revised bipartisan plan passed by the Judiciary Committee in October that would have imposed stricter privacy safeguards.
“In the end, it became non-controversial,” Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told POLITICO. “[There was] the growing concern about increase on the pace of attacks on the homeland… and frankly, I think the Patriot [Act] got a bad name under the Bush Administration.”
As I noted the other day, the Dems need to keep the grievance-mongers at bay while putting on a mask of homeland security toughness.
Andy McCarthy gives a shout-out to the Republicans in Congress who have remained true and vigilant on the issue:
…kudos go not just to Pete King but to others, including Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who worked diligently to get Patriot re-authorized. Sen. Sessions put out this statement last night:
The PATRIOT Act is a bipartisan bill that has helped save countless lives by equipping our national security community with the tools it needs to keep America safe. Recent terror attacks, such as those at Ft. Hood and on Christmas Day, demonstrate just how severe of a threat we are facing. There is simply no reason to weaken the PATRIOT Act—and every reason not to. This extension keeps PATRIOT’s security measures in place and demonstrates that there is a growing recognition that these crucial provisions must be preserved. We are now one step closer to what is needed: a full, long-term reauthorization.Sen. Sessions, it should be noted, tried along with Senators Kit Bond (R-MO) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) to get Patriot reauthorized for four years. In the event, it was only reauthorized for one. Obviously, Democrats decided the timing was bad now, but they’ll be back yet again next year to try to gut the contested provisions.
That goes to show just how lunatic they are on security issues. To sensible people, there is absolutely nothing objectionable about the three Patriot powers in question. One is roving wiretaps, which criminal investigators have been using for years so that they don’t need to get a new court order every time a suspect changes phones. Another is the business records provision — the Left sometimes calls it the “library records” provision even though library records are not mentioned in it — which simply allows national-security agents to collect information on terrorist suspects almost (but not quite) as easily as criminal investigators can. And finally, there is the “lone wolf” law (not part of the original Patriot Act but now tied to it), which allows agents to go after someone as to whom the evidence that he is a terrorist is strong but the evidence that he is tied to a known terrorist organization is weak.
You may ask: Why should there be any time-limits on the operation of these laws? Wouldn’t we always want our agents to be able to do these things — a year from now, four years from now, or a hundred years from now? Good questions.
See also Ed Morrissey:
Republicans have mostly supported this bill because they believe it a necessary tool for counterintelligence and counterterrorism. Democrats mainly opposed it as a way to rally political opposition to Bush and the Republicans. Now that they’re in charge and responsible for preventing attacks, that Patriot Act looks pretty darned good to most of them.
Shhh! Shhh! It’s oh so quiet…
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This will get the nut jobs undies in a wad with this renewal. Thanks R’s for your help.
L
Didn’t Biden already say Bush’s Iraq War was Obama’s greatest accomplishment?
Isn’t it amazing that for all the political mileage they get out of blaming Bush for everything (even made up problems), they want to campaign on them as election winners.
Darn straight!
Why make common sense laws permanent when you can build in the opportunity to make some periodic political points?
Duh. /s
Maybe now, the CIA can keep on tracking the ice floes at the North Pole and Antartica watching for a stealth attack by Global Warming.
New graph out using newly found data to support the “hockey stick”. They thought the data had been lost but thankfully it’s been found.
Primarily because it is his only accomplishment. And that only happened because the approach has been to stay on the prior plan and ride the wave.
Something is wrong here. This would mean that during the Bush years, the democrats played politics with our nation’s security. No, that can’t be right. Where are our liberal friends to set things straight on this?
I don’t think the timing is going to improve for them next year, either.
Obowmao (channeling Elmer Fudd): Be vewy vewy qwiet. Shhh Hehehehehehehehe!
We shouldn’t have to put up with this crap. Obama and Holder are not for America. They are against America. They should be in jail for what they are doing to our security.
The Patriot Act should be cleaned up and passed, so as to not require authorization repeatedly. Yep, debate all the provisions, add, subtract, whatever but do it once and for all.
It was originally passed with a sunset provision for a reason. There has been enough time to address issues of concern. Congress do your job.
Look zzyzyg, you continue being the voice of reason like this, I’m afraid you’ll have turn in your flair and troll uniform.
I hope everybody has been enjoying the warmest January on record!
I hope everybody realizes that the Toyota accelerator problems started during the Bush administration.
BWAAAAAAAhaaaaaaaaa
Patriot Act?
The same Patriot Act the Donks decried as evil?
Hypocrites indeed.
Yet another reason we should have fought W on this one. Sadly, I was on the boat at the time, and have to accept some of the blame for this dog passing in the first place.
RWR
http://www.rightwingrocker.com
But, I look so phabulous in sequins and satin. LOL.
Maybe y’all can answer a question for me. I decided to look at the Library of Congress roll call vote – primarily to make sure that our resident (D)oofus Representative didn’t vote against this (he didn’t), but then I got curious about who did vote against it. Some of the usual suspects… BUT, SanFranNan isn’t on the list. Neither is Babs. What’s up with that? Aren’t you either “Yay,” “Nay,” or “Not Voting?”
Wow. I agree with zyzzyg. Or, should I say, zyzzyg agrees with me/us?
Great news!
On February 26th, 2010 at 10:12 am, Ed Morrissey said:
I believe the Patriot Act does more harm than good, but I haven’t read it, and I don’t think that many of the Members of Congress have read it all, either. I’d really like to know who wrote the original bill… it is like the Porkulous and Health Care bill in that Members of Congress didn’t have time to read it before they voted on it.
And if they didnt’ have time to read it, then who had the time to write it? (It takes longer to write a bill than it does to read a bill)
My concern is that it appears to have been written in advance, and 9/11 provided the opportunity to pass it quickly without much review.
And for all we know, it could have been written by progressives at the Apollo alliance, just like the Porkulous.
There has been time to review it in the last 8+ years. Are there things in it that could be used by a malicious administration against the American people?
What if Tea Party activists are one day officially labelled as “terrorists”? Would the Patriot Act be used against us?
I meant to say that I believe the Patriot Act does more good than harm, but I still have my reservations about trading liberty for “security”.
I’m indifferent on the Patriot Act.
However, the “countless” lives saved is ludicrous. Since 9/11, the only terrorists arrested were morons. One guy tried and failed to light up his shoe and one tried and failed to light up his underwear. That’s pretty much the extent of airplane attacks. We had a group of people consider trying to blow up underground fuel storage tanks at an airport after the FBI conned them into it. The only act even remotely successful was a lone gunman on a military base. That’s not terrorism any more than the Columbine attack was terrorism.
In the meantime, we’re still harassing anyone with a camera. We’re feeling up grannies and 4 year olds at the airport while the people with full access to the underbelly of the plane and all of the luggage aren’t even looked at. Anytime an alarm goes off at an airport, the terminal gets cleared out, law abiding passengers are delayed for hours, and many miss flights to satisfy our MSM driven paranoia.
We don’t even have to have a real terrorist anymore. Someone left a note on an airplane and the flight was diverted and all of the passengers treated like criminals for hours.
At some point, we have to drive sanity back into the system and stop wasting so much taxpayer money chasing phantasms.
OH, you probably agree with me more often than not. LOL.
On February 26th, 2010 at 3:57 pm, battleaxe said:
Interesting perspective…I agree with much of it.
BTW, who named you after my mother-in-law?
This borders on treason! Not what is best for our country, not even stand up for your principals but rather save my a$$ at election.. If it was an off election year then sabotaging the country and making its’ defenses weaker is on the menu.
Easy to say when both feet are planted firmly on Mother Earth but sitting in a plane at 35,000 feet and some guy with his underwear on fire might give you a different perspective.
Are you implying that Democrats have gone to sleep?
Maybe we should wake them so they can lurch back into their hate rants … Just yell — Bush!!!!
Hey at least our library cards are safe, right?