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House Limits Patriot Act Rules on Library Records
xerid writes "From CNN.COM: "WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Wednesday to block the FBI and the Justice Department from using the Patriot Act to search library and book store records. Despite a veto threat from President Bush, lawmakers voted 238-187 to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.""
You've got it backward, "Those who replace liberty with security deserve neither," and it was Jefferson.
Tea and kung-fu. Life is good. Rising Phoenix
Funny, all the sponsers of this bill are Democrats. Bush has nothing to do with it.
I suspect that this is another joke bill, like the bills to reintroduce the draft that Democrats often submit in place of serious policy proposals.
Democrat Congressmen introduce these silly bills so that their huge moonbat constituency can then have something to fuel their paranoid delusional ravings.
Besides, this isn't the first time this has came up; someone's tried to repeal every amendment, someone's tried to repeal almost every right granted to us by the constitution at some point. It's gotten so far now that people don't even care about their rights, and are being stripped of them anyways by laws that blatently don't check out against it.
This is true...but the great part is every time one of them does it, if you pay attention, you can find out who the real idiots are and try to help end their careers. That's right Reps. Berman (CA), Pallone (NJ), Sabo (MN), Sensenbrenner (WI), and most importantly Hoyer (MD)...we got your names, we got your numbers. We know you are evil. Thanks for giving us the heads-up.
Granted, I don't live in any of those states. But some of you do. And let me catch MY reps voting for this crap should it ever actually come to a vote (which is unlikely).
I'm still voting against anybody who was in office when the Patriot Act passed, no matter what they've done since or what they did before...and no matter who the alternative is. Because a freshman representative or senator is a lot easier to get rid of after their first term (should they suck) than an entrenched incumbent with a few terms under his belt. And we need to fire every joker that voted for that crap on general principles.
I have read the Patriot Act and it says nothing specific about Libraries. It says a LOT about searching ANY records of small entities. This could included libraries, video rental, and even dry cleaning.
All in secret.
Come the revolution, the Bourgeois, Capitalistic, "A PARKING STICKER HOLDERS", will be first against the wall!
And here are the contents:
It's got nothing to do with Bush. He wouldn't even get to use it. Bloody hell, talk about scaremongering.
stuff
Not everyone. My Representative, John Lewis (Georgia 5th district), has his head screwed on straight. He voted against the PATRIOT Act, and I've been watching him (via his Plogress feed) come down on the right side of every major issue.
I'm sure there are others like him. Don't throw out any babies with the bath water.
I'm replying to myself, but here's a good Wiki quote about it:
"Under PAT 224, several of the surveillance portions (200 level sections) of the PATRIOT Act will expire on December 31, 2005. In a June 9, 2005 speech, President George W. Bush called upon Congress to permanently renew these sections.
It is important to note that this sunset provision excludes investigations that began before the expiration date. Those investigations may continue with the original PATRIOT Act's full powers."
So yeah, some stuff expires. But apparently not all of it. It's a damn confusing act. Which is one of it's biggest problems.
I suspected the article of half-truth when it referred to the USA PATRIOT Act as an "Anti-Terrorism Act". It takes about 2 minutes of reading the USA PATRIOT Act on Wikipedia to realize that terrorism is only a small part of it. So, I went to house.gov and did a little research.
The bill that it is referring to is:
An amendment numbered 15 printed in the Congressional Record to prohibit funds in the bill from being used to implement provisions of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act which permits searches of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
There are some key points to mention here. First, this is limiting a section of FISA, which was absorbed by the USA PATRIOT Act. FISA was passed in 1978. So, all that stuff in the article about the "terrorism bill" being passed in 2001 is garbage. This is referring to a law passed in 1978.
Second, this isn't ammending FISA or the USA PATRIOT Act. This is ammending a funding bill to ensure that the funds provided by the bill cannot be used by this one section of FISA. So, it is still legal, you just can't use those special funds for it.
Third, who is paying this writer to write articles designed specifically to fan the anti-patriot act flames? If he had written what the vote was really about, it would have been news. As it is, it is propoganda.
The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
Republican Representatives vote against Patriot Act.
Read the vote results.
To put it simply, 186 Republicans voted in favor of the Patriot Act, with only 38 voting against. 199 Democrats voted against the Patriot Act, with only one in favor. 83% of Republicans voted pro-Patriot Act. 99.5% of Democrats voted anti-patriot act.
Must reach Slashdot Liberal spinner
The reason you perceive an anti-Republican sentiment is that most people have correctly concluded that legislation like the Patriot Act is supported strongly and almost exclusively by Republicans.
It's all on house.gov.
Voting record for roll call 258.
Description of The Sanders Amendment:
An amendment numbered 15 printed in the Congressional Record to prohibit funds in the bill from being used to implement provisions of Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act which permits searches of library circulation records, library patron lists, book sales records, or book customer lists under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Vader is Dutch for "father."
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
National Security Letters were not created by the PATRIOT Act, neither were sneak and peak warrants. Some techinicalities of their operation (like expanding pen registers to include email headers instead of just phone numbers) were changed by the PATRIOT Act, but these legitimate tools have been around for a long time.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
The only thing more annoying than a Libertarian is an (un|mis)informed Libertarian