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U.S. House Votes to Extend Patriot Act
Rick Zeman writes "In the wake of today's 4 dud bombings in London, the U.S. House has voted to extend the Patriot Act by a vote of 257-171. This includes 10-year extensions to the two other provisions set to expire on December 31, one allowing roving wiretaps, and another allowing searches of library and medical records."
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." -Adolph Hitler
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. " -Benjamin Franklin
Before he was elected, Bush was actually quoted as saying that he believed the American people had too much freedom.
Terrorism is just being used as an excuse for Bush to remove everyones rights.
Why extend them?
Or to ask it in a more direct manner, exactly what terrorist activities have these bills stopped since they were enacted? Any?
What's the benefit? How has the Patriot act helped us so far?
Has it done any good at all yet - or is it just rights erosion for the expediency of law enforcement?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
During the committee negotiations in the House of Representatives, one Democrat attempted to append an amendment to this Police Act that explicitly stated that the Act did not in any way suspend Habeas Corpus. That foundation of American justice was claimed by opponents to be threatened by the Act, which threat was denied by its supporters. So why did Republicans vote down that simple amendment? It surely would have saved a lot of time and money in any case where a judge had to decide whether, in fact, the Act did violate the Habeas Corpus principle. What does this Act therefore really mean, once the dross of rhetoric that ushers it through the process is lost in the sands of history?
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make install -not war
The problem is...by this law, we may never hear about such a case. How can we complain about (and mention) specific abuses when we have NO proof of such incidents taking place?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I have a mousepad with "smash head here" written on it. But, seriously...
One of Osama's stated goals is to destroy, through holy war, America (the Great Satan). One of the things that made us great was our Constitution, that great document which protects our freedoms. Yet here goes the House of Representatives, doing exactly what bin Laden wants: Taking away our freedom. In fact, doing the one thing that Osama can never do. The only question I really want answered is, "House of Representatives: Who the heck are you representing?" Because I don't believe that the majority of America, let alone 60% of us, want the government to be able to get search warrants without a judge's consent. To force us to keep quiet about a search. To invade the privacy of our medical and library records.
And I don't want to hear any BS about 'it will only be used on/against terrorists.' This government, like any other, has abused/abuses almost every power it was ever given. And you think they'll pass up something as juicy, and so easy, and so incredibly tempting to abuse as this? Look at RICO. It was passed so the cops could bust meetings of mobsters. Now it's routinely used against groups of garden-variety criminals.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." -- H L Mencken. Terrorism is a complex problem. We have to pull off a considerable juggling act: We have to try and defend ourselves against terrorists. We also have to make sure that we have a nation that is free and worth defending when we're done. We have to find and assauge the root cause of the hatred, because as Vietnam and now Iraq have demonstrated, superior technology can't defeat a foe with the power of conviction in his beliefs. And we have to reign in our collective ego, and not be too proud to admit that Iraq is a lost cause and that we should leave. And so far, our government is only keeping one ball in the air. The "Patriot" act is an answer that is clear, simple, and dead wrong.
"If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." -- James Madison
"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives." -- Abba Eban.
"Most Democrats echoed that support but said they were concerned the law could allow citizens' civil liberties to be infringed." translate(BS, ENGLISH) == "The 43 Democrats who voted in favor secretly oppose it but have no spine or willpower to say so."
"While the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism initiatives have helped avert additional attacks on our soil, the threat has not receded," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Of course not, dumbass. The threat will not recede until we (the Infidels) remove our troops from the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia) because that's exactly what Osama expicitly stated! But America won't do that and we all know why.
"The House debate included frequent references to the attacks earlier in the day, two weeks after larger London blasts that killed 56, including four suicide bombers." Hmmm... could it be that THIS is what the London blasts were about?
Ugh... I am disgusted with this government beyond words.
The scary thing is that they're out there watching our government's reaction, gloating, and planning their next wave of attacks to see what sort of reactionary fascism they can goad our government into next. Not only did the terrorists win, but our government keeps encouraging them by doing exactly what they want---whittling away the freedoms of the United States through the politics of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, all in the name of combatting terrorism.
PATROIT act tactics have not worked in Britain against the IRA, or in Israel against various terror groups. They won't work in the United States, either. Unfortunately, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and I fear that the American public does not learn from history. If that is the case, may God help us all.
In any case, congratulations, Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, et al. Never in the history of the world has anyone caved to terrorism so thoroughly and completely as the United States in the wake of 9/11. You should all be ashamed, and more to the point, you should all be impeached.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
When the PATRIOT Act was first proposed a lot of people - myself included - saw it for what it was after momentarily putting aside the shock and unreal horror of 9/11.
Thus, the following exchange occurred many times with many different people.
Me: "So you're saying that you think this whole thing might be a bad idea in the long run?"
Them: "Yeah, but don't worry, everything sunsets in five years. The bill will expire and by that point the threat will have diminished to the point where it won't be needed any longer. Chill man. Stop being a Chicken Little about things."
Me: "Don't you realize that once the government gets more power that they are very unlikely to ever give it up again? Do you understand how many times this sort of thing has happened, where temporary measures such as taxes to fund wars, emergency powers and the like end up going on forever?
Them: "You have to wake up to this post -9/11 world we live in now. Things are different, we have to win this war on terrorism!"
Me: "How do you win a war against a tactic? Terrorism is here to stay, and if you let this bill come into law then it will be here to stay. There is zero doubt that reason will be found to keep it and use it as justification for further restrictive bills. Once the ball is rolling on this, it will be more or less impossible to stop."
Them: "Not more of that liberal alarmist BS..."
I had that conversation about 50,000 times, I'm sure many of you did as well. The cliche of a "slippery slope" is a cliche because it so often proves to be true. The PATRIOT Act was never going to expire and never will. Terrorism is too nebulous of a threat to ever go away. It can be brought out indefinitely to justify the permanence of such legislation, regardless of wether it is a truly valuable tool and one that respects the rights of all those who fall under its jurisdiction.
The rumblings of what comes after the PATRIOT Act have been a troubling sight on the horizon for the past few years now. Drafts have been circulated on Capitol Hill. They contain such provisions as being stripped of your natural-born citizenship by executive order upon being deemed an "enemy combatant" and various other items that you can read up on at non-tinfoil sites out there.
I'm not gloating that I was proved right. I'm depressed. I wanted little more than to see 2005 close with the likes of the PATRIOT Act in the rearview. To wake up from the nightmare that we've all descended into. The nightmare that is the kind of world we saw dawn on a September morning almost 4 years ago. Sheer unimaginable brutality delivered by surprise along the sense that worse was yet to come at some point, while we were forced to watch those we had entrusted with our safety play politics with it and make the power grabs that we have always dismissed as fantasies of lunatics on the fringes of society.
The actions of Al-Queda and governments around the world in response, were both examples of dramatic and unexpected reactions to external influences. Hoping that they were an aberration proved to be futile. They are now the new norm.
I think at this time the only thing that I can really say is that when the government pushes more legislation and word starts getting around about a new bill coming through the pipe, do not dismiss it with the usual "It will never get out of committee" or the equally as overused "It will never pass."
If by now, you haven't learned to grasp that you need to expect the unexpected, then the next 5 years look like they will be quite a ride for you.
Never mind that guy. We have our own garbage to deal with. Look at Earnst Zundel. He's been in jail for over two years without standing trial.
We're no better than America, make no mistake about it. We have a dark, tainted history of our own to contend with.
Not that I'm ashamed to be Canadian, but some of our past and present is to be ashamed about.
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Adolf Hitler and Hermann Göring arrived soon after, and when they were shown Van der Lubbe, a known Communist agitator, Göring immediately declared the fire was set by the Communists and had the party leaders arrested. Hitler took advantage of the situation to declare a state of emergency and encouraged aging president Paul von Hindenburg to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree, abolishing most of the human rights provisions of the 1919 Weimar Republic constitution.
I think this strangely appropriate. Ideologies, not countries, always seems to be the common threat under which liberties are stolen by states.
I wrote about this a while ago. Here's the text:
"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Ever heard that one? I work in information security, so I have heard it more than my fair share. I've always hated that reasoning, because I am a little bit paranoid by nature, something which serves me very well in my profession. So my standard response to people who have asked that question near me has been "because I'm paranoid." But that doesn't usually help, since most people who would ask that question see paranoia as a bad thing to begin with. So for a long time I've been trying to come up with a valid, reasoned, and intelligent answer which shoots the holes in the flawed logic that need to be there.
And someone unknowingly provided me with just that answer today. In a conversation about hunting, somebody posted this about prey animals and hunters:
"Yeah! Hunters don't kill the *innocent* animals - they look for the shifty-eyed ones that are probably the criminal element of their species!"
but in a brilliant (and very funny) retort, someone else said:
"If the're not guilty, why are they running?"
Suddenly it made sense, that nagging thing in the back of my head. The logical reason why a reasonable dose of paranoia is healthy. Because it's one thing to be afraid of the TRUTH. People who commit murder or otherwise deprive others of their Natural Rights are afraid of the TRUTH, because it is the light of TRUTH that will help bring them to justice.
But it's another thing entirely to be afraid of hunters. And all too often, the hunters are the ones proclaiming to be looking for TRUTH. But they are more concerned with removing any obstactles to finding the TRUTH, even when that means bulldozing over people's rights (the right to privacy, the right to anonymity) in their quest for it. And sadly, these people often cannot tell the difference between the appearance of TRUTH and TRUTH itself. And these, the ones who are so convinced they have found the TRUTH that they stop looking for it, are some of the worst oppressors of Natural Rights the world has ever known.
They are the hunters, and it is right and good for the prey to be afraid of the hunters, and to run away from them. Do not be fooled when a hunter says "why are you running from me if you have nothing to hide?" Because having something to hide is not the only reason to be hiding something.
I'd really like to just mod up what's already been said so far, but lacking mod points I'll just reiterate what others have mentioned:
It's incredibly good. Even though it's not trying to be bullet-proof the whole time, that doesn't make those points any less valid.
EVERYONE should see it, and at the very least THINK about what it presents. I personally think it's amazingly accurate and expounds upon a lot of what I've had going through my mind lately.
Burn CDs/DVDs of it and give them to your friends.
~Lake