Senate Fails To Reauthorize Patriot Act Provisions

PostConsumerRecycled writes "CNN is reporting that 'The Senate on Friday rejected attempts to reauthorize several provisions of the USA Patriot Act as infringing too much on Americans' privacy and liberty, dealing a huge defeat to the Bush administration and Republican leaders ... If a compromise is not reached, the 16 Patriot Act provisions expire on December 31.' The story also links to listing of the provisions that will expire."

Comments

Fails?

[Cheapy]

Why did they fail? I see it as a success in not authoritizing it.

Re:Fails?

[Guuge]

And for those of you praising Democrats and booing Republicans....both Republicans and Democrats voted against this.

Now that's just irresponsible of you. The article states that a whopping FIVE Republicans joined 42 Democrats in the filibuster. Only TWO Democrats voted to end the filibuster. But it gets better! One of those FIVE Republicans is Bill Frist, who changed his vote at the last minute just so he could be voting with the winners.

It may be unpleasant for some, but the truth is that the VAST MAJORITY of Republicans want to extend the Patriot Act and the VAST MAJORITY of Democrats want to end it. You cannot have had an adequate mathematics education if you insist that this vote was not along party lines.

Russ for President in 2008

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Russ for President in 2008

Re:Russ for President in 2008

[orthogonal]

Russ for President in 2008

Amen to that!

It's Russ Feingold, not faux "conservative" George W. Bush or the Republican party, who is upholding the most fundamental traditional American value: our freedom from tyrannical government.

Although I'm something of a liberal, I respected Ronald Reagan because he opposed Soviet tyranny. You remember Soviet Russia, right? Where secret police recorded every conversation, where people were arrested without warrants or habeas corpus, where "enemies of the state" were sent to gulags?

Ronald Reagan, whatever his other faults, was against that. George Dubya does all that: he's spying on Americans, arresting US citizens without giving them access to the courts, and legalized torture. He's even re-opened secret prisons in Eastern Europe.

And under Dubya's watch, we've seen extraordinary government secrecy, political appointees overruling government scientist and legal experts, and pervasive corruption in Washington.

This is the limited government and personal responsibility Conservatism is supposed to be all about?

Let's elect Russ Feingold, the only senator with the presence of mind to vote against the original Patriot Act.

Re:A light in the darkness.

[robson]

Honestly, we can't expect any better conduct from Bush, a president who has been quoted as saying the Constitution is'just a goddamned piece of paper'.

Wasn't that Capitol Hill Blue article highly suspect? When I read it it just didn't sound real; no source is cited, and the quotes were just ridiculously over-the-top.

I'm not defending the President, mind you; I'm just saying we don't need fictional arguments against him when we have plenty of factual ones.

Re:*sigh* done with filibuster threats

[Nasarius]

This is the sort of bullshit that happens when you allow the balance of power between the three branches of government to be degraded by filibusters and the like. They impede the government's ability to do the work it's intended for.

So does a multi-party system. We could have a dictatorship and government would be very efficient indeed.

Filibusters are one of the few tools that prevent a slight majority from ramming through whatever legislation they want. Did you pass high school civics? They are in fact a critical part of checks and balances, or balance of power as you call it.

Re:We don't deserve to win

[laughingcoyote]

Ask suspected terrorists for permission first before we bug them?

Well, that'd be one way to go about it. Of course, you could also ask a judge. There's this thing called a "search warrant". I've heard they even issued a few BEFORE the Patriot Act was passed.

Of course, you do have to bring probable cause that the person is breaking the law or planning to. What a crazy rule that is, huh?

I mean, what do you think would happen if we allowed warrantless searches, really? That they'd decide to skip any kind of trial too, and just lock those suspected of terrorism up in some remote military base? That kind of thing doesn't happen.

Re-frame the debate

[slo_learner]

I'm going to put on my flame retardant suit and fire this one up. The problem is that people want to kill us. In order to protect ourselves, we can simply stop everyone who wants to kill us from succeding (Patriot Act). This works great if there are very few people who want to kill us. If there are too many people who want to kill us then limiting that number becomes crucial.

Unfortunately, this means we have to ask ourselves why people want to kill us. The GWB story is that they are jealous because we are the embodiment of god's will (I'm paraphrasing). Personally, I think it is more closely related to foreign policy especially as it relates to domestic energy policies.

If the notion that we might want to understand why terrorists, and deposed dictators don't like us is too unpatriotic, then I guess we will continue with the same type of policies. Considering that we sold Saddam WMDs and trained and funded Al Qaeda this might be worth a second look.

Word choice

[j00bar]

Does anybody else despise CNN's word choice of "fails" in this headline? The Senate "fails" implies that it is something that should have been done but they were simply unable to achieve. How about a more neutral word, like "declines"? -jag

This is NOT over!!

[peacefinder]

Don't celebrate too soon.

Note that Sen. Frist voted with the majority. He didn't do this because he agreed that the act should expire, but because it will allow him to call a new vote whenever he sees that he can turn the tables. And given his Senate leadership position, that means he can wait until a few people leave chambers and call a quick vote very easily.

This will not be over even if the act does expire... you can expect to see some provisions stealthily wedged into unrelated bills next year. The only way to really end this is to elect a Congress and President that takes civil liberties seriously.

Get on it, people. The 2006 Congressional elections are coming up fast.