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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."
It's rather wryly amusing that the event that might have tipped the scales against the renewal of the Patriot Act was Dubya authorizing the unlawful surveillance of American citizens.
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'. Apparently he's forgotten all about that oath he took twice to uphold said 'piece of paper'. Fortunately, it looks like most of the Senate (including a few noteworthy Republicans who crossed the aisle on this one) have a slightly higher regard for the Constitution of the Unites States.
Excellent quote from TFA:
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why did they fail? I see it as a success in not authoritizing it.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
Russ for President in 2008
The New England Patriots have won three superbowls and not lost a playoff game. Now the act is in trouble... and the Pats are banged up, and no one gives them any chances to repeat. Coincidence?
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Holy shit.... The government actually made a decision I agree with.
Pull your head out of your ass, just because there's no mention of Ghz, or null pointers in the article, doesn't mean it's not for nerds.
Much of the Patriot Act has the capability to intefere greatly with your little nerd glass bubble, heard of the phrase "why do you use encryption, unless you've got something to hide."
whether or not you want to accept it, talk of _rights_ is news not just for nerds, but for everybody.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
Nerd, jock, deva, pervert, drama queen... call yourself whatever you want. Your freedoms are never trash.
...that if there is another terrorist attack on U.S. soil near the scale of 9/11, that the pendulum will just swing the other way. We know now how far the government is willing to go to "protect" us, and they'll do it again in a heartbeat.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
don't really like 'Senate Fails To Reauthorize Patriot Act Provisions' would prefer Senate Succeeds in failing To Reauthorize Patriot Act Provisions'
When our officials follow the laws granting them enumerated and limited power, I'll be impressed.
The is no provision for the PATRIOT Act in the Constitution.
Don't believe it is Bush's doing, either. Both parties are equally guilty of violating their oaths to uphold the Constitution.
Wanna be heard? Someone start a oil.slashdot.org.
I'm just annoyed that so many have soiled the heart of Christ's work by wrapping their fear and power-hunger in the trappings of faith and patriotism. And by so doing, ruining the good reputation of the sincere version of both of those.
I rejoice that the growing totalitarianism has been momentarily forestalled. Keep up the good work, ladies and gentlemen of the U. S. Senate.
ps: WTF's a "baptist voice"? We have individual voices, you know. Because we're individuals, right?
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
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.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
It's called a warrant. There is nothing wrong with acquiring a warrant BEFORE you snoop on somebody. The court will make you have a reason. If the suspect gave money to a terrorist org or did something that makes him a suspect, they can get a damn warrant. That system has worked well for the justice system for many, many years now. There is no reason to dump the system just because the president says so.
It would have passed without a fillibuster, but the fillibuster was sustained with 52 votes against (60 are needed to end a fillibuster). Democratic Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin led the fillibuster.
Can't honestly say I know a whole lot about the Patriot Act, but Glenn Reynolds discussed it in his msnbc blog today. He quotes another blog which basically states that only about 1% of the Patriot Act is expiring due to the non-reauthorization. And that futher, much of the reauthorization would have put limits on the egregous non-expiring stuff. So, this is a mixed bag. Not sure if it's a victory or not. It's a symbolic victory, but perhaps not substantial...
"Senate fails To Reauthorize Patriot Act Provisions."
should be named into
Senate rejects to reauthorize Patriot Act Provisions
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
If anything, 6 uses in 4 years should tell you that this wasn't a needed law to begin with. By the way, could you back your claim of 6 uses with a single link?
Nice specious reasoning by the way. I've got a can of elephant repellent for sale of you want.
Blaze a trail to the New World
Regardless of whether the point is to target terrorists, there needs to be some check on the powers. In an unchecked society, we kidnap people off the streets in Germany, rendite (?) them to Afghanistan for several months, where we torture them and then realize it was all a case of mistaken identity, so we drop them off in Albania. The DOD starts keeping tabs on anti-war protestors. The President starts writing executive orders which allow the NSA to spy on American citizens. The "no torture" bill that passes is great, until the military decides to re-write the army field manual and then classify it, so we can't even say what torture is.
All in the name of protecting us from "terrorists"
I can't really call this a success, because the Senate didn't have the guts to actively reject it, but at least it's a start.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
What has happened is that Bush is now a liability to the Republicans. While he could deliver the goods, they were quite willing to be his little lackeys, but now that he's a lame duck whose policies and very person are increasingingly unpopular with the American people, the Republicans are going to attempting to beat the Democrats to the "the President's no friend" position on the political map. Why do you think Frist has become some sort of insta-centrist and nobody is crying a tear over DeLay's troubles? Bush is isolated now, and is going to see what having a non-compliant Congress is really like. It's these sorts of things that will demonstrate just what kind of man you Americans have put in the White House. Thus far, it appears that my dog is a better political leader than Bush is.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In the english language, we use "her" to refer to a subject whom we know to be female. We say "they" or "he" when we do not know the gender or we are being non-specific about the subject.
We only use "they" when the subject is plural. In this case, since "individual" is singular and the pronoun is possessive, we would use "his."
Of course, the original poster could be a feminist, and then the rules of English do not apply.
Bush calls Constitution just a G-ddamned piece of paper
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
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.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Allowing the Patriot Act to lapse is one of the few truly patriotic things this Congress has done.
How did *your* Senator vote?
Please refer me to the portion of the National Security Letter provision that requires a judge's authorization before one is issued.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Yeah, a warrant signed by the FISC, which has never refused to sign off on a single warrant in its history. Read the article and tell me that the FISC is an independent court.
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.
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
When all you have is a hammer, everybody looks like a Messiah.
The 17th amendment puts more power in the hands of the people. Because there are only two per state instead of somewhere between 2 and 50 per state like the house, senators are in the best position to represent states rights (invariably, it's the little guy who needs the most protection). If your senator is not representing state rights, then vote for someone else. If your senator is not representing state rights, and he was appointed by the state, then who could you turn to? By having an appointed official you don't balance anything. The goverment, whether big or small, needs to be all about the people. The state needs to protect the people, the federal needs to protect the people. How do you guarantee protection other than through your votes?
If anything, there needs to be more official positions that are voted for. </offtopic>
The filibuster is an example of political tactic that has evolved. Just because it was initially meant as a measure to protect state rights, can it not also be a measure to protect individual rights (such as used here)?
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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.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Warrantless searches can be extremely useful in many circumstances. Suppose that you're in a position of power and somebody is being a pain in the ass by criticizing you in public or - God forbid - campaigning against you? Chances are they have a skeleton or two in their closet, and you need to be able to find it (or put one there for them) to put them in their place. Or, suppose you have connections in high places and you find out that your daughter is dating some liberal hippie? Surely there's something in his house that'll send him to jail for a couple of years (hopefully sans conjugal visits). Or, maybe you want to buy some poor schmuck's house, and he wants more money than you feel a person of your stature should have to pay. He'll reconsider after he starts finding muddy boot tracks on his bedroom carpet.
But even warrantless searches aren't always enough to shield the Prince from those who would spite him. It would also be Good and Necessary to be able to detain people indefinitely without charge, solely on your own authority and without judicial oversight. But I'm dreaming here - no leader of any free society could ever even suggest such a thing!
I've seen a lot of one sided debates on Slashdot (particularly Microsoft bashing), but I think this one wins hands down. I would dare say that 99% of the people posting haven't actually read the Patriot Act or even its main provisions. They are like sheep following a few ACLU freaks that have no common sense when it comes to balancing security needs against liberties.
Most of the provisions are just common sense loopholes in the old law that should be permanently plugged. For example, roaming wiretaps. So, I can get a warrant to wire-tap a particular phone, regardless of who is using it, but I can't get a warrant to on-the-fly wiretap any phone the suspect happens to pick up. How does that make any sense at all? The Patriot Act plugs this silly problem because technology allows an officer with a warrant to wiretap an individual to immediately tap any phone the suspect picks up within a matter a seconds.
And even then the Patriot Act limits this ability to terrorism investigations. Law enforcement has had this ability for years when dealing with organized crime, but it has been prohibited in other types of investigations. Only a moron would think this provision an assault on civil liberties.
Or how about the provision that allows spy agencies to share intelligence they have discovered with law enforcement agencies. This was a big problem leading up to 9/11, where intelligence agencies had information that would have gave the FBI a fighting chance at preventing the attacks, but by law weren't allowed to share the information. Yeah, I can see how letting the CIA tell the FBI about some terrorist that just entered the country might infringe on my civil liberties....NOT.
The list goes on but I think you get the point. There are certainly some provisions that are a little questionable, but on the whole the Patriot Act makes a lot of sense. I really fail to see how any of these provisions could be construed to reach the level of 'unreasonable searches and seizures". Just more ACLU propoganda run amuck.
If you want a two sided debate, how about somebody post a specific provision of the Patriot Act that they don't like and explain how it personally affects their personal liberties.
I prefer the UK version of this one. Courtesy of the Guardian:
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wrong. Read today's NY Times.
It's in paragraph 36 or 37. The FISC judge resisted wiretaps based on where certain information came from.
But it's still a little spooky that (if I remember correctly) the "New American Century" document that anticipated Bush's Iraq policy included an observation that a catastrophe "on the order of Pearl Harbor" might be necessary to win public support for a prolonged war in the Middle East. Many of the authors of that 1990s paper later played (and still play) key roles in the Bush administration.
IIRC, the "Patriot" Act was voted on by both houses and signed by Bush BEFORE it was returned from the first printing. Most, if not all, of our congress people DID NOT KNOW exactly what they were voting on, but in the hysteria of the moment they allowed themselves to be railroaded by fear.
Hopefully, this unconstitutional abomination of a bill will never resurrect itself. Any congressmen who tries to bring this monstrosity back should be tried for treason. Why do we need to worry about terrorists when gutless politicians do more damage to the Constitution than a bomb ever could?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
An example:
210, 211 allow the government to retrieve non-content information from ISP's including IP address assignments, billing and payment information (including bank account and credit card numbers)
Inform me if I'm wrong, but this applies to everyone reading this post. The gov't can get the account numbers from the credit companies, so why are they obtaining it from ISP's? (of course, this is to identify accomplices who pay for the internet service...but, I'll continue) As a network administrator, I protect my users by limiting the duration network logs are stored. Unfortunately, I cannot do the same with billing and payment information. When the government comes knocking, I have to cough up anything they wish for and they're not required to provide a court order to get it.
217 - provides the ability for the gov't to spy on anyone suspected of computer trespassing. Ever visited a questionable site that redirected to another site that was unavailable? How easy would it be to redirect an unsuspecting user to an access controlled gov't page - thereby implicating them as a computer trespasser. It's easier than you might think.
Have you been spied on by a foreign gov't yet? You'll probably never know because 218 defines that secret searches can now be authorized by a secret court without public knowledge or Department of Justice accountability, so long as the government can allege there is any foreign intelligence basis for the search.
Ooh, I totally skipped 215 that private records aren't private to the gov't. Oh yeah, they can seize them without warrant.
I would hope that these sections don't apply to me. 210 and 211 apply to me, but I resist them as much as possible. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to talk about any gov't entities that requested that information from me. The rest, I would never really know if they apply to me or not, as they gov't isn't required to tell me, or anyone that they've utilized the provisions.
IMHO, the gov't has way overstepped it's boundaries, and has been doing so for decades. If the People don't take control of the gov't, one day, the sheep...er...people will wake up to find they are no longer free. On that day, you'll find me (if you can) living deep in the sticks with my kitty-cat, tinfoil hat and guns.
"Lame" - Galaxar