Senate Proposes Patriot Act Extension

geekylinuxkid writes "Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement Wednesday night to extend expiring and controversial provisions of the Patriot Act for six months. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Republican from Tennessee, announced the agreement from the Senate floor, ending an impasse over the measure." From the article: "Last week, the House voted 251-174 to renew the 16 provisions after striking a compromise that altered some of them. The provisions were set to expire at year's end if not renewed. Controversial measures include those allowing the FBI -- with a court order -- to obtain secret warrants for business, library, medical and other records, and to get a wiretap on every phone a suspect uses." More commentary on the BBC. We reported on last week's failure of the original renewal.

Comments

Re:It will be extended only to a certain extent

[xs650]

Let me translate. The phrase "do the right thing" is conservative talk for bend over and grab your ankles.

PATRIOT act mythology

[the computer guy nex]

The sheer amount of ignorance around the PATRIOT act by liberals is astounding. You do realize that it was passed 98-1 initially?

The USA PATRIOT act does NOT introduce one new power not already available to the government or a DA in some form to Drug Dealers. Flexible roaming wiretaps, "after the fact" search notices, applying wire taps to Internet usage, etc.

Please, do the research and actually read through the entire legislation before making a judgement. I know it isn't the liberal way, but try it once.

Re:Why is a warrant needed?

[jav1231]

First, Bush authorized taps on international calls. There is no wholesale wiretapping of citizens.
Congress authorized Bush to use "all" means. Sounds pretty authoritative to me. And the precident is there for various conditions under which search warrants aren't necessary.
As for the "liar" and "idiot" comments, puhleez...grow up.

Bush/Cheney lie repeatedly!

[wshwe]

Attack Republicans, not Iraq!