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House Fails To Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

Posted by Roblimo on from the patriotism-versus-freedom-chapter-85,672 dept.

schwit1 writes "The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public. The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act's broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013."

9 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Hmm. by arun84h · · Score: 2, Funny

    I, for one, welco...oh wait.

    1. Re:Hmm. by JonahsDad · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd like to thank everyone else's congressmen (and congresswomen) for not passing my congressman's bill. I try to vote him out of office every two years, but I always fail.

  2. Re:Read it and weep: by lul_wat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Also seeing as I'm about to get modded down .. I just watched Canadian Bacon for the first time, a film from 1995. In one scene the US President is receiving ideas about what should replace the Cold War. Someone suggests Terrorism and he laughs it off saying that no one would fall for it.

    --
    Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
  3. Re:*cough* by bertoelcon · · Score: 1, Funny

    So I guess you could call this an...

    <Sunglasses>

    ...Epic Fail.

    YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!

    FTFY.

    --
    Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
  4. Re:good job Republicans! by Doug+Neal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Something about stopped clocks...

  5. Erudite comment by nickovs · · Score: 2, Funny

    Normally I try to only post astute, informative and insightful (and karma-whoring comments), but in this case all I have to say is:
    "Woo-whoo! Excellent!".

    --
    If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
  6. Re:Good. by fishexe · · Score: 4, Funny

    If the Stanford Prison Experiment has taught one and only one thing is that given power without oversight always leads to abuse and corruption.

    No, it didn't teach that. It taught that it might -- it's just one instance.

    What are you saying, that a sample size of one isn't enough to go on when drawing universal generalizations? Preposterous!

    --
    "I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
  7. Re:Who is Roblimo by Jello+B. · · Score: 4, Funny

    could you please tell the other editors to post better

  8. Yay, no big government in my life, uh, until... by unassimilatible · · Score: 1, Funny

    my employer is mean to me when I post derogatory things about him on Facebook. Then I want my Big Government Mommy to come in and save me!

    Small government for me, big government for you!

    --
    Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you