House Fails To Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

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."

Comments

Re:Who is Roblimo

[Wyatt Earp]

Roblimo was the editor in chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owns Slashdot, SourceForge.net, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, and ThinkGeek from 2000 to 2008.

He used to post alot of the stories here from about, oh 2000 to '04. And he was/is the interview editor.

Re:good job Republicans!

[AdmiralXyz]

Save your praise: most of the Republicans actually supported extension. It only failed by seven votes, and that because almost every Democrat and some of the Tea Party newcomers opposed it.

Re:good job Republicans!

[Wyatt Earp]

In the last 20 years, a Republican has been President for 10 years (2 years H.W. Bush 1, 8 years G.W. Bush), Republicans controlled the Senate for 10 years and controlled the House for 12 years.

Re:good job Republicans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, it failed because Republicans tried to pass the extension _without debate_, thereby upping the required threshold to 66%.

If they had allowed debate, it would have sailed through as it had much more than 50%. I suspect that this will be the next step (allowing debate).

Re:good job Republicans!

[odd42]

Good job Republicans! Wow, never thought I'd say that.. Well, after being in power for 17 of the last 20 years, it's about time you did something right.

Um... 90% of Repubs voted FOR extending it...! http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll026.xml

Re:good job Republicans!

[besalope]

Here's the vote list:

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll026.xml

Key Stats:

Republicans:
Yea: 210
Nay: 26

Democrats:
Yea: 67
Nay: 122

Republicans killed the bill my ass.

Why are you thanking them? Here are the numbers

[dlenmn]

GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes
DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes

http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26

Re:Why are you thanking them? Here are the numbers

[konohitowa]

Correction:

GOP: 210/26 (y/n) -> 89%
DEM: 67/122 (y-n) -> 32%

His "own party" was neutral on the thing

[SuperKendall]

And meanwhile his own party blocks the effort to extend his powers.

So did Republicans - it would have passed without NO votes from both sides.

This was not a Democratic block at all, it was a bi-partisan block with many people on both sides questioning the extent of the Act.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[Anonymous Coward]

In the best traditions of bipartisanship, both parties want to take away your civil liberties and sell out the middle class to big business. The only difference between the two is which big business group they are puppets for.

Yes, obviously the two parties are basically the same. That's why House Democrats, as a bloc, voted AGAINST renewing the act 122-67, while House Republicans, as a bloc, voted FOR renewing it 277-26.

Re:Minority government

[Third Position]

Well, don't start celebrating yet. This was lost only due to being submitted under a special procedure that require 2/3 majority approval. If it gets resubmitted under the standard procedure requiring only a majority approval, it has more than enough votes to pass.

Unfortunately, I expect this to be a short lived victory.

Re:Hmm.

[d3ac0n]

Well, considering that it was largely the newly minted Tea Party caucus that sunk these three provisions, I'm thinking that a petition from a fringe leftist group probably didn't have much to do with it.

However, if it makes you feel better, you are free to pretend whatever you like.