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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."
First post.
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
No Assange is no patriot! (What? I don't even know what that means.)
I, for one, welco...oh wait.
If the Stanford Prison Experiment has taught one and only one thing is that given power without oversight always leads to abuse and corruption.
Shh.
So I guess you could call this an...
<Sunglasses>
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Who is Roblimo and why has he posted 10 stories in the span of 5 hours? Not even samzempus posts this often.
I was going to send a comment to my congressman demanding that he vote against this unconstitutional atrocity. Thankfully this didn't pass and hopefully has finally begun to sunset. I can only hope we can someday resurrect the Constitution.
Who will guard the guards?
Ah, the joys of a federal government on the verge of losing power. There is nothing quite like having politicians actually listen to your views.
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.
Isn't this what was supposed to happen in the first place ... and everyone got all uppity because they would never give up those powers ... and here they are ... letting them expire ...
Queue the 200 comments now ranting about how evil the government is and how this is just them taking another set of rights away from us ... even though its them losing that ability.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
I see it as the House succeeding..
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
The bill will be reintroduced and will pass easily, probably with an end to sunset provisions. It's amazing how many erstwhile defenders of the Constitution, like Patrick Leahy, have become rubber stamps-- fig leaves, at best-- for the surveillance state ever since the Patriot Act made wiretapping of important people ubiquitous. Well, it wasn't just since the Patriot Act. It was right around the time US Government anthrax went out to the most liberal members of Congress and Paul Wellstone's plane crashed. Good times.
Hate to put a damper on things, but the only reason this failed was that the Republicans assumed that passage was a fait accompli, so they pushed it in under an expediting procedure that requires a two-thirds vote, and the bill only failed that by 7 votes. All they have to do is reintroduce it under the usual majority vote rule and it will be a done deal.
Though I will admit, for the first time since I became aware of their existence I feel something other than blinding hatred for the Tea Party, who are basically responsible for the Republicans not having enough votes. Looks like some of them really do care about civil liberties, and for that at least they should be congratulated.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/08/AR2011020806345.html?hpid=topnews
Massive debt, an economy on the brink of collapse and all the House Republicans are interested in is repealing health care for the people that couldn't get it, tax breaks for the rich and extending domestic spying/the Patriot Act. How about trying to fix something that's actually broken? When I saw the Republican proposed budget cuts they were all things like education, EPA, NASA and the FBI of all things. Not a single cut was actual fat and none of it affected the rich or corporate America. Remember where their priorities lie next time around.
People were uppity because they should never have had the powers in the beginning.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
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?
For those who thought Obama was going to change the status quo, you should read the provisions the White House wants to keep:
The three expiring Patriot Act provisions are:
â The âoeroving wiretapâ provision allows the FBI to obtain wiretaps from a secret intelligence court, known as the FISA court, without identifying what method of communication is to be tapped.
â The âoelone wolfâ measure allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person for whatever reason â" even without showing that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist. The government has said it has never invoked that provision, but the Obama administration said it wanted to retain the authority to do so.
â The âoebusiness recordsâ provision allows FISA court warrants for any type of record, from banking to library to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation.
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.
And this is coming from a Constituional law professor, by the way. A guy who taught at one of the top Universities in the country - the University of Chicago - and was educated at the top law school in the country. If this is what he thinks the Constitution stands for, we're fucked.
Obama is as much of a disgrace to this country as Bush ever was.
Don't tell me it's just politics. Where would be if everyone - Lincoln, Jefferson, etc. - acted as if it were just politics? Sometimes you got to take a stand. But alas, the sad truth is that Mr. Obama simply does not have the balls.
I will now go back to listening to the Who.
Posting anonymously because that's just what this country has come to.
why is a tv show doctor trying to extend the patriot act?
GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes
DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes
http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26
...I opened it, read it, said they were suckers.
CHANGE!
It is a win, at least on paper. But the fact is that it doesn't stop the spying from happening anyway. As we have been finding out over the last few years about a very common missuse of power by our (US) gov't. That is prohibited by law, even the Patriot Act. It's hard for the police to police the police when they don't even know the police are policing.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They're going to bring the bill back for a vote that only requires a simple majority. It will pass then. This is more of a way for them to sort out the renegades to determine where party dollars go for reelection campaigns.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I love how the party that likes to brand itself as the small-government, free, and libertarian-like group is supporting this, whilst the "socialist" party is much more opposed.
A lesson for Republicans: freedom means more than tax cuts for the ultra-rich.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Unless it's digital. Or something.
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
Obamacare? Wow, two Slashdotters in one!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It might have been deliberate, but NPR segued straight from talking about the (sadly almost certainly temporary) failure to renew the Patriot Act provisions... to discussing protests in Egypt over the decades-old 'emergency provisions' that gave 'sweeping powers to the security services'.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
You're right, I got the rows and columns mixed up. One small thing: 67/(67+122)=35.450%, not 32%.
-Leon
"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."
The more significant point is that starting in 1993, the Democrats had control of the House, Senate and Presidency for two years. Beginning in 2003, the Republicans had their turn for four years. For the first two years of Obama, the Dems had yet another chance.
All I've seen in that time is continuously bigger government, steady erosion of civil liberties, a declining middle class and worldwide U.S. militarism ... In fact, I'm having a damned hard time thinking of any piece of Federal legislation which I deemed to be good policy ...
Both of these parties suck, and anyone that supports them is wasting their vote.
When Dems control Congress and the measure fails: Democrats Defeat Patriot Act Spy Provisions
When Republicans control Congress and the measure passes: Republicans Extend Controversial Spy Provisions
When Republicans control Congress and the measure fails: House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers
When Dems control Congress and the measure passes: (crickets)
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
ADA Amendments Act of 2008 was good policy.
“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.” Benjamin Franklin
This sounds more like an "EPIC WIN" to me.
The Stanford Prison Experiment proves only one thing: If Philip Zimbardo lies in a report about an experiment then it will become Psychology cannon regardless of how many times the results of that experiment has been disproven or how much evidence exists to show that Philip Zimbardo himself influenced the experiment in order to produce the outcome he wanted.
In reality - and as shown by lots of further experimentation - people tend to behave in the manner in which they are expected to behave. Subtle hints are sometimes all that is required. If people perceive that they are expected to abuse power then they will. If people get a clear signal that they are expected to not abuse power then they will be fair and honest. Yes, there are exceptions, as there are with anything having to do with people. However, this tendency has been proven over and over again.
I really, Really, REALLY wish people would stop citing this sham experiment.
"....a constant slashing of education..."
Um, what?
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html
Unless there have been massive changes in the last few years (doubtful), federal education spending has done nothing but go up, up, up over time. It's debatable whether this helps or harms our education system.
Opposition to this crossed party lines - most Democrats and some Republicans voted against it. In the long run it probably won't matter, as the House leadership is going to re-introduce it under different rules that allow for more debate/amendments, but require a simple majority to pass. The votes for that are there, and the Senate is likely to pass it as well.
The same bill is going to be reintroduced under different rules that allow it to be passed with a simple majority. Unless something changes, it's almost certain to be extended.
I'm not sure how you guys keep getting away with saying that the Affordable Care Act is, well, unaffordable. It's simply a fact that the act cuts the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars in it's first 10 years, and by even more in the following 10 years as the reforms continue to take hold. People who claim the opposite are either confused or outright lying.
EOM
So that means, I wont get stripped (virtually) when I go to US? Hm, then I may remove US from my blacklist.
What an utter, complete lie. Total book-cooking of the CBO methodology. Those first-run numbers counted 10 years of taxes, but only 6 years of benefits, and in broad daylight, ignored the "doctor fix" for Medicare. Also counted on Medicare cuts that will never happen. Of course, give the CBO real numbers, and it runs huge deficits. So yeah, refute ever single point I made and then tell me who is confused. And today the CBO says Obamacare will cost 800,000 jobs.
Talk about confused, a new entitlement will cover 30 million new people and save money! LOL! If Medicare - which cost like 10 times what they originally said it would (and only covers 70% of seniors' bills) - it will be a bankrupting boondoggle.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Who's the yahoo that modded this "Troll"???