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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."
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
A bill sponsored by 3 Republicans fail, and they get the credit? Does anyone have a link to the full roll call?
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.
But they didn't, they tried to pass it...
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people -u4ya
But who cares who it was as long as it dies.
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.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
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.
and this too
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
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).
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.
Something about stopped clocks...
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.
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
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
They weren't listening. They just realized that there was no need to have the Patriot Act in order to engage in the activities they justified under the Patriot Act.
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?
There was no vote. It hasn't even made it out of committee.
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.
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.
Nevermind, some sites are just not updated yet. Even Thomas still shows it in committee still, but apparently there was a vote a few hours ago.
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll026.xml
GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes
DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes
http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26
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.
Democrats did better in this case, but don't give them too much credit. "Almost every" in my mind means 90-99%. Republicans overwhelmingly supported it, but so did 35% of democrats. I just want to point out that if each party had half the house and 1/3 of democrats supports a bill: 1/2 + 1/3*1/2 = 2/3 (enough to pass). The bill only lost by rounding error.
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.
They wanted the act extended. They introduced it in the first place.
Doing something right, in this case, means failing at doing something evil. Their redeeming feature is incompetence.
Hey, if those 26 had voted the other way, it would have scraped through. The Republicans were only 90% evil! Yay Republicans!
10% of Republicans not being total asshats for once is refreshing news, and probably merits a "good job".
A bill sponsored by 3 Republicans fail, and they get the credit? Does anyone have a link to the full roll call?
Yeah, 'cuz Democrats are always the party of Big Government. I am now going to insert my fingers into my ears and shout repeatedly so that I can't hear you tell me about any evidence to the contrary. Good day.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
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
There will be no "debate". Only some dramatic pontificating for C-span, and then it will pass with little fanfare. And the people will sheepishly accept it as necessary..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Actually, I'm retired and just helping out a little when others are taking breaks/vacations or are out sick.
- Robin
Remind me again, which party stands on the side of liberty?
The Libertarian Party.
could you please tell the other editors to post better
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.
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
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.
Almost a third of the democrats that voted voted to pass this bill and the president wanted it passed as well. So while the democrats did a better job voting against it, it was not even close to "almost every Democrat" opposing it.
I am curious how the people the tea party replaced voted last year. Would this had passed without them?
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
Try the last 35 years.
I don't make distinctions between the two parties anymore. Sure Democrats are cool with abortion and Republicans usually aren't. Sure Republicans usually favor gun rights whereas Democrats usually want to restrict them. But honestly, on the stuff that really matters the parties both do the same thing. Tax and spend, cut the budget by X billions and pat themselves on the back, meanwhile we have a deficit measured in TRILLIONS.
The parties differ on petty social issues, but they behave rather unified when it comes to destroying the constitution and violating our rights. How does net neutrality or an internet kill switch matter when the government has unconstitutionally seized power it wasn't granted and then used that power to imprison citizens without a trial? The social issues have become a distraction, we get all caught up over abortion while government hordes more and more power. Heck, we give the government more power to legislate our opinions into law!
At this point I vote for people, regardless of their party, based on two things. 1) Gun rights - our last line of defense against a government run amok. 2) Smaller Government - If the candidate has ever created a new government department he/she is out. If he/she has a record of cutting government size and spending, I'll give my vote. Though I must admit I often chose the "lesser of two evils."