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Congress Makes Deal To Renew Patriot Act For 4 Years
airfoobar writes "A four-year extension to the highly controversial Patriot Act is set to be rushed through in the coming week." Techdirt has its usual trenchant critique. I hope it's not unpatriotic to raise doubts about "one of the critical tools the intelligence community has to keep America safe."
Of Tyranny.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
So when do we get to question the necessity of this thing? The war in Iraq has been over for awhile (more or less, in theory, not that that had anything to do with the origins of the Patriot Act anyways) and now Osama bin Laden is dead. I realize that the government would like to keep it in effect forever just because of the power it grants them, but shouldn't they at least have to come up with some kind of new excuse by now?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
- http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169254&cid=14107454
It's only unpatriotic if you don't stand up while your country slowly degrades.
SUVs kill many more Americans every year than died in the September 11 attacks. And yet we are willing to sacrifice our freedoms to ostensibly prevent terror but are not willing or wanting to do anything to prevent those monstrosities from killing a massive number of innocent people every year.
Monstar L
P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act.
It's an initialism, not a word. "Patriot" has nothing to do with the Act.
"We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate." -- Jefferson
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." -- Jefferson
Apparently Questioning the (claimed) continuing necessity of The Patriot Act has been declared UnPatriotic.
Lather/Rinse/Repeat.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
... same as the old boss. And don't expect the Democrat Senate to vote it down or Obama to veto it, just because they're not Bush Republicans.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
We need to get more Democrats into office this next election to get rid of the Republican majority in the Senate so these evil bills won't get passed!
Any chance Obama is going to veto this? He's Mr. Change-You-Can-Believe-In, right? Waiting on the change...
I realize that the government would like to keep it in effect forever just because of the power it grants them, but shouldn't they at least have to come up with some kind of new excuse by now?
Has the Federal Government ever backed away from more power, at least since the Jackson administration? There's not much you can do at the Federal level except watch it crumble under its own weight, but come join us in New Hampshire where we're fixing government from the bottom up. These folks will help you get here: http://freestateproject.org/
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Nobody is really surprised right?
All told, there is now about 2-3 Trillion in revenue going to a huge bureaucracy now that is supposedly protecting us from Mr. Goldstein. If any of you actually think that this will be peacefully dismantled, I you are living in a dream world.
Folks it is time to face the unpleasant facts, this government is not going to stop there, it will continue. If any of you out there are angry, I would advise you to be very very careful about what you say and do moving forward because we are way past the point of making any sort of changes using the voting box.
Meanwhile we will have endure:
1) Endless wars...Pakistan is now up to bat.
2) 1/3rd of the human population in the US on food stamps. At the rate it is increasing, half of all Americans will be on public assistance in just 4-5 years.
3) Rampant destruction of our currency by foreign interests.
4) Our cities crumbling, once shining jewels of industry and innovation and opportunity for the future of children, now destroyed by this government and its policies to the fascist corporate state. Our youth will know no security, will own no home and will have no food let alone a career.
5) Congress is plotting with the centralized agricultural fascists to make it illegal to grow food. This government has blown up levies and damns and has siphoned away millions to destroy private farmland to protect commercial real estate for the bankers. Meanwhile food prices have hit record all time highs in wheat, corn and more Americans everyday can't feed themselves.
The Europeans get it. The Icelander's got it. Americans unfortunately don't get it yet. I am left wondering when they will?
Maybe when half of the population is on food stamps, will that be what it takes?
Watch your kids die with rationed health care?
Maybe it is the 27 trillion in currency maniuplation illegally transferring the wealth of the country to the Black Nobility in Germany, Great Britain?
Maybe it will be the fact the brightest spotlight this year in jobs was McDonalds hiring 50,000 workers?
Or maybe watching our wife and kid be sexually molested in public by the TSA?
Or maybe, just maybe....it will be when the government declares everyone in the USA a terrorist if you disagree with these outcomes?
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
In the unsurpassed words of Hermann Goering as cribbed from http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/
"Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
That quote alone was worth winning the war, for which America was justifiably proud. Gosh it's hard to remember that far back.
All my life I struggled to identify myself on the liberal/conservative axis. It wasn't until I read Tibshirani and Hastings on PCA that I figured it out. The choice of principal component is often rather arbitrary when you have a cluster of aligned traits. In other words, the axis of ideology can be projected in many different ways, most of which are valid to the same approximate degree. When you subtract out whichever one you pick first, you've grabbed most of the explanatory power of the entire bundle.
One meme about conservatism is that it is more threat sensitive. I don't agree with that. Conservatism is more sensitive to threats from without. Liberals are more concerned from threats from within. In one case, you want to defeat the Nazis; in the other case your wish your own society not to become the Nazis by succumbing to the same Patriotic tendencies.
Don't get me wrong, I'm with most of /. on here but you have to understand that it's not really all that controversial in the context of the vast majority of American voters -- i.e. in the context that ultimately counts. We tend to surround ourselves with people that are ideologically similar to ourselves (not a bad thing) but when we then mistake our particular choice for the populace at large we get a myopic view of the whole political spectrum (bad).
This isn't a partisan complaint. I used to live in rural Idaho and was shocked to be confronted by some (not all) residents there didn't realize how far to the left of them much of the rest of the country was. Similarly in Boston I am continually shocked not by the lefty politics but by the complete lack of perspective that some (not all) on the far left have regarding how far out of the mainstream they are.
I wouldn't for the world give up having a country with widely diverse viewpoints, which I think are essential to a healthy democracy -- I'm not out to make us all fickle and bland. Rather, I just want people to get a realistic handle on where there views on a particular topic fall relative to the other electorate. This is descriptive/empirical matter, not a normative/evaluative one -- it doesn't make you wrong to be to the left or right of 70% of the country on some topic but it is foolish not to be aware of where you stand.
See, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1893/poll-patriot-act-renewal for details on where Americans actually stand. Of course, I would still like to see it defeated, but I'm skeptical that will happen given the poll numbers -- after all, it is a representative government (modulo some unconstitutional elements enjoined by the courts) and even if the votes aren't directly related to poll numbers, there is strong coupling.
if you explained to the average person that part of the reason they are patting down babies at the TSA is because of the patriot act, they will begin to understand it.
if parts of the PATRIOT act applied to gun owners, they would be outraged.
parts of the PATRIOT act apply to librarians, they have been outraged.
everyone, in general, in america, supports their own civil liberties, and when they understand that civil liberties in general are under attack, they can come together once in a blue moon.
because thats what the PATRIOT ACT modification of the Computer Fraud and Abuse act says.
It is saying, essentially, that if you break certain parts of the Computer Fraud act, you are a terrorist. Not only are you a terrorist, but you can be prosecuted under RICO law, like a mafia member.
oh, and then there are the hundreds of thousands of national security letters sent by the FBI to libraries and ISPs. is that 'common sense'? how many terrorists have they caught that way?
"Common sense" would be not having to pursue drug lords in the first place because if you didn't have radical and unpopular prohibition of drugs YOU WOULDN'T HAVE DRUG LORDS IN THE FIRST PLACE. (or the associated violence, the creation of most stronger and more dangerous drugs, the erosion of civil liberties, expansion of the police state, having to show ID and be entered in a database to buy cold medicine, the huge population of nonviolent convicts, etc.) That these things are used as justification for a law as disgusting as the Patriot Act only shows how far we've fallen.
The unthinking and unquestioning nature of statists and corporatists never ceases to amaze me.
Here's the problem with third-party voting: the system is completely rigged for two parties. Some of the reasons are positively ancient and some more modern.
The problem begins with plurality voting. All that is necessary to win an election is to obtain the most votes. We all know this, but most people don't really stop and think about the consequences. Let me rephrase the system: you don't need a majority of votes to win an election. Put it another way: a majority of people can vote AGAINST YOU but you can still win the election. There are a number of alternate voting systems, tried with varying levels of success in other countries (and some municipal elections in the US), but there is great resistance to change at the national level. The parties in power obviously have a vested interest in preserving their control. Unfortunately, most Americans agree with them. Talk to an American voter about changing the voting system and nine times out of ten they'll tell you that they're opposed, no matter how well you explain it.
Another major issue is that of primary elections. In most states, primaries are closed, meaning that not only do you have to register your party affiliation with the state, but you cannot vote in another party's primary elections. Nowadays, fortunately, it is fairly simple to change your affiliation, but you can still only vote in one primary at a time. So if you want to have a say in the Libertarian or Green Party primaries (if they even have any), that's fine, but you're stuck with whatever horses the other parties choose. Even among the two major parties, if you vote in one's primary, then you cannot vote in the other's. Party loyalty is enforced by the state.
I would also say that the media contribute heavily to the irrelevance of third parties. All outlets, from the so-called "mainstream media" to cable news and talk radio focus blindly on the two major parties and virtually ignore the others. They also tend to ignore any primary candidates whose views fall outside of their respective parties' mainstream. So the average voter is exposed to a fairly small number of choices, and the mere idea of other choices is treated with contempt and, on occasion, outright derision. You can't win votes without coverage, and you can't get coverage without votes. It's an odd, self-perpetuating cycle of journalistic incompetence and malfeasance.
The end result: the two parties maintain control, and voting for a third party is a form of self-disenfranchisement. If you pick a third party, then you're excluding yourself from the major primaries, and if you pick a third-party candidate, then your net effect on the election is nil.
Why would you care if old 'Hope and Change' does anything about revoking the patriot act? it's not like the alphabet soup agencies are going to stop spying on people and wiretapping without warrants if they don't have a law to back their actions. There needs to be some legislation that gives teeth to laws that protect our constitutional rights from federal actors. Bush jr. has admitted to the illegal federal wiretapping program, and I have yet to see a single person go to jail. If some federal agents see jail time because they didn't get a warrant, perhaps that will give people pause in their zealous attempts erode the constitution.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
They'll repeal it the second we get Osama.
We haven't had a terrorist attack in this country since the law came into effect. I'm not saying correlation is causation...
We haven't had a Martian elected president since then either, but somehow I think the two are pretty well unrelated. However, even that counter-argument is giving you too much credit, because not only is your conclusion false, but your premise is false as well. Since the poorly-named PATRIOT Act went into effect, we have, in fact, had some well-known terrorist attempts (underwear bomber, the kid who wanted to blow up a Christmas Tree lighting ceremony in Portland, IIRC). The underwear bomber was thwarted because 1) his explosives didn't work and 2) the people on board the airplane beat the living crap out of him (which, I believe is a far, far better way to handle terrorist attacks than giving power to unchecked government bureaucracies). The Christmas Tree kid was just flat-out stupid.
...but I think claims that the law hasn't prevented at least one American death pretty dubious.
So what? I think that the FBI and local police forces are probably more than capable of detecting and catching would-be terrorists without subverting the Bill of Rights, and I think that I'd rather run the risk of the 1 in 20-30 million chance of dieing in a terrorist act than run the risk^Wcertainty that a government not bound by the law WILL eventually abuse its own populace. It's happened throughout history; it can happen here, too.
They don't need a new 'excuse' because it's not being used to monitor the porn you're downloading and I assure you the Government has bigger fish to fry.
I'll ignore the assumption that everyone on-line is downloading porn 24x7, since we all know what they say about assumptions. However, given that most people have things they would like kept private, even if it has nothing to do with sexual fetishes, and given that a Google search will turn easily turn up many, many news stories of LEO's using public records for personal gain (IIRC, there was a story here in Anchorage a few years back of LEO's using their access to criminal records databases to dig for dirt on political candidates), your "assurances" really aren't worth squat. The moment you become "interesting" for one of any number of reasons, you suddenly become that big fish that "government" wants to fry.
Sure they may be snooping your traffic but the law says they can so any claims you make about it being a violation of your constitutional rights are useless.
Even by /. standards, that's an incredibly inane position to take. You do realize that the "constitutional rights" you so easily dismiss ARE the law, don't you? Congress can pass whatever law it wants, and the President can sign the bill, but if it violates the Constitution, IT AIN'T LEGAL! Right now, we're basically just waiting for some of the laws to be challenged in court, and GWB did a pretty good job of making that a difficult proposition by dragging people who might have had a case to overthrow the PATRIOT Act off to Guantanamo and denying them their day in court. While I'm no fan of Obama either, he at least starting putting some of these alleged terrorists on trial.
If your post is any indication of how blase and naive the American public has become, it's no wonder our country is so effed-up.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Are you defending the court briefs, or simply stating fact? Law ought not be complex. It is an affront to citizens that lawyers are required for simple matters of basic rights.
...unfortunately. It's good politics. Our country has shifted towards authoritarianism. Cops have increased powers to violate your rights and get away with it if they, say, accidentally kill you or your dog. Corporations also have the same power to violate or by force of lobbying, repeal regulations. We've all surrendered personal freedoms for the sake of security.
This slide isn't going to stop because Congress decides to stand up for individual rights. The change will start when people start demanding our rights back. Believe it or not, politicians do respond to pressure from the voters because they don't want to give up the limos and sycophantic admiration.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
"Whenever a controversial law is proposed, and its supporters, when confronted with an egregious abuse it would permit, use a phrase along the lines of 'Perhaps in theory, but the law would never be applied in that way' - they're *lying*. They intend to use the law that way as early and as often as possible."
The answer is simple - amend the law to fix the parts that need fixing. It's done all the time. Good grief.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
the intelligence community has to keep America safe from the Rule of Law and Privacy."
Unless you've already written, called, and emailed your congressperson, stop bitching here.
I've told mine in no uncertain terms that if they support this extension, I will not only not vote for them in the next election but will do everything I can to convince others to do likewise.
Here's the letter I sent:
Senator ___,
It seems obvious that the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights is the basis for our great society and for inspiring other societies to be great.
In my opinion, The PATRIOT act has been the single worst piece of legislation in curtailing both the spirit and letter of those rights, and where it has been able to be challenged in court, the court agrees with me. Most provisions have not been able to be challenged in this way not due to their legality, but due to the secrecy that they are implemented under.
If liberty and justice are the founding principles of this country and the guiding principles of the Constitution and the 4th amendment, it is quite difficult to support a representative who would seek to extend this legislation.
For this reason, I believe the ending of the PATRIOT act is the most pressing issue we have, and if you act to extend the act without massive overhaul, not only will you not receive my vote come next election, I will do everything in my power to convince others to vote against you also.
Steve Pinkham
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.