Senate Passes 4-Year Re-Up of Patriot Act Provisions

Bloomberg News reports that, as expected, today "[t]he US Senate approved a four-year extension of provisions in the USA Patriot Act allowing law enforcement to track suspected terrorists with roving wiretaps. ... The measure goes to the House for final passage before being sent to President Barack Obama for his signature. The surveillance powers would be extended until June 1, 2015." The story mentions that the Patriot Act powers this approval includes would extend "to so-called 'lone wolf' suspects who aren't affiliated with any terrorist group."

Comments

Did your congressman do his duty?

[jcr]

If your congressman or senator failed to vote against this violation of the fourth and fifth amendments, he or she has violated their oath of office. Don't vote for them again unless you want this shit to continue.

-jcr

Re:Did your congressman do his duty?

[Seumas]

Maybe people will start to finally learn that the choices they are fed are bullshit and that both A and B are part of the greater subject -- C. If you vote for A, it benefits C. If you vote for B, it benefits C. Instead of idiots arguing "derp derp derp red versus blue" they might finally invest that energy into understanding what is really going on and doing something about it. Then again, probably not.

I'm sure the president has the ability to veto this though. Surely he will? All these people that were so intent on voting this past election for "change" because the new jackass was going to be entirely different from the last jackass are surely going to have saved us from evil, right? So their pony will do everything he can to overthrow the USAPATRIOT Act, right? That must be why we haven't heard him say a single damn word about it. At all. Because he's just holding his tongue, so he can wield the veto power, yeah?

I'm sure everyone will finally stop investing all of their energy in Obama's birth certificate and being raging homophobes and marching around abortion clinics so they can focus on things that are actually impacting our entire way of life, like government oppression and the absolute corruption of government by corporate shills. Right?

Re:Did your congressman do his duty?

[NFN_NLN]

If your congressman or senator failed to vote against this violation of the fourth and fifth amendments, he or she has violated their oath of office. Don't vote for them again unless you want this shit to continue.

-jcr

I hope this is a lesson to everyone regarding temporary suspension of powers. There is NO SUCH THING AS TEMPORARY. Once you give them away they are gone until the next revolution and re-establishment of laws.

Re:Did your congressman do his duty?

[Opportunist]

And if people stopped buying shitty appliances, producers would have to produce what the customer wants and the free market system would work.

Guess what? We still have shitty politicians, we still have crappy goods and we still don't get what we really want in either. Why? Because people can't organize, that's why.

So please, keep your ivory tower ideas to yourself unless you also provide an idea how to implement them.

Re:Did your congressman do his duty?

[Quiet_Desperation]

Ah, the old "run for office yourself" gambit. It makes you look all, like, cool and worldly and stuff, and liberates you from actual thought.

I did work on two state campaigns here in California, for people I initially liked. Learned they were just sociopaths in it for themselves like all the others.

OK, I'll run. Do you have a great big pile of money I can use? Or donors who will give to a nobody like me? Oh, and when I am beaten because some union, Party or corporation backed scumbag pwns me in the culpable media, can you make sure my job is there to go back to?

Oh, wait, I have a rather interesting personal past. Nothing criminal, just interesting and experimental. The media will go after *that* to the exclusion of all else, including actual issues.

Give me or point me to a workable strategy for a real citizen politician, who hasn't exactly lived the life of a monk, to pull it off, and I'll seriously consider it.

"lone wolf" suspects

[itsenrique]

Oh god, here it is. The latest in fear buzzword technology. "Hunker down", WMD, axis of evil, and now the "lone wolf". I miss when "lock box" was the stupidest of these pre-9/11. The worst part is, the media keeps using these deceitful memes and people just keep eating bowl after bowl of this shit.

Lone wolf?

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

approval would extend "to so-called “lone wolf” suspects who aren’t affiliated with any terrorist group."

So, more needle in a haystack stuff, we need to violate everybody's privacy just in case one in the 7billlion people on the planet hate us. Didn't they use to hate us for our freedom? Not a problem anymore....

Right violations on the installment plan

[The Archon V2.0]

Because now that Osama is dead, this abomination is now to protect from mysterious random people.... A nice way of saying the PATRIOT act will stop being extended when we get rid of every last human being who hates America.

it goes beyond mere roving wiretaps

[praedor]

And goes into a 4 year extension of Big Brother spying on what books you read or buy, what your emails contain, etc. It allows Big Brother to collect information on you sans any justification whatsoever - you don't even need to have ANY connection to a so-called "terrorist" or "terrorist organization" (like environmental groups, worker's rights groups, anti-corporate groups, etc...you know, horrific "terrorists").

It is not a "yawn". It is yet another shiv into the heart of so-called "liberty" and "freedom".

Land of the free, home of the brave MY ASS. Land of the chattle, home of pansy candyasses is more accurate.

Don't Forget.

[Seumas]

This is the act that allows the president to declare ANYONE an enemy combatant. Even an American Citizen. And disappear them. No representation. No trial. They just vanish, to be indefinitely imprisoned and even tortured. Hell, killed, for all we know. Since nobody knows that the person is being held, there's no limitation. Granted, this has gone wrong pretty much every time it has been used (documented incidents of innocent people being shipped off to gitmo for example) against innocent people a number of times. But hey, it has the word PATRIOT in it!

These assholes despise the citizenship of this country so much that they stuff something called the PATRIOT act with everything that is the opposite of patriotism and that directly undermines the country they claim the act is meant to protect. And we all sit around like fucking sheep, worrying about meaningless bullshit like birth certificates. And worse, all those jackholes who went around doing the "you HAVE to vote!" last year think that they've done their civic duty, because they voted. They chose between the giant douche and the turd sandwich and disavow any responsibility for upholding the status quo that continues to pin us all under its thumb.

Step by Step

[Renraku]

Step 1: Be attacked by terrorists.

Step 2: Implement draconian laws designed to 'combat terrorism' citing the terrorist attack and getting everyone scared. Temporary measures, of course.

Step 3: After society is good and locked down, pass extension of those laws.

Step 4: President gets elected that promises to remove these. President instead extends these.

Step 5: Another terrorist attack or foiled plot.

Step 6: Obviously this one law isn't working, so pass another.

Step 7: Progress and repeat until you can't take a shit without someone needing to be there to look up your asshole and make sure you aren't about to shit a bomb into the public toilet at the gas station.

Step 8: Children grew up with these laws, and they're just how things are.