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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."
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
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
This thing is never going away...
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....
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.
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.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
Will ye tossers start voting something like greens or independents or whatever your alternative parties are already? I mean, last non-dem and non-rep president was 1850-1853.
And don't start whining about how it's never going to matter because of them needing more than whatever share. With that attitude, it never will matter. So grow a pair and start filling in some alternative boxes next election.
</rant>
Anybody have a list?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
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 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.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Staffer: "How much time do we need to debate the Affordable Care Act?"
Senator: "At least eight months!"
Staffer: "How much time for the federal court appointee?"
Senator: "T is Undefined. We're filibustering him without a vote."
Staffer: "How about to renew the USA PATRIOT act?"
Senator: "Oh, four to six hours."
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
Despite getting off to such a terrible start with the genocide of the "Native Americans" America was the last great hope for humans voluntarily creating a true democracy. The Constitution is an absolutely wonderful work. Future historians will marvel at it's elegance as the founding fathers saw, and attempted to protect against, what would come after them.
Sadly they underestimated the unstoppable inertia of the mass of the "sheeple".
America failed. It's another dead end.
Ho hum... On with the show...
Reboo, restart, on with the show.
Here's more "Hope and Change" for us.
I disagree, in that I believe firmly that if education were massively improved (and I mean massively), many of the other problems would become obvious to the majority of people as would the solutions. People function with split realities, but not well, and the more extreme the split the greater the discomfort. Deliberately worsen that discomfort through high quality (and maximal quantity) education. These will be the people who do the voting in 20 years time and who will also be the candidates then as well. Superior voters with superior candidates to choose will necessarily improve the situation as a whole.
Those will also be the businesspeople in that timeframe and thus will be making more rational decisions on what jobs are appropriate to be overseas and what jobs are appropriate here.
An informed electorate, or so Plato tells us, will also be less eager to go to war and less eager to blindly follow populist leaders. Indeed, he made it an essential criterion for a functional democracy. The experience of the last decade tells us he was right on the dangers of ignorance, so it seems worth testing whether he was right on the benefits of knowledge and wisdom.
Education alone won't fix all the issues, but I see no reason why - over time - it wouldn't solve a good number. Combine it with quality public healthcare and you solve many of the problems that ill-health cause (weakened economy, reduced opportunity, reduced flexibility, inferior mobility, desires for feel-good politics and/or substance-abuse, etc.)
That last one is worth reflecting on a bit. Religion may be the opiate of the masses, but feel-good politics is crack cocaine. Neither is good for you, both should be avoided where possible, but populist politicians are infinitely more dangerous than populist preachers. Jim Jones killed less than a thousand in total, fanatical politicians in 1914-1918 were managing to average that per day per nation for four years.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Youd almost think that those retarded Republicans thought the founding principle of the country was a small, limited federal government, or something...
Nothing the Republican Party has done in the past 50 years has illustrated that they actually believe this.
Anybody have a list?
Here's the list. You can filter by state with one of the links at the top. Three cheers for both of my state's senators voting nay. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=1&vote=00076
Actually some of the points are valid.
Our schools are receiving less and less money, reducing our GPA as a whole and decreasing our abilities to field educated people in our society.
The issues in Texas where they have put creationism in books, a fundamentally specific religious ideology towards christianity.
The issue where the Church somehow gets a pass on pedoiphilia without being prosecuted.
Republicans do have that ideology, but constantly increase government, look at both Bushes vs Clinton.
What they do though, is they try to underfund/undermine those parts of the government that actually look after consumers and patrons.
Queue images of Gulf Oil Spill and Katrina.
Notice that the 13 westernmost states votes' total to 12-14 against. What's wrong with the rest of the country?
You think you understand how the Patriot Act allows the government to spy on its citizens. Sen. Ron Wyden says it’s worse than you know. Congress is set to reauthorize three controversial provisions of the surveillance law as early as Thursday. Wyden (D-Oregon) says that powers they grant the government on their face, the government applies a far broader legal interpretation — an interpretation that the government has conveniently classified, so it cannot be publicly assessed or challenged. But one prominent Patriot-watcher asserts that the secret interpretation empowers the government to deploy ”dragnets” for massive amounts of information on private citizens; the government portrays its data-collection efforts much differently.....
That aside, Republicans believe in a smaller government than the Democrats, and thats a good first step in my eyes.
Except they really kind of... don't. At all. They just disagree in which areas the government should step in and fuck things up (Interfering with our corporate overlords vs. say... marriage.)
Been that way for at least 25 years (probably more but I would have been too young to remember).
40% of Democrats voted against, compared to only 10% of Republicans. If you want to effect change, vote Democrat, straight ticket, every time. From President down to the local dogcatcher. When the GOP is dead and buried, then we can make a new party to the left of the Dems. If you try to go for third parties right now, then the right-wing fascists will use their short term benefit to pass laws that improve their electoral odds in the future. That is, after all, what they are doing right now. They've eliminated all semblance of campaign finance law, made it more difficult for traditionally liberal groups to vote under the guise of attacking non-existent voter fraud, and are working on dismantling unions -- the one remaining well-funded left-leaning demographic.
If the Republicans regain the White House in the next ten years, while also controlling Congress, you better be prepared to live under a right-wing hegemony for the rest of your life, because their grip will become unbreakable.
"Other provisions allow authorities to obtain business and library records, and to target so-called “lone wolf” suspects who aren’t affiliated with any terrorist group."
a.k.a. Anyone. Say something negative about the government? You're a lone-wolf terrorist.
Sure, we aren't there yet. But doesn't that seem like where this is headed? That part scares the crap outta me. I had no idea that was in there.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Why doesn't it start with YOU?
Well, to be fair, Fillmore was a Whig, which was pretty much the "other party" before the Reps existed.
Face it, the US always had a two party system.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But Reid attached it to some unrelated bill to avoid any debate.
How does that feel, Nevada?
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
40% of Democrats voted against, compared to only 10% of Republicans. If you want to effect change, vote Democrat, straight ticket, every time.
NO.
Let me repeat that.
NO!!!
If you vote for a party, in this case Democrats, who are 60% in support of a bill then you are telling them that it is ok to continue supporting this bill. The only reason even 40% are against it is because of all the people voting away from their party. Keep voting away from both parties until they reach 100%.
And stop being a shill for your political party. If you are so heavily loyal to one that you'd advocate a party line ticket for them just because they only fucked up 60% percent of their vote, then you need a new hobby. ESPN might be good for you.
Actually, Rand Paul was filibustering this for 7 hours, just asking for a (promised by Reid last time it was extended) full week of discussion!
(I liked this title: http://www.unelected.org/democrat-harry-reid-blocks-rand-pauls-filibuster-of-the-patriot-act but you are welcome to google your own!).
And then we see people still thinking that there is some major difference between people wearing 'D' or 'R' labels, rather than between honest people and liars, and true "public servants" (as in, *Representatives* of *Us, the People*) and ones who pretend to be, to advance their agenda and get rich in the process...
And, before you start protesting, saying that all he wanted to do is to amend it with some additional "gun rights" language, it was only one of his several proposed amendments (picked by Media for obvious reasons of further polarization of us). I guess it was quite a brilliant move to provoke at least some discomfort of cognitive dissonance in the minds of mainstream NRA-supporting republicans, who *also* see absolutely no harm in PATRIOT act!
Well done, "Aqua Buddha"! ;)
Paul B.
... Right??? (as someone asked above)
If I were cynical (which I am!), I would say that both parties ensured passage of the PATRIOT act just to keep things "the way they are". Democrats, being more vulnerable in the next election cycle, had to cut their losses by having some of the most vulnerable ones splitting from the main party line.
So, in some way, I think that I respect the tiny minority of 4 republicans who voted against it way more than 18 democrats. If only that I can think that they voted for their principles, and not political considerations.
Paul B.
State-recognized marriage doesnt really seem like an impressive example of "government getting too big", since its something governments have done for the last thousand or so years, and has been regarded for basically all of them as a good thing. Perhaps you disagree with which unions the state recognizes, but that doesnt mean "government is too big"; they would technically have to be bigger to recognize more unions.
An example of "bigger government" would be "We the Fed think that we should handle your retirement savings", or "we will be taking care of health insurance".
Honestly, trying to paint republicans as favoring large expansive governments is disingenuous. Democrats believe in all sorts of social programs, republicans dont; I didnt think that anyone disputed that.
1: What happened to our Apache build?
2: I updated the web server by replacing it with Tetris.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... they underestimated the unstoppable inertia of the mass of the "sheeple".
I hate that term. It's so old and worn out. Rather than making the user of the term look "catchy" or "with it", it just makes them look like a crank. Try using the phrase "Too many citizens are uninformed and apathetic". Doesn't that sound better? And it might work better - even though the people you talk about may be "sheeple", people are very, very unlikely to listen to or join with those that insult them. So, if you want to have fun with your "clever" characterization, remember that you've guaranteed change will take even longer.
That is all.
Honestly, trying to paint republicans as favoring large expansive governments is disingenuous.
Here is a map which shows who voted for the extension "PATRIOT" Act. Count the red dots. Count the blue dots. Compare and contrast.
Democrats believe in all sorts of social programs, republicans dont; I didnt think that anyone disputed that.
No-one does. It's just that it's not the only area in which government can be expanded. Republicans are big believers in being "tough on crime", which in practice means stuffing prisons with harmless weed junkies. Then there's those unconstitutional TSA "near-border" patrols. There's Guantanamo.
(Yeah, all that stuff is now tacitly maintained by D for their schemes, but it was created by R.)
40% of Democrats voted against, compared to only 10% of Republicans. If you want to effect change, vote Democrat, straight ticket, every time.
That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. If 40% of Dems voted against, then 60% of Dems voted for. So when "GOP is dead and buried", 60% of the Congress would keep the party line intact.
run yourself
The problem is that most people need to work at full time jobs to earn their living. Being a politician is an option only for those who have deep pockets supporting them.