The Patriot Act passes the House:
The House voted Thursday to extend permanently virtually all the major antiterrorism provisions of the USA Patriot Act after beating back efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to impose new restrictions on the government’s power to eavesdrop, conduct secret searches and demand library records.
The legislation, approved 257 to 171, would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions in the law that were set to expire at the end of this year. The remaining two provisions – giving the government the power to demand business and library records and to conduct roving wiretaps – would have to be reconsidered by Congress in 10 years.
The House version of the legislation essentially leaves intact many of the central powers of the antiterrorism act that critics had sought to scale back, setting the stage for what could be difficult negotiations with the Senate, which is considering several very different bills to extend the government’s counterterrorism powers under the act.
One version, approved unanimously Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would impose greater restrictions on the government’s powers.
But a competing bill passed last month by the intelligence committee would broaden the government’s powers by allowing the Federal Bureau of Investigation to demand records in terrorism investigations without a judge’s order and to have sole discretion in monitoring the mail of some terrorism suspects. That proposal has the strong backing of the Bush administration.
In the House, a daylong debate about the Patriot Act turned into a referendum on the Bush administration’s antiterrorism policies, as lawmakers sought to calibrate the proper balance between protecting national security and ensuring civil liberties.
I am not against the Patriot Act per se, but I am against making it permanent. I see no reason why it should not be revisited every 5 years, if for no other reason than to ascertain the effectiveness and necessity of the measures contained within the Act.
*** Update ***
Via Billmon, this list of what certain sections (in this case, Section 215) of the Patriot Act allow:
– Order any person or entity to turn over “any tangible things,” so long as the FBI specifies that the order is part of an authorized terrorism or intelligence investigation.
– Obtain personal data, including medical records, without any specific facts connecting those records to a foreign terrorist.
– Prohibit doctors and insurance companies from disclosing to their patients that their medical records have been seized by the government.
– Obtain library and book store records, including lists of books checked out, without any specific facts connecting the records to a foreign agent or terrorist.
– Obtain private financial records without a court order, and without notification to the person involved.
– Conduct intelligence investigations of both United States citizens and permanent residents without probable cause, or even reasonable grounds to believe that they are engaged in criminal activity or are agents of a foreign power.
– Investigate U.S. citizens based in part on their exercise of their First Amendment rights, and non-citizens based solely on their exercise of those rights. (Naturally, decisions about what constitutes “in part” are left to a secret court, meeting secretly.)
– Those served with Section 215 orders are prohibited from disclosing that fact to anyone — even their attorney. (This provision was struck down by a U.S. district court last year.)
Suffice it to say, I am against everyone of these provisions. You can whine “But John, we are at warrrrr” until your damned face turns blue. You can bash the ACLU to your heart’s desire. You can tell me “I just don’t get it” as many times as you want. You can give me as many specious arguments about freedom and “democracies needing to defend themselves” until the cows come home. You can issue as many non-threatening platitudes about ” just giving authorities the tools they need’ from now until the end of time. I refuse to support this nonsense. This is un-American. Period.
SomeCallMeTim
All your freedoms belong to us, John. Just sit back and try to enjoy the ride.
Jeff Maier
A sunset provision should remain in place for the Patriot Act in total — you’re right. Of course, I wouldn’t mind seeing 5 to 10 sunset provisions on most legislation. By and large legislation has become a response to the lobbyist du jour. There is no reason that their dollars spent today should buy permanent gain — at the very least, it should be merely a lease.
ppGaz
According to BigDick Cheney, resistance to the Patriot Act is in its last throes.
ppGaz
Jonathan Rauch
You’ll be interested in this book, then.
Mike in SLO
Don’t most of those items conflict with our Bill of Rights?
I don’t understand how people can not have a problem with them. Does adding a sunset provision make them any less unconstitutional?
And just who have we caught with these provisions in the war on terror, anyway? If we had Osama in custody, I might consider extending the act, but really, how has the Patriot act made us safer? Can anybody point to some proof?
That would someone reassure people like me who are very worried about making this permanent.
SomeCallMeTim
I don’t understand how people can not have a problem with them.
We had our accountability moment; we voted for “unaccountable.”
Barry
Somecallmetim,
You summarized the current political situation better than anybody else that I’ve heard, and in far fewer words.
Doug
Yup. Elections have consequences. This was one of them.
Jeff Maier
ppGaz,
Thank you for the think. I’m very interested in checking out Rauch’s book. The review covered several themes that grabbed my attention.
metalgrid
Reading this makes me glad I consistently vote for my political candidates based on their liberty index rather than whatever partisan issue de jour they’re touting. Despite having a clear conscience, I still have to lie in the bed you guys make.
SeesThroughIt
I cannot possibly agree strongly enough. The idea that the Bush administration has been able to sell an incredibly un-American policy to the point where opposition to it is now un-American is particularly galling as well.
Jeffery Faulk
Incredibly galling.
pleasewakeupy'all
Well said, John. I’m pleasantly surprised to see you read Billmon–not too offensive to your conservative sensibilities?
Randolph Fritz
There never was much doubt the House would go for these; the Republican leadership is for them, and even most Democrats are vulnerable to charges of weakness on crime. We can only hope the Senate will turn them back.
One wonders how Judge Roberts would view these, if a Fourth Amendment case were brought.
Jeff Maier
One of the side notes to the Patriot Act not so often discussed is how it is really being used. I recall reading that the provision to obtain library records has been rarely used “on terrorism matters” yet quite a few libraries have reported being asked to comply. What for — normal criminal investigations.
The Patriot Act was rushed through as a response to 9/11 and terrorism but a great deal of the motivation was to cobble together a bunch of provisions that had been kicking around for years to make it less onerous in pursuing criminals. They just could have never gotten passed as a law enforcement bill.
Janus Daniels
Now that we actually looked at the “Patriot” Act, I hope that we all oppose it. It never had anything to do with patriotism or terrorism; it was a government power grab. I’m wrong? Fine. Cite some provision of those hundreds of pages ever serving any antiterrorist or patriotic purpose.
THE GOOD NEWS:
Societas » Patriot Act reauthorized? — Don’t believe the hype
“Only the House version (H.R. 3199) has been passed. The House version must be reconciled with the Senate version (S. 1389) before the bill can be submitted for signature into law by the President.
Quickly, below, what’s wrong with House version and how you can improve it.”
http://www.tsujiru.net/?p=198#more-198
PLEASE READ AND ACT NOW.
if already informed, you can go directly to:
http://action.aclu.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AS_CongressLookup
PLEASE ACT NOW.
Sojourner
The Bushies have been very successful at scaring the American public into submission.
Gary Farber
“This is un-American.”
It can’t be. It’s the PATRIOT Act.
Gary Farber
Besides as one of the quotes I have on my blog’s sidebar says: “Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom.”
— Edward Gibbon
It’s really, really, really useful to read up on how Augustus came to power, and held it as the first Roman Emperor, I’ve found. One way is that he never actually took the title Emperor; he carefully took over control of the varying power functions of the old Republic, and maintained them as the offical controllers; he merely controlled them all. But not in a way that was altogether public. Which is where the above came in.
Gary Farber
Linked you here.
Kimmitt
That’s what I used to think.