Although it still faces oppostion:
Congressional leaders reached a deal Thursday to extend key provisions of the Patriot Act, the government’s premier anti-terrorism law. However, prominent Democratic senators said they opposed the compromise, and one threatened a veto.
Under the deal, 16 provisions set to expire at the end of the year will be extended for four years, Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee announced.
The controversial U.S. anti-terrorism law passed in the months after the September 11, 2001, attacks and expanded government surveillance powers. The deal marks Congress’ first revision of the law.
***However, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said he opposed the compromise between the House and Senate leaders because it permitted the government to violate citizens’ privacy rights without sufficient checks and balances.
Negotiations also excluded Democrats, Leahy said, which has turned renewal of the act into a partisan issue and undermined its credibility in the eyes of the American public.
“If this comes across as simply a partisan bill, do you think people in this country… will respect this legislation? They’re not. They’re not,” Leahy said.
“This is simply seen as a fiat by one party or a small section of one party. It’s not going to be respected,” he said.
Sen. Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat and the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, called the agreement “a major disappointment” and promised to do “everything I can, including a filibuster, to stop this Patriot Act conference report.”
“Merely sunsetting bad law is not adequate,” Feingold said in a statement released after the agreement was announced. “We need to make substantive changes to the law, and without those changes I am confident there will be strong, bipartisan opposition here in the Senate.”
Personally, I will wait for Bob Barr’s reaction, as he will understand better what actually is and is not going forward. At least he will understand it better than me or the CNN folks writing this up. And he has been about the only person looking out for your rights the past few years, despite the fact many of you think he is an unrepentant nutter.
ET
He usually is an “unrepentant nutter” but since he “left” Congress (hummmm is there a correlation) he has had some things to say I agreed with. Of course I then had to pinch myself and wonder what the universe was coming to.
SomeCallMeTim
Google “Howard Dean” and “Patriot Act”; he mentioned this at least as far back as 2003. Google “Cato” and “Patriot Act”; I don’t know, but they’re the only fucking right-ish organization that cared about Padilla, so I bet they’re good on this. Try “ACLU” and “Patriot Act”; care to wager?
Barr is a nutter. I’m still glad he’s on our side. But we should be clear – he’s on OUR side; we’ve been here all along, for a long, long time.
Davebo
Well, you know one can be an unrepentant nutter on some issues and still be reasonable (and right) on others.
Take John Cole and the Iraq war for example….
chef
The Patriot Act could end up being the one thing that puts the two traditional parties out of their miseries.
It is a BIG issue—maybe big enough to force paleocons and ACLU liberals to unite oneday.
J. Michael Neal
Well, you know one can be an unrepentant nutter on some issues and still be reasonable (and right) on others.
Bob Barr is an unrepentant nutter on everything, including this. He is, though, evidence that unrepentant nutters sometimes have a very valuable role to play.
W.B. Reeves
Since I knew about Bob Barr back in the day when he was locking up corrupt GOP Congressmen for laundering drug money, I’ll be happy to say that I’ve never thought of him as a “nutter”. He’s just a guy who exhibits a great deal of discrimination in his devotion to the Constitution. I wouldn’t suggest that his hobnobbing with the white supremacist Council of Conservative citizens (The same folks Trent Lott was caught tangoing with.) makes him nutter. Nor even his pandering to the Populist Party fringe in Georgia.
However, I do find it odd that this former Federal Prosecutor chose to be point man in attacking Federal Law enforcement during the Congressional hearings on Ruby Ridge and Waco. This, while blocking any Congressional inquiry into the Oklahoma City bombing.
texas dem
Bob Barr “the only person”? Has Russell Feingold been declared a unicorn??
ChristieS
I hate Bob Barr for religious reasons. :D
Barry
“Personally, I will wait for Bob Barr’s reaction, as he will understand better what actually is and is not going forward. At least he will understand it better than me or the CNN folks writing this up. And he has been about the only person looking out for your rights the past few years, despite the fact many of you think he is an unrepentant nutter.”
Bob has certainly been honest on this thing, possibly due to being a nutter. He supposedly went around to Congressmen saying, ‘Do you want President Hillary Clinton to have these powers?’. This could have been a convenient illustration, or nuttiness, but at least he’s been good on this.
ChristianLibrul
What do the president (sic) and Attorney General really think of our Constitution? It became clear during a discussion of the Patriot Act. I have their words on the record at my blog.
Mark-NC
You mean to say – the only REPUBLICAN who is fighting the Patriot Act.
The rest of the Republican Party are boot-licking Bush and voting for anything he wants regardless of future ramifications.
Jay
And he has been about the only person looking out for your rights the past few years, despite the fact many of you think he is an unrepentant nutter.
Mutually exclusive? Myself, I happen to think that it is a sad state of affairs that an unrepentant nutter is the only person who has been looking out for our rights, aside, perhaps, from Russ Feingold.