Funny How None Of The Bills About Extending The Patriot Act Seem To Kill Off The Pieces So Regularly Abused
from the actually,-not-that-funny dept
We’ve already discussed how it appears that Congress is set to extend the Patriot Act with little debate yet again, despite the growing evidence of rather massive abuses of the law by law enforcement officials, with little to no evidence that the law has actually helped. As it stands now, in the Senate there are apparently three competing versions of the extension, and not a single proposal that would actually cut off the highly controversial sections that allow for spying on Americans with little to no oversight.
The three Senate bills kick off with one from Senator Patrick Leahy, which would extend the various provisions until the end of 2013, but would also include a tiny bit more oversight.
Meanwhile, over in the House, the new leadership is simply trying to rush through an entirely new bill that will just push off any discussion until next year.
Filed Under: chuck grassley, dianne feinstein, laws, patrick leahy, patriot act, review
Comments on “Funny How None Of The Bills About Extending The Patriot Act Seem To Kill Off The Pieces So Regularly Abused”
Extend 2 years w/ little additional oversight
Extend 2 years w/o additional oversight
Extend indefinitely w/o additional oversight
Postpone discussion for 1 year
Our legislators sure are creative
What People Think
Silly little polls. What People Think? We know all too well, it does not matter.
What People Think
But it does! That’s why we give people the option of being screwed or being screwed without the benefit of any sort of lubrication.
Critical Mass
Why don’t they just declare Martial Law already, at least that will wake everyone up, then we can burn this bitch down and start over. This is only gonna get worse and people are to busy/comfortable to fight back with anything the powers will listen to. We have to organize and put bodies in the street – I’m not talking violence, but they sure as hell don’t care about our blog posts and comments. At this point it is little more than mental masturbation.
Re: Critical Mass
Impossible, people are too busy with their Opium(iphones, celebrities, facebook) to even care. Things have to be real horrible in order for people to do anything. We are talking about so-bad-you-dont-have-food kinda low. Egypt and Tunisia are a clear example. People let it hit the deep deep rock bottom before taking action. It’s like letting someone rape you but don’t try to get him off of you until he starts choking you.
Critical Mass
We are a long way away from anyone actually “waking up” to anything. My Marine co-worker puts it best.
“PPL wont start fighting back until they are starving & dying.”
Re: Critical Mass
The way the country is growing I question if your marine co-worker is giving PPL too much credit. There are already people starving, not yet dieing as far as I know but definitely starving, yet whine that everyone else won’t give them more.
Critical Mass
You think we’ve hit critical mass? While the keyboard commandos type furiously away, the real world watches Egypt and the real struggle those people must deal with. After you hit up StarBucks, we can talk about how America is being brought to its knees.
Re: Critical Mass
So right you are.
Why should we worry about the US when there are clearly more fucked up countries we do not live in to worry about.
STFU and go home.
eff put out a link earlier to send a “complaint”/”comment” to your legislator…..i sent it as soon as the form loaded
http://www.eff.org/action/reject-patriot-act-sneak-attack
Three nice bar graphs from a one sided website. Sort of like a poll about copyright on techdirt.
Re: Re:
So are you just criticising TechDirt because you don’t like it, or do you genuinely disagree with the post and support the abortion that is the Patriot Act?
That’s because the ‘act’ is about CONTROL – nothing else.
Why would they want to remove the parts that give them the most control?
Re: Re:
Political subterfuge…why throw away the power by remaining strictly to one position, as opposed to asking for a lot more power all at once, and compromising with a slightly increasing power over a period of time.
Fear not, fellow Americans, the republicans and the Tea Party will save us! LOL!
“Those that crave security over freedom will gain neither and lose both.” T Jefferson.
“PPL wont start fighting back until they are starving & dying.” Wall Street is doing all it can to bring that about, be patient, wheat has only increased by 75% so far, oil by $20 a barrel…
As much as I agree with you about the Patriot Act, you?re thinking in terms that are too partisan. Those 26 Republicans are the libertarian side of the party and those Democrats are the corporatist core of that party. I?d totally expect that voting pattern to happen ? and those Democrats still deserve to lose.