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[bacasper]

Patriot Act Renewal Moving Forward

Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
Thursday, 03 December 2009 12:00

Renewal of two controversial Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of the year have been approved by House and Senate Committees. President Obama has endorsed extending the provisions.

They include the �records� rule and the �roving wiretaps� provision. The so-called �records� rule grants federal officials with a court order the power to force private parties such as businesses, hospitals, and libraries to hand over "any tangible thing" they believe has "relevance" to a terrorist investigation.

�Roving wiretaps� allow wiretapping multiple lines of communication without informing FISA courts which specific phone lines or communication media are being targeted.

President Obama has reversed himself on the issue, since he once opposed Patriot Act provisions as a fishing expedition by federal snoops in a 12/15/05 Senate speech:

Obama's 2005 speech was spot-on with regard to the facts. A recent editorial noted �The evidence that any of these provisions has prevented or deterred a terrorist act is between slim and none � you can be sure that if they had been useful in helping to identify the handful of would-be terrorists who have been apprehended or prosecuted that government officials would have trumpeted the news.� And the Obama administration's own government confirms the Orange County Register's able summary. �According to the U.S. Attorney General's office,� ABCNews.com reported November 30, �there have been 220 such orders issued, but no major case to date has transpired because of information procured from them.�

Now that Obama is in power, what was once �just plain wrong� is suddenly just plain right.

Despite the fact that the records provision has never been used to prosecute any terrorists, the legislation has strong support among neo-conservative Republicans in Congress. "This critical legislation protects our national security, as well as our civil liberties, and the clock is ticking," claimed Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.

The 180-degree political reversal that has coincided in precise time with the changeover of the party in power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by Obama and his supporters has led more honest leftists like Salon's Glenn Greenwald to question the sincerity of statements supporting strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution made during the Bush administration:

I could understand and accept a lot more easily this blithe acquiescence to Obama's record if it weren't for the fact that progressives and Democrats spent so many years screaming bloody murder over Bush's use of indefinite detention, military commissions, state secrets, renditions, and extreme secrecy � policies Obama has largely and/or completely adopted as his own. One can't help but wonder, at least in some cases, how genuine those objections were, as opposed to their just having been effective tools to discredit a Republican president for partisan and political gain.

more at link

[Privateer]

No blithe acquiescence here. I expect nothing else from the political system as it is at the moment, even if Obama's rhetoric did raise my hopes for a short time before the election. Bush's style was more offensive than Obama's but the substance is the same. In fact, Obama seems to be taking Bush's policies to even greater extremes.

The one, diminishing, hope for change left is on healthcare - and we'll see how that works out.

[DIsbell]

Highly disappointing.

[ReeseDog]

It appears that he only wants one term after all.

[bacasper]

[ReeseDog]

[Tiger Beer]

One thing everyone has to keep in mind...there is a particularly vocal part of fear-mongering america...that would rip him to shreds politically if any 'terrorist' attack of even the most miniscule nature were to occur.

If the American people as a WHOLE all agreed that civil liberties were more important than preventing the next terrorist attack...then no doubt he'd go with that.

Being that most Americans seemed quite fine to quite estatic about curtailing civil liberties to thwart any type of terrorist activity of any nature whatsoever....it shouldn't be a real surprise that he is going with that general public view/push to restrict civil liberties.

Contrary to rightwing extremists views (or Fox News) that Obama is a liberal wacko...for the rest of us that follow more balanced news and avoid both viewpoints from the rightwing wackos and the left wing wackos...than any non-extremist person has known all along that Obama is VERY central.

If you guys wanted 'freedoms'...then yeah, a libertarian or a leftwing Kucinich type would have been your man.

[Ya-ta Boy]

I haven't followed this issue quite as closely as I might have. Could someone bring me up to speed on the changes/reforms/Supreme Court decisions that have modified the Patriot Act since it was first passed?

Wasn't there something about a huge terrorist attack in NYC, then an equally big over-reaction by the last administration, then something about the Supreme Court reigning in the administration...but that there is still an alleged group or two of allegedly bad guys out there, allegedly?

[visitorq]