House votes to repeal part of USA Patriot Act

Hallelujah! Could it be? Is the neo-con pendulum starting to swing back toward the center?

Article:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0616/dailyUpdate.html

A list of all 16 provisions set to expire:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7392967/

Time to contact your congresspeople, kiddies!

Kisses and Hugs,
Paolo

No. They'll put it back in committee.

Even if they don't, this is a provision widely regarded as a "gimme"; that is, if public pressure actually starts to grow against the Patriot Act, this is something they can give away to show they're "protecting the rights of Americans" without really affecting the serious wrongs included in the bill.

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"House Republican leaders are not accustomed to losing, and they did not hide their anger about the result. One aide to a House leader referred to the victorious coalition as 'the crazies on the left and the crazies on the right, meeting in the middle.' "
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Ha ..

This is good news.

Well, then it can't hurt for us to put a quick call or Email to our local Reps.

http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

What an idiot. yes, by all means let's ban knowledge because it can be used to do bad things. Why stop there? Let's get rid of all sharp pointy things too! How the hell do people like this get elected?

By making stupid people afraid...

Isn't that how democracy is supposed to work? No wonder the leadership is fuming.

We all know libraries are hotbeds of terrorism. I can't pick up a copy of the latest Harry Potter without tripping over a half-dozen Al-Quaeda, Irish Republicans, Environmental Liberation loonies and midwest Militiamen.

I guess I'll have to order my Edward Abbey under an assumed name via Amazon.com. I'm sure the terrorists haven't thought of that...

Ha is right... please tell me one liberal who "moved to the middle" and if this is indeed the middle then what was on the left? lol

Republicans move to the middle when they agree with Dems all the way on the left but somehow they get the rap of not moving while the Dems get the credit for doing absolutely nothing.

On the left is totally scrapping this bullshit legislation and prosecuting the crooks that are trying to steal our civil liberties.

Does that answer your question?

I meant the reaction is typical conservative call Liberals crazies - a total mischaracterization. Also the extreme right wingers crazies.

And is good the republicans arent happy.

Lets be realistic theres gonna be a LOT of central leaning people in any majority vote in the house.

Hopefully the entire patriot act gets repealed.

This being the normal fate of reactionary civil liberties restricting legislation passed in response to an external threat.

The entire Patriot Act should be repealed.

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

I would like to point you to the 8 years of peace and prosperity under Bill Clinton. A fine President who knew how to get the job done.

Couldn't agree more!

I read an interesting theory about this aspect of the Patriot Act today on another board:



So either the authors of this little gem really didn't think it through (because how effective is it really going to be to fight terrorism?), or....

or they want to compile records on law abiding citizens and the "preventing terrorism" bit is just an excuse.

Couldn't have said it better. The Patriot Act co-opts the feel-good notion of national unity as a rouse to get the unwashed masses to give up more civil liberties. I, for one, am damned sick and tired of it.

Or they are planning to start selling statistics to the corporations that actually run this country when we stop looking.

Did anyone listen to the latest speech Bush gave about the Patriot Act? (I mean, out of those who don't plug their ears and cover their eyes when he's speaking... ) He named multiple instances where law enforcement specifically used the Patriot Act in investigations, including at least one that I believe involved a sleeper cell in the US. I'll have to look it up some time to see if I can find specifics.

In his speech, Bush said that since Sept. 11, "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted." He said authorities had used the Patriot Act to break up terrorist cells in New York, Florida, Oregon and Virginia.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is arguing in court that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, challenged Bush's numbers.

Citing a study by Syracuse University, Lisa Graves, an ACLU senior counsel, said in a written statement that the "vast majority" of the 400 cases Bush mentioned were for "minor, non-terrorism offenses. These individuals posed such little threat to national security that most served no jail time."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-patriot10jun10,0,7129955.story?coll=la-home-headlines

"critics say the new data - compiled by researchers at Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, using Justice Department reports - provide a very different picture, one that suggests the government is inflating its success by categorizing minor prosecutions as related to terrorism. TRAC data shows that convictions in cases the Justice Department says are related to international terrorism jumped 7 1/2 times compared with the two years before the attacks - from 24 to 184 - but the number of individuals who received sentences of five or more years actually dropped, from six in the two years before the attacks to three in the two years that followed.

When crimes the Justice Department said were related to domestic terrorism are included, convictions jump from 96 before the attacks to 341 after. Despite that dramatic increase, the number of those individuals who received sentences of five or more years dropped from 24 to 16.

"Since Sept. 11, we've been told that stopping terrorists has been the top priority of the Justice Department. If the data in the (TRAC) report is correct, this raises questions about the accuracy of the department's claims about terrorism enforcement," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who in the past has been critical of the way the FBI and other agencies have categorized cases to show they are succeeding in America's war on terror."


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1208-10.htm

Well, the smaller cases, the "vast majority" as they are calling it, aren't the ones that concern me. I'm talking about specific cases he mentioned (I think it was a different speech, I don't remember 400 anything), but anyway...

What I AM concerned about are the "minority" of cases there that the ACLU does not claim to be minor. I'm concerned because it only takes ONE failure on our part for another successful attack to be carried out. It only takes "a few", not 400, so I'm not ready to dismiss anything yet.

I do defintely think it needs to be tweaked and in some areas made more specific, such as making parts ONLY apply to suspected terrorism cases, and such. If I remember correctly, during a comittee hearing I was watching awhile back (no life, I know), the director of the FBI and Atty. Gen. Gonzales expessed agreement and willingness to make such types of changes.

Seems like a good balanced article there. But I do like this part:


lol... I believe the Justice department releases regular annual and (I believe) quarterly reports of exactly how the Patriot Act has been used, and how often it has been used--but the senators on the committee weren't even aware that the information they were asking for was being given to them all this time! Obviously they weren't reading these reports (given that they were probably long and senators are busy I'm not surprised), and their staff apparently(?) wasn't too concerned about them either I guess.

Also, there are no reported incidents of abuse of the act. I believe this is because:

1) The act is being used appropriately
2) Law enforcement agencies do not want to lose these new tools they have--abusing them makes the loss of them more likely--so clearly it's in their interests not to abuse them.
3) There are more limitations and "checks" on law enforcement's ability to use the act in investigations than opponents of the act seem to imply there are. Unfortunately I can't remember specifics.

(This is in reply to Chip's first post above btw, you guys are fast!)

This is why I'm not in support of making it permanent, I think renewing it every few years is fine, as well as tweaking it.

If there's another attack, it's pretty much up to the American people to decide. I say this because once it starts getting to the point where EVERYONE is getting worried about Big Brother, congressmen that support giving law enforcement more power aren't going to do very well in the voting booth. Clearly the majority of Americans haven't made this their number one issue yet, because the Republican supporters of the act did pretty well in the last election.

In some way it is a terrorist win I suppose...but they did get a "win" on 9/11 anyway, and I think something had to change to enable our counter-terrorism teams to be more effective. We've gotten our own fair share of wins, too. (disproportionately IMO) And I believe that some of the "tools" that the act allows to be applied to counterterrorism cases are already usable in other types of domestic cases, in those cases, I don't see how the Patriot Act is anything but a loss for terrorists.

From: Garoad Kuroda

This is why I'm not in support of making it permanent, I think renewing it every few years is fine, as well as tweaking it.

IMHO - there's not much of a difference between making it permanent and renewing it every few years. The renewal scheme simply makes it easier for the general public to swallow, thinking it is just a temporary extension which will be up for review in a few years. I don't like it one bit.


In some way it is a terrorist win I suppose...but they did get a "win" on 9/11 anyway, and I think something had to change to enable our counter-terrorism teams to be more effective. We've gotten our own fair share of wins, too. (disproportionately IMO)
I think 9/11 was a swipe at us that cost us dearly. It was a loss on our part, but I don't really view it as a win for them. It's only a win for them if you view it in the context of the human casualties they were able to inflict on us. I don't think they really care about that, so much as they want to change our way of life - which is being done, in large part, thanks to the Patriot Act. That's where they had a win.

Well, even without the act, I think we're still very affected by the attacks on a national level.

I don't disagree that it's easier to get by the voting population if it is regarded as something that needs to be renewed. But I think we diverge on how we believe the country will react to improper strengthening of and/or abuse of the act--I believe that when people feel their rights are being taken away, they'll make this fact well known to all. If there WAS definite and documented abuses of the act out there, I'd have to reconsider my position here.