THE PATRIOT ACT: FOUR MORE YEARS
May. 27th, 2011 11:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogITEM: The “temporary” parts of the Patriot Act have been renewed for another four years.
No surprise there. Harry Reid and John Boehner told you it would happen. The only real surprise was that Rand Paul (of all people) managed to hold off the vote a couple of days to try and work in a couple of amendments toning the extensions down a peg. (They failed.)
And why not? No one really cares anymore, if they ever did. All the arguments against it, all the abuses of it, the unconstitutionality rulings – all of them have been public for years.
Hell, this week alone, at least two (2) US Senators went public with a warning that the DOJ has been secretly interpreting the law in a manner far different from its public interpretation of the law that gives it a hell of a lot more power to collect massive amounts of data on people.
For all the difference it made.
As I said before, the Patriot Act is the new Normal in the realm of govt surveillance limitations. It’s so normal that President Obama couldn’t even be bothered to sign it in person. They used an autopen, the sort of thing you typically save for routine things like minor bills, fundraising letters and (if yr Donald Rumsfeld) letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed in combat.
I realize Obama’s in Europe and there was a deadline consideration here. Still, for something this grave (and considering one of his campaign planks was to reform the Patriot Act to curb potential abuses), the least he could have done is show up.
None genuine without my signature,
This is dF
No surprise there. Harry Reid and John Boehner told you it would happen. The only real surprise was that Rand Paul (of all people) managed to hold off the vote a couple of days to try and work in a couple of amendments toning the extensions down a peg. (They failed.)
And why not? No one really cares anymore, if they ever did. All the arguments against it, all the abuses of it, the unconstitutionality rulings – all of them have been public for years.
Hell, this week alone, at least two (2) US Senators went public with a warning that the DOJ has been secretly interpreting the law in a manner far different from its public interpretation of the law that gives it a hell of a lot more power to collect massive amounts of data on people.
For all the difference it made.
As I said before, the Patriot Act is the new Normal in the realm of govt surveillance limitations. It’s so normal that President Obama couldn’t even be bothered to sign it in person. They used an autopen, the sort of thing you typically save for routine things like minor bills, fundraising letters and (if yr Donald Rumsfeld) letters of condolence to the families of soldiers killed in combat.
I realize Obama’s in Europe and there was a deadline consideration here. Still, for something this grave (and considering one of his campaign planks was to reform the Patriot Act to curb potential abuses), the least he could have done is show up.
None genuine without my signature,
This is dF
