Renewing the USA Patriot Act
Posted by StormWarning on 15 Nov 2005 at 08:54 pm | Tagged as: Federal Policy, Opinions
Of all of the steps this government has taken since the attacks of September 11th, the controversial passage of the Patriot Act(s) is perhaps the least understood and one of the most important, IMO.
According to Andy Cochran of the Counterterrorism Blog, despite some publicity to the contrary the Patriot Act appears to be moving toward renewal before "sunsets."
(http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/11/usa_patriot_act.html)
I don’t have all of the time I need to look for stuff I’ve written in the past about why I think that the Patriot Act is critical (hopefully, I’ll find some of it and add them as comments to this post). To me, one of the most important elements of the Patriot Act are all of the provisions relating to money and financial transactions. IMO, everything has a long way to go.
Oddly, there are some people who go through their lives each and every day, almost as though nothing happened in their lives after September 10, 2001, and still insist that their rights have been somehow abridged or reduced. I’ve yet to figure out how my rights have been reduced or violated.
Federal Policy, Opinions
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175747,00.html
“House and Senate negotiators have struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb the FBI’s investigative power and require the Justice Department to more fully report its secret requests for information about ordinary people…”
…The agreement, which would make most provisions of the existing law permanent, was reached just before dawn Wednesday. But by midmorning GOP leaders had already made plans for a House vote on Thursday and a Senate vote by the end of the week. That would put the centerpiece of President Bush’s war on terror on his desk before Thanksgiving, a month before more than a dozen provisions were set to expire.”