Patriot Act Under Fire
I’m glad someone in Washington is finally starting to understand the sheer breadth of authority that the Patriot Act grants to the government to violate our freedoms as guaranteed under the first ten amendments to the Constitution. According to a CNN report on a NY Times story that ran today, the NSA has been eavesdropping on hundreds, and potentially thousands of people in the US without a warrant, and the only probable cause being that they might be terrorists. More details are here and here. I do, however, want to point out a few quotes from the articles.
From the first:
Administration officials reacted to the report by asserting that the president has respected the Constitution while striving to protect the American people. Rice said Bush has “acted lawfully in every step that he has taken.” And McClellan said Bush “is going to remain fully committed to upholding our Constitution and protect the civil liberties of the American people. And he has done both.”
I’m sure that Bush has acted lawfully, because the Patriot Act’s provisions let you target just about anyone for no better reason than they might do something at some time somewhere. That’s why they’re so damn scary (and to think, this is the less scary version that doesn’t let your meter reader spy on you and turn you in).
From the second, with another quote from McClellan related to the one above:
“The president is firmly committed to upholding our Constitution and upholding people’s civil liberties. That is something he has always kept in mind as we have moved forward from the attacks of September 11, to do everything within our power to prevent attacks from happening,” McClellan said.
Is it just me, or did he just define “civil liberties” as “being safe from an attack”?
I fully understand the difficulty of trying to prevent terrorists from attacking the US or any other country, but there are limits to how far the government should be allowed to go to get that information. Monitoring phone calls and emails without warrant or even probable cause (which you need to get a warrant, hence the allowance of warrant-less monitoring) is too far beyond the rule of law as allowed by the Constitution. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m all for preventing terrorist attacks, because that’s something nobody should have to worry about. But to guarantee our safety by abandoning the principles that make this country what it is is unacceptable. And the kicker is, there’s been little to no evidence, IMHO, that the Patriot Act has done much of anything.
So now the Patriot Act is stalling in the Senate, with the expiration/renewal date drawing ever-closer. This should be interesting.