Patriot Act renewal fails in Senate: GOP fights to save provisions before end-of-year deadline
It was a victory for common sense and civil liberties. What else could one say about the Senate’s refusal yesterday to renew expiring provisions of the Patriot Act, that assault on our personal liberties that was forced down our throats immediately after 9.11 when Congress was under intense pressure to do something- ANYTHING- so that the terrorist wouldn’t win? The result was the Patriot Act, the single most egregious and nost poorly considered assault on American civil and personal rights in this nation’s history.
Winning the war on terrorism should not mean eroding our rights as Americans in order to save them. Rights, once lost, are exceedingly difficult to restore. If anything, protecting our rights in the face of an increasingly aggressive and belligerent federal government is more important now than it has ever been. Frankly, those who are willing to compromise their rights in order to save them don’t deserve to have them in the first place.
[W]ithout an extension, 16 provisions could expire at the end of the year. There’s also the possibility the Senate could still manage to bring the Patriot Act to a vote before the December 31 deadline.
The Bush administration had lobbied intensely for making the provisions permanent. Top officials, including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, had called lawmakers in hopes of swaying them to the administration’s position. (Read what Bush has to say)
In a statement after the Senate’s vote, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the provisions “are essential to our efforts in the war on terrorism and their loss will damage our ability to prevent terrorist attacks. Our nation cannot afford to let these important counterterrorism tools lapse.”
I am all for protecting our nation against another 9.11 or anything even remotely similar, but I refuse to believe that we must sacrifice some of our personal and civil liberties in order to save them. I want to believe that we are a creative and resourceful enough country that we can figure out how to protect our nation without giving Big Brother an increased ability and right to surveil everyday Americans, poking into aspects of our lives that Government has no business in.
I support legitimate counterterrorism tools, not laws that give our government the ability and the right to ever-more gradually deny everyday American citizens their Constitutionally-guaranteed right. While some may see the Patriot Act as a necessary tool in the war on terror, it was in some aspects spectacularly poorly thought-out. The fact that it was forced upon us so soon after 9.11 only speaks to the lack of consideration of the long-term consequences might be. It was a knee-jerk reaction to a problem that required honest, thoughtful consideration. The resulting Patrioct Act was neither honest nor thoughtful in the slightest.
The act, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, allows the government broad authority to investigate people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities. Controversial measures include those allowing the FBI — with a court order — to obtain secret warrants for business, library, medical, and other records, and to get a wiretap on every phone a suspect uses.
The problem here is what constitutes a suspect? Who defines whom the measures may be used against? What provisions are in place to ensure that these powers cannot potentially be abused? The news that the US government may have been spying on American citizens without proper warrants hardly inspires confidence in the good intentions of those charged with protecting us.
WE DESERVE BETTER. Yes, we expect our government to protect us, and they deserve to be given the tools necessary to meet that expectation. The Patriot Act simply does not meet a standard which would allow Americans to believe that it’s provisions would not and could not be used against them for purposes unrelated to protecting this nation from terrorism.
Give us something that respects our Constitutional rights, and that will not be used for nefarious purposes unrelated to the war on terrorism, and I will wholeheartedly support it. The Patriot Act doesn’t begin to meet that standard. There can be no doubt- WE DESERVE BETTER.
