I'm torn b/t renewing it as is or reducing some of the items. I'm all for keeping America safe, but not at the cost of limiting our freedoms. And like someone mentioned above, I'm worried about what HRC would do as president.
Me too!
I'm sure that Gary Hart and Andrew Young do have a sequel to their Patriot Act. President Rodham may have Attorney General Obama modernize the list of terrorist organizations though.
I voted 'dropped' because the Patriot Act is a legacy of the Clinton presidency and tramples underfoot our Bill of Rights.
I said eliminate it. We already have far too much government intrusion in our life.
Some will say "If you don't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about." Imagine Hillary becoming presindent and deciding what is right & wrong. It basically chews up the Constitution, Bill of Rights etc. and spits it out into a government issued ID card.
Unless the feds can figure out how to cover the basics like protecting our borders and profiling middle eastern males they can sh!tcan the whole thing.
Expanded but still with a need to vote on it every year to keep it going.
I still believe President Bush screwed this whole thing up when on Sept11, he did not, Declare War on Syria, Iran and Iraq,( Since they were the top three countries that the State Department had on their terrorist sponsoring list.) declare Martial Law and put US on total WW2 style war footing including draft, give Damascus Tehran and Bagdad 96 hours to evacuate then Nuke one, ..... and oh yeah -CONTROL OUR BORDER IN A TIME OF WAR.
And when Syria and Iran and Iraq had unconditionally surrendered, established new governments that included freedom of Religion - or been utterly destroyed, then we could have lifted Martial Law.
No need for Patriot this or that, I or II.
What rights have been given up? Most provisions brought terrorism suspects on par with suspected mobsters. Has RICO been abused? Yes. Does that mean we should let terrorists elude police by chancing phones? No.
A lot of the criticism of this Act deliberately leaves out the role of the court in verifying there is good cause to track a suspect. That court has also been abused in the past but the suspected violations occured prior to John Ashcroft's arrival. Could a Hillary administration abuse this? Sure. Without sufficient Congressional oversight they can abduct Cuban boys, incinerate Texas ranchers, sic the IRS on political enemies. We can't give the terrorists an even break just because Her Thighness might get in.
Made permanent
22.0%
Over 55% of "conservatives" agree: big government is good (as long as the GOP is in control), and true "patriots" will gladly exchange liberty for perceived safety.
Dropped...
Not the original design of Fed. Govt....
Make it permanent. We are in a war that will probably never ever end. I hope we can prevent another mass murder 911 attack. Not arrest suicide bombers after an act is carried out. I disagree with the arguments that this act would be dangerous with another Clinton administration. That sounds like DU conspiracy talk to me. As long as presidents are limited to 4-year terms I don't see presidents as all powerful and above the law.
Patriot Act needs to have some fine tuning done, and then be made a permanent part of Federal Law.
However, there is no chance in hell that anyone is going to support major expansions or permanent status of the Patriot Act that affects Citizens, as long as illegal aliens control the entire I-5 corridor, clear up to Seattle...
Extended, with common sense adjustments. Keeping in mind that misuse and abuse of these powers will occur in the wrong hands.
I would like the Patriot Act to sunset again in about 5-10 years. I do NOT support making it permanent.
Dump the Patriot Act and just enforce the borders. Allow the FBI to "profile" possible terror suspects. Hmmm, that's odd...they're all young, male, Middle-eastern descent, and Muslim. Could it be a profile?
I don't trust ANY of these people with this broad power and it won't stand up to the Constitution.
What more needs to be said?
Repealed before they use it on all of us.
Here's what they plan for our futures.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1422038/posts
It should be reason enough to hang for treason everyone who signed it.