[Heebert]

Be careful! Signing away your rights is relatively easy in comparison to the task of regaining them.

eFormer - News that Moves

[MplsSteve]

I will never blindly trust govt...but in http://www.lifeandliberty.gov, they do a good job of dispelling many ACLU-bred myths about the Patriot Act.

I'm as cognizant of my rights and liberties as anyone and I'm not terribly concerned about it.

[Zeroisanumber]

I (heart) "Sneak and Peek" warrants.

Who needs that superfluous judicial review?

[FlipWilson]

England has no Patriot Act and things sure haven't worked out for them. I can see what you are saying about being wary of governmental powers, but I think the Left's hysteria over this act is over the top. The Patriot Act is, by and large, an extension of the weapons ALREADY employed by the government, in the war on drugs, to the arena of the war on terrorism. Before the 9/11 comm. i.e. the group assembled to try and blame Bush for 9/11, came out with their stellar reccomendations, the Patriot Act already addressed many of the reccomendations.

It is also interesting to note that in renewing the Act, the House increased Judicial and Congressional review. Hey, besides, we always have the ACLU to watch out for the rights of the terrorists. . uhhh, I mean our rights.

[Dionysius]

I bet my DTABOR* Congresswuss Russ Carnahan voted against it. If he did, he cleared it with Planned Parenthood. They own him.

*Dumber Than A Box Of Rocks

[FourtySeven]

I would be for extending all provisons, but I'm not so sure about making any permanant. I'm going to have to do more research into this.

[Dilbert56]

No one has been able to name a civil right lost because of the PATRIOT act. Most of its provisions bring anti-terror law enforcement up to the level in place for other crimes. Has RICO been abused? Yes. Fix the problem don't use it as an excuse.

Sneak & Peek - dumbest objection around. If you suspect there's a terrorist cell in an apartment do you really want to force FBI to tell them they're under investigation. No. You want the FBI to plant wiretaps & bugs. You want them to infect their computers with a virus allowing us to monitor their internet activity. This is war - not a PBS roundtable.

Do you really want to force the FBI to go to a judge every time a terrorist changes cell phones? No. You want the wiretap to apply to the terrorist, not the phone.

Administrative subpoenas - same thing. The government can pull your phone records, credit card records, etc. if you're suspected of any number of crimes today. Do you want to exempt suspected terrorists? No. In fact we should go the other way. Credit card and phone records should be sanitized (i.e. have the identities removed) and the data scrubbed for clues. If credit cards linked to the same person are used to buy explosive chemicals, and the person lives in a city (i.e. not blowing up tress tumps on a farm), we should know it.

The judges have to approve the searches and Congress reviews the results. The only time the guidelines were abused was prior to 2001. That's more protection than we have against our town halls. They can take away our houses to build shopping malls.

All of these perceived encroachments on our civil liberties are not being given up. If anything they are being traded against my Constitutional right to life, to not be blown to bits by a terrorist.

[quietolong]

Woman’s identity taken by state agents (Tactics by Big Brother Ohio)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1381191/posts

[Just Lori]

who voted yea and who voted nay?