The Patriot Act is signed
On Thursday, President Bush signed the new Patriot Act into law. All but two of the provisions have been made permanent. A few have been watered down. The two that had 4 year sunsets attached were the "roving wiretap" part and the ability to get business records. Libraries acting in their "traditional capacity" are now exempt from National Security Letters.
The biggest problem with the Patriot Act IMHO comes from the Bush administration's defense of the Act which boils down to their traditional "trust me" argument. They claim that there is no recorded case of civil libery violations using the law. This is arguably not true, but nevertheless begs an interesting question that separates the liberals from the conservatives--"Are you willing to allow a law on the books that could easily be abused, just because it hasn't so far and if it does some good by catching terrorists?"
I don't trust the government that much myself, but I'm a curmudgeon. BTW, true conservatives shouldn't like this any better than I do. They should also want to balance the budget, I think.
Posted on March 14, 2006
