Decius wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:

But House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, who shepherded the bill through the House, said sunset provisions were not necessary because there was no evidence the Patriot Act was being misused and lawmakers could provide sufficient oversight.

I think one thing that is overlooked in this is that Sensenbrenner is considered to be the right's answer to, well, I have a hard time thinking of anyone as far to the left as Jim is to the right, not even Ted. He's the one who held up the Intelligence Act because he wanted to attach immigration riders to it. He's the same one who, when presented by Amnesty International quoting FBI documents abouts abuses at Camp X-Ray, Abu Gharib and Bagram, simply didn't want to hear it, gaveled the meeting closed and walked off.

This is quite a lively discussion and I want to throw my hat into the ring. The thing that pisses me off about the Patriot Act is that both sides have turned it into such a political football that its almost impossible to have substantive discussion about it.

To Sensenbrenner I would say:

The discussion about whether or not these provisions are properly crafted hangs on the question of whether the checks and balances actually make sense for the long term and not on documented cases of abuse. This law is about the future and not about the past. Furthermore, even ardent defenders of the law conceed that various gag rules make it very difficult to document abuses. And no, I don't trust lawmakers to provide oversight. You, yourself have argued that the political discussion hasn't been substantive (more on that in a minute). To turn around and argue that its going to be effective at preventing abuse seems hypocritical.

To the left I would say:

Various overbroad calls for repealing the thing have contributed nothing at all to the debate. Sensenbrenner may have been a dick in that hearing, but he was right. POW abuse has absolutely nothing to do with the Patriot Act. Hearings about the Patriot Act ought to be about the Patriot Act. Talking about unrelated issues prevents the substantive debate that is needed about the specific provisions. Its almost as if you don't want that discussion to happen, because you don't actually want to reform this law. (Hrmmmmmmm.)

The most troubling provisions of this law are not the ones which have been opened to debate by the sunset clause. It is absolutely inevitable that the National Security Letters will be abused if the Supreme Court does not ultimately declare them unconstitutional.

A law that says that an FBI agent can write a letter demanding information with absolutely no oversight at all that cannot be challenged or even discussed is absolutely asking to be abused. As a temporary emergency measure it might have been acceptable. As a permanent part of our legal system it is not.

I brought up Jim's record at that hearing to show that he should not be considered a reliable source. When confronted with abuse at the camps, he refused to listen. That he hasn't heard of abuses doesn't surprise me, he's the sort of individual who simply shuts that out.

Are there good parts of PATRIOT? Yes, the bit about cooperation between intelligence agencies in there was a good idea, but I don't know if it comes close to solving the border wars between CIA and FBI to say nothing about including NSA, DIA, ATF, INS or DEA, all of which have fingers in the anti-terror pie.

Are there bad parts of PATRIOT? Yes, the books thing is ridiculous, there are areas where it vastly oversteps 4th Amendment protections on search and seizure, and has been used as a defense for planting agents in a hippy group in Oregon that pretty much sat around bitching about how bad the war in Iraq is, until they decided to go home and probably eat their pot brownies, I don't know, but they sure as hell weren't terrorists.

If you want to do something good, first, get rid of DEA and ATF, and fold them into FBI. There is no useful purpose in having multiple groups that can't share covering the same turf. If they could, I might have a different response, but they can't and have proven that time and again. Who knows, it may even save some money.

Next, cut FBI loose from the AG's office. Having law enforcement arm attached to the political side is bad business. Cops don't report to local DA's, they report to the mayor. The FBI is on the same page and should report to the man in charge, not someone that is continually having to be recused for special prosecutors because of conflicts of interest (Ashcroft, Reno, Meese, and hey, let's send John Mitchell all the way to jail).

Secret Service is fine as an independent group, they cover pretty much security and counterfeiting and not much else so that's fine as it is.

Oh yeah, dump TSA. It's a joke, a boondoggle and every other bad thing you can say about bad government. Things would have been much better if it had been set up as an oversight board, handing down general rules rather than as an active branch. The way they did things meant a step DOWN in protection at the Denver airport and is nothing more than a political arm to scare people with their little rainbow of warnings. The "threat level" has been yellow or orange since it was created, and how many incidents have their been at airports or on airplanes since it was created? Zero. And it's not because of TSA. On top of which, they don't cover good targets, and have turned a previously bad target into a gold mine for body parts at the airport check in line.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Things that would actually work don't get done, while lip service is paid to doing things actually useful. Try this. Want to make subway security work? Don't bother searching bags of people, install chemical sniffers along a 40 foot entrance hall to the station. That should be long enough to pick up the signature of any explosives someone is trying to bring in, and all you need is two guys sitting at the end of the hall to check people out if they get set off. Is it perfect? No, would it work? Better than making huge lines to get to the train that just became a BETTER TARGET (the line, not the train). STOP MAKING TARGETS!

RE: Patriot Act Extended