PATRIOT ACT Renewal

Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration pushed a bill through Congress known as the PATRIOT ACT which was lauded as a necessary measure to combat terrorism.  The provisions it granted were for extended police and federal powers to deal with potential terrorist threats.  It made it legal for law enforcement officers to tap your phone line, request your medical and financial records without your consent or knowledge, or even place you under arrest, merely on the suspicion that you might be a terrorist, a term which is loosely defined at best.

Those that wrote the bill knew that it would be refused outright without a "sunset provision" -- in other words, unless renewed, the PATRIOT ACT would expire on December 31, 2005.  This was seen as a Good Thing by the PATRIOT ACT's opponents, like me.

Here we're going to get into the realm of what thinksincode would refer to as a "Conspiracy Theory".  The Bush Administration would have known that it couldn't get away with abusing the PATRIOT ACT during its probationary period, because as soon as December 31, 2005 rolled around, lawmakers would simply force the bill to expire, either by popular vote or simple fillibuster preventing the renewal vote until after the expiration.

Unfortunately, the Administration is more shrewd.  At least, the actual Administration, our President notwithstanding.  By waiting four years and carefully monitoring the use of the PATRIOT ACT, they were able to come to the table last night and show conclusive evidence that the PATRIOT ACT had not been used innappropriately.

So a vote was held, and the PATRIOT ACT has been renewed.  Not for another four years, but permanently.  My prediction is that we're now going to start seeing the privacy and Constitutional violations that the ACT's detractors have been warning about since the beginning, because now it is orders of magnitude more difficult to get rid of.