[Peace-discuss] Obaman civil liberties

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Dems Retreat, Senate Renews PATRIOT Act
	No Privacy Protections, No Debate
	by Jason Ditz, February 24, 2010

The Senate today voted to extend the PATRIOT Act for another year, as requested 
by the Obama Administration. The vote came without any debate, and by voice vote 
so that individuals did not have to make their position public.

Perhaps the most galling part of the vote was that not a single privacy 
provision was added to the bill, despite Congressional Democrats promising such 
reforms.

Even the Obama Administration seemed to have resigned itself to the privacy 
provisions, demanding only that they not weaken the president’s powers. In the 
end however, the Senate’s Democrats backed off entirely and approved the bill 
exactly as-is.

The bill will now move into the House of Representatives, where the Judiciary 
Committee has been seeking to remove the “lone wolf” section of the act 
entirely. In an election year it will be interesting to see if the House 
Democrats are willing to press hard for civil rights protections against an 
administration which has insisted they be, at best, seriously limited.

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