Democrats Wimp Out Again !

I am getting so tired of the spineless wimps the Democratic Party has sent to the United States Senate. Instead of showing some political courage and acting in the best interests of the citizens of the United States, they continue to act like they are terrified that the Republicans might talk bad about them. Yesterday, they had another chance to do the right thing, and once again they wussed out.

Several provisions of Bush's Patriot Act (a vile and unconstitutional law) were set to expire at the end of the month. Here are those provisions as described by MSNBC:

One authorizes court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones. A second allows court-approved seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations. A third permits surveillance against a so-called lone wolf, a non-U.S. citizen suspected of engaging in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group.

Now the correct and politically courageous thing to do would be to repeal the whole Patriot Act. It doesn't really protect us, but it does give "Big Brother" a vastly expanded right to spy on civilians (both U.S. citizens and others) -- not something that can be tolerated in a truly free country. But I've seen enough of this group of Senate Democrats to not expect that kind of courage.

But they could at least have included some more protections for individual rights if they were going to extend this stupid law. Some progressives tried to do that. They wanted to amend the law and did so in the Judiciary Committee. These new amendments would have:

The Judiciary Committee bill would have restricted FBI information demands known as national security letters and made it easier to challenge gag orders imposed on Americans whose records are seized. Library records would have received extra protections. Congress would have closely scrutinized FBI use of the law to prevent abuses. Dissemination of surveillance results would have been restricted and after a time, unneeded records would have been destroyed.

But even that minor move was too much for the blue dogs and spineless members of the party as it turns out. The amendments were stripped out of the bill, and then the bill was passed on a voice vote without even the pretense of a debate. Good grief! They didn't even have the balls to debate improving the bad bill!

Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said, "I would have preferred to add oversight and judicial review improvements to any extension of expiring provisions in the USA Patriot Act. But I understand some Republican senators objected."

I really don't understand why the Democrats care what Republicans object to. Let them object to whatever they want, but that is no reason to fail to do what is in the best interests of American citizens. The Republicans sure didn't care about Democratic objections when they were in power.

(Senator Leahy is pictured above.)