Constitutional Rights Take Another Beating

After the attack on the Twin Towers on 9/11/01, President Bush used the event to push through the Patriot Act. This infamous law further restricted the already severely eroded rights of Americans to privacy from government snooping. It allowed federal and other policing agencies to snoop on Americans and gather their records, many times without even a search warrant -- a law that would have made our Founding Fathers howl in outrage.

Of course, the Congress used the excuse of stopping another 9/11 incident. They scared Americans into giving up more of their freedoms, completely ignoring the fact that the Patriot Act simply was not needed. The Bush administration was warned that an incident like 9/11 could and probably would happen, but they ignored their own intelligence. If the Patriot Act had been in effect before 9/11, it would have given the Bush administration only information they already had and ignored.

But it was a perfect excuse for government to grab some more power and further limit the rights of all Americans, and they jumped on it -- and sadly, both parties participated in the travesty. I would love to blame Republicans for that, but the fact is that many Democrats voted for it also. And after the Obama administration assumed power, they have done all they can to keep the Patriot Act in full effect. When government grabs some power, they just don't give it up without a fight -- regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power.

A part of the Patriot Act, actually three provisions of it, were due to expire at the end of this month. The sane and freedom-loving thing to do would be to let it expire (and then work toward repealing the rest of the Patriot Act), but as I said, the government never willingly gives up any power it has assumed. A few days ago, the House of Representatives extended the Patriot Act provisions through December 8th.

Yesterday, the Senate also extended the provisions -- but only through May 27th. They said this would give them time to discuss the provisions and make sure rights were protected. You notice they didn't say they would let the provisions die in May -- only that they would study them. I wouldn't bet against them being extended again in May, only for a much longer period of time.

In the end, only 12 senators voted for the constitutional rights of all Americans. These 12 senators voted to let the provisions expire and stated their desire to repeal the whole Patriot Act. They should be applauded for standing up for their fellow citizens, even though it was in a losing cause. Here are those 12 brave senators:

Baucus (D-Montana)
Begich (D-Alaska)
Brown (D-Ohio)
Harkin (D-Iowa)
Lautenberg (D-New Jersey)
Lee (R-Utah)
Merkley (D-Oregon)
Murray (D-Washington)
Paul (R-Kentucky)
Sanders (I-Vermont)
Tester (D-Montana)
Udall (D-New Mexico)