Senate Renews Patriot Act (Under A Different Name)

(This image of NSA spying is by Occupy, and was found at Daily Tech.)

For one whole day it was illegal for the American government to spy on its citizens, as the Patriot Act expired at the end of May -- but the United States Senate (in a bill already approved by the House of Representatives) decided constitutional rights weren't nearly as important as security (i.e., spying on Americans).

Yesterday, the Senate approved the new spying bill (with its name changed from the Patriot Act to the USA Freedom Act -- a misnomer if there ever was one) on a 67 to 32 vote. And the most embarrassing thing is that only two Democrats voted against the terrible bill -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin. Every other Democrat voted to allow the NSA to continue its spying.

I know they are assuring us that they have fixed the bill, and the government will no longer be collecting massive amounts of data on Americans. But didn't they tell us the same thing when they passed the original Patriot Act? And that didn't seem to matter, since the NSA used the bill to spy on Americans. Why would it be different this time?

They tell us that the government would no longer be keeping the massive amounts of data being collected. That job would be turned over to private companies. What is the difference? The government can still access that data by asking a secret court for it (and if you think that secret court would turn the government down, then I have some ocean-front property here in Amarillo that I'll sell you real cheap).

I was tempted to congratulate the 30 Republicans who voted against the bill, but it turns out only a few of them voted that way to protect citizens rights -- most of them voted against the bill because they want a stronger bill, with more spying.

Either those in Congress are complete fools (and don't understand what they've done), or they just don't care about the constitutional rights of American citizens -- maybe both. It's time to replace most of these idiots -- in both parties.

(This cartoon image is by Stuart Carlson at carlsontoons.com.)