We’d like to believe that with a new administration in charge, the USA PATRIOT Act in its current form would be headed for the scrap heap.
Alas, we would be wrong.
Despite campaign protestations about breach of civil liberties legalized by the 2001 law, the Obama clique seems pleased as punch to be the new puppetmasters behind unlawful government spying on the American public.
That includes shifting through your library selections, your business records and listening in on your phone calls. So be better be careful what you say about Barack Obama, just like you had to watch your mouth about George W. Bush.
You’ll recall the knee-jerk reaction to the Sept. 11 attacks resulted in Congress — Democrats and Republicans — approving this full frontal assault on civil liberties before the ash had even had a chance to settle at Ground Zero.
But it’s been eight years. During those years the PATRIOT Act in conjunction with other Bush-era dismantling of Constitutional safeguards have left honest, God-fearing, taxpaying Americans on the same radar screen as al-Qaida operatives.
According to the Associated Press and other reports, the Obama administration supports extending three key provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of the year.
Those provisions, along with roving wire taps and “lone wolf” monitoring, also give the government access to citizens’ library records, bringing howls of protests from librarians, civil libertarians and conservatives alike.
Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich has informed Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that the administration is willing to consider stronger civil rights protections in the new law “provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important (provisions).”
That’s what we call lip service.
There are efforts to make the government accountable to the people once again. A bill is targeting a 2008 law — Obama voted for it — which gave immunity from prosecution to telecommunications companies that participated in President Bush’s warrantless surveillance program. Senators Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., would repeal immunity as part of bill they announced recently. The Judicious Use of Surveillance Tools In Counterterrorism Efforts (JUSTICE) Act would also restrict the collection in bulk of overseas phone calls coming into the United States. While the bill keeps much of the previously-approved spying powers in place, including the FISA Amendments Act, it specifies that the subjects of surveillance must have some connection to terrorism or espionage.
As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama said he would take a close look at the law.
But when we see statements from the administration like Weich’s, we recognize the kind of thinking that got this abuse-codifying law repeatedly reauthorized in the past
It is with bitter disappointment that we realize President Obama is happy with that status quo. Those of us who voted for him, after all, bought into his message of “change.”
Change apparently means something else when you’re the one in power.
Source: Petroskey News
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