Obama Quietly Backs Patriot Act Provisions

[peaceandlove]

In case it slipped under your radar too.

POLITICS-US:

Obama Quietly Backs Patriot Act Provisions

William Fisher

NEW YORK, 23 Nov (IPS) - With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA Patriot Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.

And it is reportedly doing so over the objections of some prominent Democrats.

When a panicky Congress passed the act 45 days after the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, three contentious parts of the law were scheduled to expire at the end of next month, and opponents of these sections have been pushing Congress to substitute new provisions with substantially strengthened civil liberties protections.

But with the apparent approval of the Obama White House and a number of Republicans – and over the objections of liberal Senate Democrats including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois – the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to extend the three provisions with only minor changes.

Those provisions would leave unaltered the power of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls and e-mail in the course of counterterrorism investigations.

The parts of the act due to expire on Dec. 31 deal with:

National Security Letters (NSLs)

The FBI uses NSLs to compel Internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their customers and patrons. Using this data, the government can compile vast dossiers about innocent people.

Continues: http://ipsnorthamerica.net/news.php?idnews=2694

[mntruthseeker]

Keep it up Obama...........your days are coming to an end

the secrets are getting out and our world will not tolerate the weak government workers we have any longer..................fire them all

[Phtha]

hmm.. maybe we'll get lucky and Obama's teleprompter will break during an official announcement rendering him disabled and incapable of speech.

[mmerlinn]

Originally Posted by mntruthseeker

Keep it up Obama...........your days are coming to an end

Whether Obama knows it or not, he has been given a job to do and limited time in which to do it.

And so far he has been doing that job better than even I had suspected that he would. Unfortunately, it means the end of America as we know it.

He must get the job done by 4 July 2012. I don't know how he will do it in that short of a time-span, but somehow some way he will. And no one and nothing can stop him from getting it done.

Just perusing this forum I see all kinds of things coming down the pike, all aimed at destroying America. Much of it will happen simply because he is at the helm and either will allow it to happen or actually push to make it happen.

The real key will be whether America can survive past 17 September 2012. I doubt that we will. I think Obama will have done the job so well that we will not get past that date.

Do I like it? NO!!! I grew up in a FREE country - a country that I loved. I fought for a FREE country. When President Reagan signed a bill in October 1986 that basically made our Constitution null and void I was APPALLED. Ever since that date, my country has been losing ALL of its freedoms and has been the target of many terrorist attacks. Soon everything will be gone.