Patriot Act Provision Defeated, Then Undefeated
This story from the Boston Globe reports on the tactics used by the Bush administration to pressure House Republicans to change their votes, once it was clear that they were ready to restore your privacy in public libraries by amending one of the most offensive provisions of the misnamed PATRIOT Act.
The amendment seemed to pass, 213-206, as the 15-minute voting time expired. But, the time for voting was extended and Republican House members were told that terrorists had recently used public library computers. It worked. Our representatives were pressured and scared into changing their votes, swinging the margin back and keeping this provision of the Patriot Act intact, 210-210. (If you’ll notice, 419 members voted on time and only one additional member voted in the additional 23 minutes provided. So, it’s just false to claim, as Rep. Hastert did, that “the roll call was extended only to give more time to members who had not cast their votes.” Bull.
But here’s the real problem: This was “…an amendment that would have required law enforcement to go to a regular court — instead of a secret court — to get permission to demand library and Internet access records of people it is investigating.”
So even if the Justice Dept.’s pressure tactic is true and “…as recently as this past winter and spring, a member of a terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda used Internet services provided by a public library. . . to communicate with his confederates.” all this amendment was doing was requiring law enforcement officers to go to a regular court to get their warrants so that Congress and the public can monitor the number of such warrants requested and ensure that our government doesn’t go overboard and start spying on the library habits of innocent citizens. When they go to secret courts, we never find out about it. Nothing in this amendment would prevent law enforcement from doing their jobs when they actually have probable cause to monitor the activities of a suspected terrorist. This is a shameful day for the U.S. House.
Civil liberties for ordinary Americans: 0
Overbroad secretive powers for the FBI: 1
(If only the score were that close…)
Update:The Washington Post also has a good story on this and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that “Democrats identified eight Republicans who switched their votes: Michael Bilirakis of Florida, Rob Bishop of Utah, Thomas Davis of Virginia, Jack Kingston of Georgia, Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado, Nick Smith of Michigan, Tom Tancredo of Colorado, and Zach Wamp of Tennessee.
One Democrat, Brad Sherman of California, also switched his vote to nay, officials said. In all, 18 Republicans joined Democrats in supporting the measure, while four Democrats crossed party lines to oppose it.”
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