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There's Still Time to Stop Patriot Act Renewal

by TChris

Kudos to the three Republicans who joined three Democrats today to protest reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Although House and Senate negotiators tentatively agreed to make most provisions of the existing law permanent, the bipartisan group of senators -- Larry Craig, John Sununu, Lisa Murkowski, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold and Ken Salazar -- threatened to block the bill if it did not restore protections the Senate had included against "unnecessary and intrusive government surveillance."

"We cannot support a conference report that would eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate," they said.

Sen. Bill Frist today said the Senate will need to address the legislation "before we leave" for Thanksgiving vacation at the end of the week. If the Patriot Act isn’t reauthorized before the end of the year, many of its more obnoxious provisions would blissfully expire. Frist, of course, doesn’t want that to happen.

But Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001, said the compromise's opponents have several different tactics they can use to stop the bill in the Senate. "I've let my colleagues know that I intend to take as many of those options as I can in order to try to get this bill redone," Feingold said Thursday. "They said, 'I understand,' but I don't know whether that means they're going to change the bill or whether they want to just go through this whole process."

Take the time to let your senator know that you support this bipartisan effort to protect our privacy from intrusion at the whim of government agents.

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    But Feingold, D-Wis., the only senator to vote against the original Patriot Act in 2001
    Very telling. Hey PiL, that's your cue to bring on the excuses.

    Re: There's Still Time to Stop Patriot Act Renewal (none / 0) (#2)
    by Ben Masel on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:06:14 PM EST
    If your Representative or Senator's a Republican... "Do you really want to leave this much power to an Attorney General appointed by Hillary Clinton?"