Now it’s just about on the way to W to sign:
WASHINGTON - Congress was poised to send President Bush a renewal of the Patriot Act Tuesday night after months of bitter fighting, authorizing law enforcement to keep its anti-terror tools but with some new curbs on government prying.
A final House vote and Bush’s signature would make 14 provisions of the 2001 law permanent before they expired on March 10. Two other provisions would have expired in four years.
A two-month Senate filibuster fueled by the revelation that Bush had authorized secret, warrantless wiretapping forced Congress to postpone the original Dec. 31 expiration deadline — twice. The standoff forced the White House to accept some new restrictions on information gathering in terrorism investigations.
Adding those protections gave the legislation enough support to pass the Senate overwhelmingly.
During a push for passage in December, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the monitoring and investigating authorized by the act had helped prevent specific planned attacks.
“The tools of the Patriot Act have been extremely valuable in allowing us to deter and prevent attacks, to prosecute terrorism and to prosecute other kinds of crimes,” Gonzales said.
“Intense congressional and public scrutiny has not produced a single substantiated claim that the Patriot has been misused to violate Americans’ civil liberties,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said Tuesday. “Opponents of the legislation have relied upon exaggeration and hyperbole to distort a demonstrated record of accomplishment and success.”
In another victory today for the admin, a Senate panel has rejected the call for a broad inquiry into the NSA surveillance ’scandal’.
(Hat tip: Decision ‘08)
The admin did suffer a defeat today when a GOP-led efforts to block the challenge to the controversial UAE port deal “collapsed” (as the WaPo described it).
Oh well. You know how the song goes: “Two outta three ain’t bad.”
It might be three for three yet…
Comment by camojack @ 3/8/2006 - 4:59 am
Anybody who supports this legislation tends to the Fascist side. Peace
Comment by steve @ 3/8/2006 - 4:09 pm
- Anyone who speaks and posts anti-American defense, and solitious comments on a daily basis, should be investigated for being stupid.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 3/8/2006 - 6:02 pm
My comments are anti-war. If you believe in war you might find them difficult. If being anti-war is anti-American, then I’ll stand with Christ for Peace. Peace
Comment by steve @ 3/8/2006 - 7:38 pm
Your comments are anti-survival, to say the least. If this affliction of stupidity in your daily display of factless, inane ignorance is because of your belief that you stand with Christ, I am the flippin Easter bunny. Which Christ would that be? Certainly, not the one who threw out the money changers from the Temple.
Your ding ding dingy disrespect for the President of the United States, who’s name you can’t seem to master the spelling of, due to your diatribe of hate, places you in the 11th circle of hell and damn sure NOTHING even remotely related to Christ.
Comment by forest hunter @ 3/8/2006 - 8:00 pm
- Christ was the first to say an “eye for an eye”, so even in your own arena of self proffessed understanding you cherry pick the ideas of a small cultist sect of people among the believers. Jesus, and through him G_d himself, had no problem with defense of ones home and family. He even gave the arc of the covenent to make the battles righteous for the pious among his followers.
- Your problem is you aren’t preaching to an audience of uneducated people, so your message is as feckless and unfounded as you are. Only a cowen or an idiot would praise non-defense of these things, and pretend it was G_d’s will. Your solitiouness would get innocent people killed for no reason what so ever. So the real question is what are you so proud of?
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 3/8/2006 - 8:09 pm
“Anyone who speaks and posts anti-American defense, and solitious comments on a daily basis, should be investigated for being stupid.”
And now its my turn to ask you to point to the constitution.
Comment by andrew @ 3/8/2006 - 8:33 pm
- You’re absolutely right Andrew. You have the right to be as anti-american and stupid as you want to be. My apologies.
- Bang
Comment by Big Bang Hunter @ 3/8/2006 - 8:35 pm