Home > House of Representatives wins one for the People!- votes to curb Patriot Act
House of Representatives wins one for the People!- votes to curb Patriot Act
by Open-Publishing - Thursday 16 June 20052 comments
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday defied
President Bush by approving a measure making it harder for federal agents to secretly gather information on people’s library reading habits and bookstore purchases.
The House voted 238-187 to scale back the government’s powers to conduct secret investigations that were authorized by the Patriot Act, a post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law.
"We can fight terrorism without undermining basic constitutional rights. That’s what the message of today is about," said Rep. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who pushed the measure through the House with the support of 38 Republicans.
The White House has warned Congress that any weakening of the Patriot Act would prompt senior advisers to recommend that Bush veto the $57.5 billion bill to fund activities next year for the
Justice Department and other federal agencies, which now contains Sanders’ amendment.
The Senate has not yet debated its version of the bill.
Under the Patriot Act, federal law enforcement authorities can get permission from a special court to investigate what books people buy at bookstores or borrow from libraries, even if they are not suspected of committing any crime.
If the House measure becomes law, which is still a long way off, authorities would have to revert to the more traditional method of convincing federal grand juries of likely criminal activities before starting such investigations.
Civil libertarians said there was no evidence the government had ever used this security provision. But they argued the law presents potential threats to privacy and was unnecessary.
SAVE HAVENS FOR TERRORISTS
Assistant Attorney General William Moschella, in a letter to Congress dated on Tuesday, said the law has been used to obtain records of driver’s licenses, apartment leases and credit cards, and that the administration has used it "judiciously and responsibly."
Bookstores and libraries, Moschella wrote, "should not be carved out as safe havens for terrorists and spies, who have, in fact, used public libraries to do research and communicate with their co-conspirators."
Last year the House defeated a similar proposal offered by Sanders. This year’s version deleted references to material read on the Internet and would also maintain federal agents’ ability to more easily scrutinize business records that could point to suspicious activities.
"The simple truth is that the
FBI could spy on a person because they don’t like the books she reads, or because she wrote a letter to the editor critical of a governmental policy," Sanders said.
"Parents want to know that just because their kid is researching the life of
Osama bin Laden, or studying terrorism, that that fact should not place the student on a government list or make anyone think that he/she is sympathetic to terrorism," he said.
Rep. Christopher Shays (news, bio, voting record), a Connecticut Republican, argued the current law could help federal law enforcement pick up the trail of someone plotting a chemical, biological, nuclear or conventional attack on the United States.
"You all seem to want to wait until the crime is committed and then you can use your criminal law to get at it. We want to detect and prevent it," Shays said.
Forum posts
16 June 2005, 07:40
Well I can go along with that as long as WE the people can also watch you all watching us.
You know equal rights. And all that. Security is nothing without trust among the people, and
creating an air of "misturst" doesn’t do much to make things better for anybody. THe only
terrorists that will need to be watched are the ones that take away freedoms in the name
of security. This is what Hitler did. It is what Rome did when it was going to crumble. It is what
every government that is really protecting a rich oligarchy will do, they will use fear to limit
the range of expression and the discourse and that very thing will always come back to bite the
ones that support and implement it. As an agent of such a regime where do you draw the line
internally then to evaluate the "safety" and "security" internally. I mean where is the accountabliity
of the power. If it is not accountable to the people then that power is tyranny. I would rather not
beg my fellow man into a fight just to control a perception of what he thinks of me, I will only turn
him into a suspecious creature since I continually observe him, and what will that make of him but
an enemy. People need to be open and share otherwise those that do not are operating on a private
agenda in which secrecy is the basis of their power, and then that power is beholden to no one thus
they are practicing tyranny against their fellow human. CAN NOT HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. You either
support freedom for the entire world or for those that you do not you are practicing tyranny againsts
and that makes you an enemy in their eyes. What is the security in that practice. Are you not safer
among those that you have built up a trust and working relationship with then you are around those
that you have used veiled threats of financial or military power to get your agenda pushed through.
IF at some point you do not evolve past this domination type thinking then you and your children will
always live under the potential of war, and now that model has led us to the potential of nuclear war.
How can keeping them make you safer, it only begs those that fear you to erase that fear by gathering
that power unto themselves. In essence you have created a peace that is really stand off and a relationship
of not trust, but mutual exchange of veiled threats, and that is how organized criminals work and we all understand
how that is a psychopathic behavior model. We need to make not power but unity the primary goal in our
system so that people will forster and grow in trust and working relations. If we work together we can all live well
and prosper, we need only to focus on the goals that can work and evolve all people, not the ones that elevate some
over the others through manipulation of power and station. That is legacy. That is outdated. That is now more dangerous
than ever. And that is irresponsible and inhuman as it presuposses that terror will always happen and it always will when
those in power abuse it to enable those without power to try and obtain power in a system that has been lopsided
from the start. People need not to focus on riches or power or title they only want really simple things and have simple needs
1. Food
2. Water
3. Shelter
4. Education
5. Particiapation and Socialiation in their communities for their self and others
6. Recreation and Brotherhood to enable joy and peace to fill their lives
7. Believe in what is to unite through the understanding of they above
8. An elimination of the nation state system which is really a divide and conquer technique for economic profit reasons.
9. Realization and motivation of unity through manifestation of ethical trust and social development based on HELP not EXPLOITING
10. Respect for our home and our fellow man and their potential to express and create and thus for us to evolve.
peace 7b
peace out 777e
20 June 2005, 02:29
That’s oilgarchy.