We can all take heart that bipartisanship is indeed not dead. When it comes to depriving the American people of their civil liberties, Republicans and Democrats are able to come together with amazing alacrity. Witness the recent announcement that Harry Reid has reached agreement with the Republicans to continue the egregious provisions of the so-called Patriot Act, which simultaneously deprive us of our basic rights while providing virtually no additional security.
The three controversial provisions being extended are the warrantless ‘roving wire tap’, the government’s warrantless access to business and library records, and the ability of the state to monitor non-US citizens at will and in the absence of any probable cause.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has found evidence of FBI abuse of the PATRIOT Act.
We have come to a sorry state in this country when the only person speaking out against such an obvious abuse is Rand Paul. Joe Courtney, our otherwise excellent Congressman, is a reliable bad vote on this issue. It’s a toxic mix in Washington’s la-la land. You have those who absolutely favor a national security state, and then you have those who don’t, but are so afraid of being labelled “soft on terror” that they vote for this stuff out of fear.
It’s somewhat ironic, also, that the same people who keep telling us that the domestically mild Obama is a nascent dictator are perfectly willing to grant him near dictatorial powers when it comes to the “war on terror”, a war that all too often is a war on civil liberties.
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