Patriot Act: three controversial provisions that Congress voted to keep

Here are three provisions that Congress took up this week and extended for four years:

Roving wiretaps. This provision gives intelligence officials authority to conduct surveillance on terrorist suspects regardless of how many communication devices they use (such as cellphones or the Internet). Approval for the surveillance must be obtained from a federal court. Law-enforcement agencies have been able to use wiretaps for criminal investigations since 1986.

Business records. Another provision allows access to business records in cases involving terrorism, foreign intelligence, or espionage, with approval of a federal judge.

Lone wolf. In 2004, Congress amended the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to authorize intelligence gathering on individuals not affiliated with any known terrorist organization, with a sunset date to correspond with the Patriot Act provisions. The provision, which is thus technically not part of the Patriot Act, is explicit in saying it does not to apply to US citizens.

On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote to congressional leaders warning that any lapse in the provisions of the law carried national security risks, especially following the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Full story here

Sorry I'll have to add my thoughts later... right now I'm struggling for control of my computer with my 3yo granddaughter... she's winning...

utterly what a waste

most self respecting terrorists uses "burn" phones and public internet access

most self respecting terrorists uses cash and does not leave a trail

99% of ats would be considered to be "lone wolfs".

sure federal government tell terrorists how they can track you.

no matter how much washington likes to think people are stupid they arent

reply to post by DaddyBare


Was there anything you wanted to add to the article you posted?

CSMonitor

Your own opinion maybe?

You can't just point the finger at Obama because of his socialist agenda. We have a lot of party members from both sides who voted for these provisions. I blame all of us who keep voting these people into office and stand on the sidelines while they slowly strip away our constitutional rights.

Originally posted by WeRpeons
You can't just point the finger at Obama because of his socialist agenda. We have a lot of party members from both sides who voted for these provisions. I blame all of us who keep voting these people into office and stand on the sidelines while they slowly strip away our constitutional rights.

What Constitutional rights have they stripped away exactly?

reply to post by kro32


4th Amendment comes to mind.

It may not be gone as it's still on paper but in this glorious "Post 9/11 World" all of the progress that had been made through the 70's, 80's and 90's to solidify it and ingrain it into the heads of the servants everywhere has been undone and thrown away.

It has fallen victim to the "living, breathing document" nonsense that shows up whenever some tyrant wants to grind his boot in a little more without the hassle of following amendment procedure.

4th amendment is just fine but you will notice it does state "unreasonable search and seizure", so as they are using the patriot act for specific purposes I would call that reasonable.

I believe everyone fears that they will just keep expanding the patriot act but look at history. Abraham lincoln absolutely raped the constitution in every conceivable way but it went back to normal.

As far as I see the Constitution is solid and also would you rather have them running off the patriot act to deal with a specific threat or instead have them amend the constitution again taking out the search and seizure and warrant part of the 4th amendment?

reply to post by kro32


I'd rather the latter.

It's easy for them to sign on to temporary tyranny and easy for the people to believe it's necessary or at least tolerable.

I want them to put forth the effort to establish permanent tyranny and see how that works for them.

Well remember that the Constitution was written to be able to adjust to the times. Look at all it's undergone in the past 200 years as the world has changed. It very well may be that the patriot act will have to be amended into the constitution to deal with new threats.

I don't know as i'm not privy to how successful or necessary it is. Heck even the 2nd amendment, the right to bear arms, wasn't ratified until 2010.