Comments on: Monday PATRIOT Roundup

By: What exactly did Bush and Cheney do wrong? | TheWorldPolitics

What exactly did Bush and Cheney do wrong? | TheWorldPolitics — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 18:03:49 +0000

[...] off funds for civilian trials. Democratic members of Congress joined with the GOP to prevent even modest reforms of the Patriot Act and other surveillance abuses. City officials compete [...]

By: Now we demand the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism policies!? « Fox Enterprises Limited Weblog

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:12:14 +0000

[...] cutting off funds for civilian trials. Democratic members of Congress joined with the GOP to prevent even modest reforms of the Patriot Act and other surveillance abuses. City officials compete with [...]

By: Drasties - Dutch on the World - World on the Dutch

Drasties - Dutch on the World - World on the Dutch — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:22:27 +0000

By: Round-Up of Reactions to Yesterday’s PATRIOT Vote | Left to chance

Round-Up of Reactions to Yesterday’s PATRIOT Vote | Left to chance — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 20:21:11 +0000

[...] That sentiment echoed Feingold’s words during the PATRIOT meeting itself: “We’re not the Prosecutors’ Committee, we’re the Judiciary Committee!” A video excerpt of Feingold’s stand for civil liberties is here, while video of the entire meeting is here; see also Emptywheel’s live-blogging of the hearing and Julian Sanchez’s frustrated live-tweeting. Sanchez, like Emptywheel, has been consistently churning out excellent material on the PATRIOT debate. [...]

By: The PATRIOT Act: Last Refuge of Scoundrels | Larry Downes

The PATRIOT Act: Last Refuge of Scoundrels | Larry Downes — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:31:32 +0000

[...] up for renewal, the Bush Administration lobbied hard for and won an unmodified PATRIOT Act. As the Cato Institute’s Julian Sanchez points out, the Obama Administration and key members of Congress including leading Democrats are now the ones [...]

By: Random Precision

Random Precision — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:51:40 +0000

Prepare for your soul to be crushed. Whatever gets passed by Congress will have a loophole that will permit the Government to do whatever it wants. And, it wants unlimited surveillance.

By: Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff) 's status on Monday, 05-Oct-09 23:41:31 UTC - Identi.ca

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:41:37 +0000

[...] http://www.juliansanchez.com/2009/10/05/monday-patriot-roundup/ a few seconds ago from api [...]

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:18:56 +0000

The meager press attention to last Thursday’s Judiciary Committee meeting is odd considering the meaty coming out of remarks there.

Here’s a bit of meat. A transcript of Dick Durbin’s Thursday remarks:

http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2009/10/05/transcript-senator-dick-durbin-on-surveillance-terrorism-and-the-constitution/

Senator Durbin reveals the existence of some classified “real reason” for the surveillance program — a “real reason” for the 90% of warrantless surveillance that has nothing to do with terrorism:

“I’m especially concerned that the substitute removes one of the most important reforms from the Leahy bill: requirement that the government show some connection to terrorism when issuing a Section 215 order. Now, there are many reasons given for taking out this constitutional protection. But the real reason for resisting this obvious, common sense modification of Section 215 is unfortunately cloaked in secrecy. Some day that cloak will be lifted, and future generations will whether ask our actions today meet the test of a democratic society: transparency, accountability, and fidelity to the rule of law and our constitution.”

That’s an explosive allegation, one that may have something to do with Marcy Wheeler’s Total Information Awareness article yesterday:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/10/02/difis-invitation-to-a-fishing-expedition/

Some help in spreading the news of Durbin’s allegation would, I think, provide a dramatic hook to bring back some attention to the last week’s and this week’s proceedings.