Apparently Democrats and Republicans who had spines and voted for blocking (at least parts of it) agreed to unblock it for the next six months. Check out a clip from [http://today.reuters.com/news/newsarticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyid=2005-12-22T024628Z_01_KRA102363_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml&rpc=22|an article] at Reuters.com:
U.S. Senate leaders reached a bipartisan agreement on Wednesday to extend for six months key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act set to expire in 10 days.
The accord, to be voted on later on Wednesday, would provide time for Congress to try to resolve differences over safeguards for civil liberties before making most of the provisions the Bush administration deems necessary for its war on terror permanent.
Democrats and Republicans who helped negotiate the deal voiced confidence that the White House and House of Representatives would give needed approvals.
I'm not even sure that clip makes any real sense as far as explaining what the hell the Senate is doing. I mean, really--the article was posted at 9:46pm Eastern Time on Wednesday. The Senate is going to pass this thing later than that??
Anyway, the point is, while all those Senator guys were acting all upset about the unwarranted spying on American citizens going on, they quickly turned on their heels to let the Patriot Act go for another six months. If I could think of a more free country than ours, I'd probably be seriously considering moving there. This is getting absurd.
1) Pass the Patriot Act without reading it--but it's cool, it'll sunset after a couple years.
2) A couple years pass, you agree to keep the Patriot Act around but block the scary stuff because it turns out Bush has been abusing it. Act all indignant about the abuse and pretend you didn't know about it.
3) While the American people are distracted and you're in the Senate chambers late on a Wednesday before Christmas, expose your second face (you are two-faced, right?) and extend all of the Patriot Act for six more months with the promise from the "opposition" that in that time "we'll work out our differences" on the act.
Yeah, right. Good plan. Meanwhile, more rights are violated.
God Bless America.
More like God Bless the Power-Mad-Corrupt Politicians.
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