Politics: Patriot Act Just Keeps on Giving
The truly evil antics of the Justice Department never fail to amaze. In February, you remember, someone over there leaked a draft of a sweeping piece of so-called anti-terrorism legislation known as the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003." Immediately after the leak, the DOJ disavowed the law, claiming that the routing memo explaining that it had been sent to VP Dick Cheney and House Speaker Denny Hastert was meaningless and that nobody had really reviewed the draft legislation.
Of course, there is no reason why a memo saying "send this to Cheney and Hastert" should be seen as anything other than evidence of how high the draft was circulated. Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock claimed that the whole thing was a big mistake. Ha ha ha.
A week before all that, Justice Department officials had assured House members that they weren't hard at work on some sweeping new anti-terror legislation. They were being asked about this because the USA Patriot Act, when it came out of Justice, was slid through Congress like a hot knife through butter, leapfrogging all the relevant committees, and pissing off a lot of members, even though they were too trembly with the spirit of America to voice any concerns at the time.
Since then, Justice has continued to demonstrate that their true commitment is to the utmost of secrecy, deception and an almost pathological desire to abridge the constitutional liberties of most Americans in service of whatever excuse they can come up with. (Worse yet, tremendously evil senatorial song-bird Orrin Hatch has introduced legislation -- two years early -- to lift the sunset provisions on a very limited number of powers in the Patriot Act. These meager limits were about the only thing any members of Congress were able to stop singing God Bless America long enough to add to the biggest blow to civil liberties since CoIntelPro.) But the Justice Department's mule-like obstinance since 9/11 has kept many members of Congress pissed at them, including usual suspects like Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
But interestingly, a usual 'team-player' who happens to chair the House Judiciary Committee has continually butted heads with the Justice Department and Supreme Overlord Ashcroft. R. James Sensenbrenner has joined with Conyers, his Democratic counterpart on the House Judiciary Committee, to demand from the Justice Department an explanation of how often the Patriot Act has been used, how it has been applied, and what sort of impact it has made on the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans. As this item demonstrates, Sensenbrenner is still interested in finding out what's going on with the first Patriot Act, and hopefully will be a Republican anchor against efforts to ram through an extension of the Patriot Act in the future. In this morning's AP item, a Justice Department official confirms that 1/3 of the unbelievably rights-abusing Patriot Act II draft legislation will be introduced "soon." Principled opposition to this legislation from people like Sensenbrenner are the only chance Americans have to avoid being forced into Ashcroft's vision of a perfect world: where freedom is outlawed, and only the outlaws enjoy freedom.
The truly evil antics of the Justice Department never fail to amaze. In February, you remember, someone over there leaked a draft of a sweeping piece of so-called anti-terrorism legislation known as the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003." Immediately after the leak, the DOJ disavowed the law, claiming that the routing memo explaining that it had been sent to VP Dick Cheney and House Speaker Denny Hastert was meaningless and that nobody had really reviewed the draft legislation.
Of course, there is no reason why a memo saying "send this to Cheney and Hastert" should be seen as anything other than evidence of how high the draft was circulated. Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock claimed that the whole thing was a big mistake. Ha ha ha.
A week before all that, Justice Department officials had assured House members that they weren't hard at work on some sweeping new anti-terror legislation. They were being asked about this because the USA Patriot Act, when it came out of Justice, was slid through Congress like a hot knife through butter, leapfrogging all the relevant committees, and pissing off a lot of members, even though they were too trembly with the spirit of America to voice any concerns at the time.
Since then, Justice has continued to demonstrate that their true commitment is to the utmost of secrecy, deception and an almost pathological desire to abridge the constitutional liberties of most Americans in service of whatever excuse they can come up with. (Worse yet, tremendously evil senatorial song-bird Orrin Hatch has introduced legislation -- two years early -- to lift the sunset provisions on a very limited number of powers in the Patriot Act. These meager limits were about the only thing any members of Congress were able to stop singing God Bless America long enough to add to the biggest blow to civil liberties since CoIntelPro.) But the Justice Department's mule-like obstinance since 9/11 has kept many members of Congress pissed at them, including usual suspects like Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT).
But interestingly, a usual 'team-player' who happens to chair the House Judiciary Committee has continually butted heads with the Justice Department and Supreme Overlord Ashcroft. R. James Sensenbrenner has joined with Conyers, his Democratic counterpart on the House Judiciary Committee, to demand from the Justice Department an explanation of how often the Patriot Act has been used, how it has been applied, and what sort of impact it has made on the rights and freedoms of ordinary Americans. As this item demonstrates, Sensenbrenner is still interested in finding out what's going on with the first Patriot Act, and hopefully will be a Republican anchor against efforts to ram through an extension of the Patriot Act in the future. In this morning's AP item, a Justice Department official confirms that 1/3 of the unbelievably rights-abusing Patriot Act II draft legislation will be introduced "soon." Principled opposition to this legislation from people like Sensenbrenner are the only chance Americans have to avoid being forced into Ashcroft's vision of a perfect world: where freedom is outlawed, and only the outlaws enjoy freedom.
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