All of these posts are on topics that I wanted to address in individual posts, but I’ll instead I’ll stand with the work of these other fine bloggers:
Kathy Kinsley reminds us that USA Patriot Act is not being used against terrorism exclusively. From the article she linked:
“There are many provisions in the Patriot Act that can be used in the general criminal law,” Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said. “And I think any reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to do everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans from attack, whether it’s from terrorists or garden-variety criminals.”
The Justice Department uses the laws on the books. It is popular to bash John Ashcroft lately, but even if he does not return for a second term (assuming a Bush re-election) the Patriot Act laws will still be on the books. The next Attorney General will be duty bound to enforce them, and use the latitudes they provide on ANY case. Congress passed this law, and unless the Courts feel like legislating (which is unfortunately all too common), Congress is to only place to affect a change. Every member of the House is up for election this next year. People opposed to the Patriot Act would be wise to start there…
BigWig notes a Glen Frazier post detailing his hectic life. Perhaps knowing that someone else is busier than me is just what the doctor ordered. I’ve got to go change a diaper, finish a report, clean the dishes, gas up the car, etc…
If you’ve not been following the Mephan hazing incident, here’s your chance to catch up. It’s a sickening story. Michele is on the case, which means you’ll be getting better reporting than the dead tree crew is providing.
Deb covers a local story (for me) of a four year old who killed his sister and injured his half brother when he found a loaded semi-automatic weapon in their house. Neither parent was home at the time. I just defer to her rant.
One of the things that would make me happy about the Patriot Act is if more people would acknowledge that no, not everything in it was meant for terrorists in the first place, and also, that some parts of it are perfectly commonsensical and defensive.
I know, I know, I seem to be a minority voice on this, but if more people would just say, “Okay, HERE are the parts we don’t like, and HERE are the parts we do like,” discussion could at least get to a sane level. “Patriot Act = Bad” gets pretty old, and it probably explains why most surveys show that most people have a generally positive view of the bill.
As I pointed out to Kathy, the information in this story was contained in a madatory report to Congress by the DOJ. Not secret, not concealed. You are quite correct. Congress can change the Act if it chooses. Note that the rush to do so in not comparable with the speed by which Congress authorized the FCC to implement the Do Not Call list. The Act is still polling at 70% approval, thus the slow pace of change.