While You Were Sleeping Patriot Renewal Act Passed

[Clara T]

So long America, if there ever was such a thing.


The House of Ill Repute

House approves Patriot Act renewal

Approval sends measure to Bush's desk before deadline

Tuesday, March 7, 2006; Posted: 7:47 p.m. EST (00:47 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congress on Tuesday renewed controversial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, the 2001 law passed weeks after the September 11 attacks to help the government investigate and capture possible terrorists.


The approval in the House of Representatives sent the measure to President Bush for his signature. The Senate last week voted 89-10 to approve the compromise package, which covers 16 provisions in the act that are set to expire on March 10.

"At last the Patriot Act will be reauthorized. And it's about time. It should not not have taken this long," Sen. Jon Kyl, an Arizona Republican, said after last week's vote. "And in the form in which it's reauthorized, it will make America more secure, and that's the bottom line."



Three provisions of the renewed act would be reviewed in four years; the other provisions are permanent.
"Law enforcement officials and the intelligence community will not have to guess what the law will be. They will have the tools to fight terrorism," Kyl said.



<snip>

Among the more controversial provisions are the "roving wiretap" portion and the "sneak and peek" section. The first allows the government to get a wiretap on every phone a suspect uses, while the second allows federal investigators to get access to library, business and medical records without a court order.



http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/07/patriot.act/index.html

[annabanana]

1. Oh I feel *much* safer now..

How about you?

[hopeisaplace]

2. Hey, that was the movie title I gave to the * Admin on another last week

:)

"While you were Sleeping"

[Clara T]

3. Surveillance Nation- All Systems Go

Always Watched


If You Aren't Doing Anything Wrong What Have You to Worry About?

[upi402]

4. I wasn't sleeping well

because my home was entered just over a week ago. Nothing was stolen, not my laptop which was on when I woke. A slider to my room was closed tight -difficult to do. I never ever close that. A window latch was unlocked, I paint the "unlock" side of the latch to see immediately if it's unlocked. It had been raining or freezing for many weeks and not unlocked.

The window was re-closed and screen carefully replaced. The door must have been forgotten or too noisy and hard to close. There was a virus alert popup dialog box on my puter.

I have nothing to hide except my patriotic love of Democracy and my growing hate for those that betray it.

[Clara T]

6. It's coming fast

I highly recommend a look at this entire article.

Police state USA and Big Brother's most cool tool

By Amy Worthington

03/01/06 "Idaho Observer" -- -- Senate Minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) calls this Congress the "most corrupt" in history.1 U.S. Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) often uses the term "police state" to describe our national state of affairs. George Bush is making the most expansive claims to unbridled power since America’s War for Independence, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT).2 Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who proved Bush lied to launch us into war with Iraq, says "fascist forces have seized control of the levers of power."3 Americans are being told that their Republic has become a fascist police state—they just need ears to hear.

In a fascist police state, the dictator secures his power with support from private corporations which are given special privileges and, thus, benefit from doing business with dictators. Continuously bribed by 28,000 corporate lobbyists in D.C.,4 Congress is doing its part to build a fascist state in America. During President Bush’s recent State of the Union speech, these tainted legislators perpetually rose to their feet to applaud the spewing of what a New York Times editorial called "misleading analogies, propaganda slogans and false choices."5 Their bootlicking recalls a by-gone Soviet era when endless rows of robotic Central Party members applauded the likes of Stalin to ensure their next breath of oxygen.

Passing the fascist laws they never read

After passage of the Patriot Act of 2001, Rep. Paul told Insight Magazine that the 2,200-page bill was not made available to Congress to read before the vote.6 So the most corrupt Congress in history rubber stamped the most fascist legislation they had never read. Our constitution enumerates inalienable rights that are emphatically restated in the first 10 amendments commonly known as "The Bill of Rights." Under the Patriot Act, the "right" to free speech, peaceable assembly and security in one’s person, papers and effects have been relegated to "privileges" that government can take away at any time. Patriot Act authority has suspended the right to due process and a prompt and public trial; it even cancelled protection against cruel and unusual punishment. Agents serving the fascist state can freely wire-tap our phones, enter our homes/offices, search and seize without warrant and detain us indefinitely without charges—ostensibly to keep America safe.

As we go to press, the original Patriot Act, which had a sunset clause, is now in the final stages of being amended and passed by Congress as a permanent feature of America’s fascist landscape.

The ink had barely dried on the Patriot Act when Congress passed the Homeland Security Act of 2002. Rep. Paul stated that Congress also did not read the 500-page bill that gave birth to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).7 DHS, a creepy intelligence gathering apparatus reminiscent of the Nazi SS, has merged 22 federal agencies and their databases, employing nearly a quarter million workers. The New York Times columnist William Safire told the American people that, under DHS, "You are a suspect."8 Rep. Paul confirms that "the Department represents a huge new increase in the size and scope of the federal government that will mostly serve to spy on the American people."9

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12121.htm

Take Care-Give Care.
Peace and reciprocity.

[upi402]

7. Thank you very much Clara T, I will study it n/t

[upi402]

10. Kerry was Skull and Bones

I knew he was a corporatist from his NAFTA vote. But did not think him to be a fascist.
What does this Skull and Bones link say about Kerry?
He seemed so true-blue after Nam.

[Clara T]

11. They have all internalized imperialism

and it is as easy and natural as breathing for them. It is up to the grass roots if anything is to be changed.

Total Information Awareness Lives On Inside the National Security Agency

More than two years ago Congress halted plans for a controversial plan called Total Information Awareness to create the world's largest surveillance database to track your phone calls, purchases, Internet usage, reading material, banking transactions. The National Journal has now revealed the program has quietly continued inside the NSA.
In 2003, lawmakers voted to shut down Total Information Awareness - a program that developed technologies to predict terrorist attacks by mining government databases and the personal records of people in the United States.

Months earlier New York Times columnist William Safire had warned about the dangers of the program. In a column headlined "You Are A Suspect" Safire wrote:
"If the Homeland Security Act is not amended before passage, here is what will happen to you:

"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as 'a virtual, centralized grand database.'

"To this computerized dossier on your private life from commercial sources, add every piece of information that government has about you -- passport application, driver's license and bridge toll records, judicial and divorce records, complaints from nosy neighbors to the F.B.I., your lifetime paper trail plus the latest hidden camera surveillance -- and you have the supersnoop's dream: a "Total Information Awareness" about every U.S. citizen."This is not some far-out Orwellian scenario. It is what will happen to your personal freedom in the next few weeks if John Poindexter gets the unprecedented power he seeks."

Following public outcry, the program was halted primarily because of privacy concerns, but also because its main advocate was John Poindexter, known for his involvement with the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.
It now appears that the project "was stopped in name only" and that TIA is in fact continuing. The National Journal reports that TIA was moved from the Pentagon's research-and-development agency - known by its acronym DARPA - to another group, which builds technologies primarily for the NSA. The names of key projects were changed, apparently to conceal their identities, but their funding remained intact, often under the same contracts.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/27/1519235

[upi402]

16. THIS LINK IS INCEDIBLE!

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12121.htm

I read it carefully. There were things I had forgotten, and things I hadn't read before. The impact is in it's totality. To focus such an imense and nebulus action as promulgating a plan for fascism into a tight article is powerful.

It made me get a view of the whole instead of many connected parts. And this isn't some distant concept now.

[S B]

5. Honey, we aren't sleeping, we just don't know what to do -

I write my legislators regularly and get back those damned pre-prepared non-personal letters with their pat bullshit. If I call they me to send it in writing because it "means more".
I have no idea what to do. I have pictures from my Auntie where you could drive up and park in front of the White House. Now people get arrested for wearing a t-shirt - if they can even get near the idiots.
I want a trial for treason for that lying sociopath and his handlers.
I want legislators voted out who don't represent the people and go along with this crap.
I want to work for someone who will try to get our govt. back. Will that someone please come forward?

[Clara T]

8. Kucinich at Tonights "Patriot Renewal Fascismo Act" Vote

“I rise in strong opposition to this legislation because it offers only a superficial reform that will have little if any impact on safeguarding our civil liberties. Furthermore, it has become crystal clear that this Administration is currently and will continue to abuse, attack, and outright deny the civil liberties of the people of this country in defiance of our Constitution. The Administration is illegally wiretapping American citizens, illegally collecting information on peace groups, and illegally signing statements to ignore the torture ban recently enacted by this Congress.

“Some of my colleague will stand up here today and argue that the Patriot act has nothing to do with these nefarious activities. But my colleagues are not looking at the big picture. The Administration has violated the laws Congress has passed and is trampling on Constitution of the United States.

“I will not give the Administration any additional police power. Congress has failed to do its job as a coequal branch of government. The Administration’s attack on our democracy has to be reigned in. This Congress must not walk away from its role and providing a check and balance to the Administration’s exercise of executive power. This Congress was not zealous in oversight prior to 2001. But, since that time, this Congress has ignored its constitutional duty and 200 years of American democracy has suffered.

“The complacency of this Congress is clearly viewed by the Administration as a license to ignore the laws it disagrees with and it demands Congress pass expanded police powers. In the name of the Constitution of the United States of America I reject this complacency. I will not vote to give a single new police power to this Administration.

“I voted against the Patriot Act when it first passed, and I remain even more opposed to this legislation today. The bill before us today enables the FBI to investigate any American for any reason, without the checks and balances of the judicial system.

“History tells us that unchecked police powers with little or no oversight will be abused and the citizens will be harmed. The administration’s record in this area is concrete proof that history repeats itself.

“I am for a police function that protects citizens of this great nation, not a police function that is used to terrorize them. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Patriot Act Reauthorization; to stand up for our Constitution; to stand up for our Bill of Rights; to remember the long struggle that was instrumental in establishing those liberties."

[upi402]

9. Kucinich rocks! Here is what I wrote to my Senator;

"Congress has failed to do its job as a coequal branch of government. The Administration’s attack on our democracy has to be reigned in. This Congress must not walk away from its role and providing a check and balance to the Administration’s exercise of executive power."

-very close to that. And asked if she would call for a Select Committee to investigate.

My other Senator is a DINO and a waste of time to write to without a huge corporate contribution involved.

[Clara T]

12. One of the few

to speak truth to power.

[Armstead]

13. Bernie Sanders opposed it

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x605071

[lonestarnot]

14. Oh good. It's nice to know that those nightmares were not in vain.

[DrBloodmoney]

15. Dictators control their populations...

... through fear.

Democracies control their populations through ignorance.

America is currently controlling its population by both means.

The founding fathers are pulling 300 rpm.

[tom_paine]

17. They forgot the enhancement of the USSSUD

into the SSS with incredibly enhanced powers.