I don't like this
one bit:
The House voted Thursday to extend permanently virtually all the major antiterrorism provisions of the USA Patriot Act after beating back efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to impose new restrictions on the government's power to eavesdrop, conduct secret searches and demand library records.
The legislation, approved 257 to 171, would make permanent 14 of the 16 provisions in the law that were set to expire at the end of this year. The remaining two provisions - giving the government the power to demand business and library records and to conduct roving wiretaps - would have to be reconsidered by Congress in 10 years.
The House version of the legislation essentially leaves intact many of the central powers of the antiterrorism act that critics had sought to scale back, setting the stage for what could be difficult negotiations with the Senate, which is considering several very different bills to extend the government's counterterrorism powers under the act. (Emphasis added.)
Looks like our best (only?) hope now is that the Senate will put the brakes on some of the worst aspects of the Patriot Act - but who knows what will get stripped out in the inevitable conference committee? Billmon, always on fire but like a towering inferno of late, tells us what exactly each of these provisions do. Scary.
I am sorry for not posting this earlier, but you can click here to e-mail your representatives in Congress about this, or click here for phone numbers.