Back Off
June 15th, 2005 - 11:11 pm
Good news on the civil liberties front? Maybe:
WASHINGTON — In a slap at President Bush, lawmakers voted Wednesday to block the Justice Department and the FBI from using the Patriot Act to peek at library records and bookstore sales slips.
The House voted 238-187 despite a veto threat from Bush to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.
Bush made it through his entire first term – and some record-setting pork barrel spending – without once picking up his veto pen. I doubt he’ll use it now for such a petty cause.
I agree. W had much mor important items to show his guts on and chickened out. This is not a big deal and will pass.
This is self indulgent BS. Ashcroft said they never used this power and given that it was the lightning rod for the civil liberties zealots, it’s a loss that will go without any real impact.
All the yelling, screaming and gnashing of teeth is purely for the kicks and giggles of the paranoid zealots that think this will save them from the guys in the black helicopters.
Neo’s more or less right, though I’d characterise it in a less inflammatory way.
The House votes to remove a power DOJ never used (and that grand juries can still subpoena, of course – this only affects the FISA powers, IIRC), and get free publicity and happy-thoughts, while not really causing any difference at all.
This is a non-issue, if we ignore the hand-wringing rhetoric about it.
(I mean, I’m not sure how it’s a “civil liberties” issue for the state to not be able to tell, with a court order, what books I checked out of a public library (or what books I bought, or any other transaction I made). I just don’t see my liberties going away there. I can’t get worked up about it. Just can’t.)
It seems obvious that Bush didn’t have to veto anything before because everything that came across his desk was mainly a product of his Republican majority’s pre-approved efforts.
Someone help me out here: The Patriot Act is due to sunset, right? So how can Bush veto this restriction, if it is incorporated into the Patriot Act 2? I mean, he could veto the PA2, just because he doesn’t like this restriction, but that doesn’t sound like what he’s saying.
This is silly. Library and bookstore records of the kind at issue here would be freely discoverable in any civil court action. To specifically prevent access to such records to federal investigators in a terrorism investigation makes no sense.