Quotulatiousness

September 16, 2009

Hope, change, but we’ll still do warrantless wiretaps

Filed under: Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:54

So much for any realistic hope that the Obama administration was making a clean break from the anti-civil liberty policies of the former Bush administration:

The Obama administration has told Congress it supports renewing three provisions of the Patriot Act due to expire at year’s end, measures making it easier for the government to spy within the United States.

In a letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Justice Department said the administration might consider “modifications” to the act in order to protect civil liberties.

“The administration is willing to consider such ideas, provided that they do not undermine the effectiveness of these important authorities,” Ronald Weich, assistant attorney general, wrote to Leahy, whose committee is expected to consider renewing the three expiring Patriot Act provisions next week. The government disclosed the letter Tuesday.

It’s funny how certain laws — in the hands of the opposition, anyway — are evil, wrong, and fattening, but miraculously transmogrify into essential tools of state once you’re the one in power. It doesn’t seem to matter which party you’re talking about either.

6 Comments

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