quote:

The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public.

The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to December 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148.

The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.

The three expiring Patriot Act provisions are:
*The “roving wiretap” provision allows the FBI to obtain wiretaps from a secret intelligence court, known as the FISA court, without identifying the target or what method of communication is to be tapped.

*The “lone wolf” measure allows FISA court warrants for the electronic monitoring of a person for whatever reason — even without showing that the suspect is an agent of a foreign power or a terrorist. The government has said it has never invoked that provision, but the Obama administration said it wanted to retain the authority to do so.

*The “business records” provision allows FISA court warrants for any type of record, from banking to library to medical, without the government having to declare that the information sought is connected to a terrorism or espionage investigation.

source

quote:

ORIGINAL: cuckoldmepls

Well I guess that shuts the tea party naysayers up. These people are real Americans. I've said forever now that the only people who should be monitored without warrants are non citizens  and suspected terrorists. In reality, what the government has been doing is monitoring legal Americans for political opposition. Bush did it, and now Obama is doing it. Obama even has an internet kill switch now. Completely unconstitutional.

quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse

I think this is not a very good time to do this. There has not been a successful terrorist attack on this country since 911. There is a reason for that. Ending these provisions will hamper the Obama administration in tracking those that want to kill us.

quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse
I think this is not a very good time to do this. There has not been a successful terrorist attack on this country since 911. There is a reason for that. Ending these provisions will hamper the Obama administration in tracking those that want to kill us.

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ORIGINAL: DarkSteven
So you're only defining terror attacks if they're carried out by a Muslim, so Loughner's doesn't count?

And don't forget that Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, made it through every single level of security but was brought down by passengers and flight crew.  Bush dodged a bullet on that one - had the attack been successful, he would have faced worse than the Katrina aftermath.

quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse

Murders by insane people are committed in this country every day. Loughner's act was murder. The shoe bomber wasn't successful and his flight didn't originate in this country. Maybe Obama should have tapped his phone and prevented this awful crime ?

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ORIGINAL: servantforuse
What percentage of the number you mention do you think is drug and gang related?

quote:

ORIGINAL: servantforuse
These killings are not attacks against our country.

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ORIGINAL: GotSteel
What about Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, wasn't he a successful Muslim terrorist?

quote:

ORIGINAL: GotSteel
Also, what about Malik Nadal Hasan?

quote:

While he said he could not rule out the incident as an act of terrorism, evidence does not support that theory.

Hasan's cousin Nader Hasan said that he believed it was his upcoming deployment combined with the wartime horror stories he heard from his patients that set him off.

quote:

ORIGINAL: cuckoldmepls

Well I guess that shuts the tea party naysayers up.