House disses PATRIOT Act: will it stick?

[FanofFiction]

In order to have a rush decision they need a two thirds majority. It's a failsafe to prevent them from passing anything crazy. You know, like one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" ideas.

 

[MoltenRock III]

I'd love to watch the Grits and Tories try to push this through parliament, man. The Bloq would shit bricks right there on the hill. Jack Layton's shiney head would explode. It would be chaos. And our supreme court would probably kill it anyway.

Have a terrorist fly 2 airplanes into the Canary Wharf, killing thousands, and you bet your ass they'd pass this in a heartbeat.

The Patriot Act had been sitting on the shelves for decades before Congress voted on. It was just sitting, waiting, for a time when it could be passed without anyone knowing fully what was in the thousands of pages of legalese. However, that does not excuse why after a decade, and an extension vote every few years, why this bill even exists anymore! I despised that pile of excrement from the day it was dislodged from the Congress' legalese writing commode machine.

Democrats are livid they will be called "weak on terrorism" by the Republican noise machine, so they vote for it. Republicans vote for anything and everything that allows the faux-security apparatus of the USA to grow and expand. Hence why it passes year in and year out.

Despicable!

 

[rareboy]

Have a terrorist fly 2 airplanes into the Canary Wharf, killing thousands, and you bet your ass they'd pass this in a heartbeat.

The Patriot Act had been sitting on the shelves for decades before Congress voted on. It was just sitting, waiting, for a time when it could be passed without anyone knowing fully what was in the thousands of pages of legalese. However, that does not excuse why after a decade, and an extension vote every few years, why this bill even exists anymore! I despised that pile of excrement from the day it was dislodged from the Congress' legalese writing commode machine.

Democrats are livid they will be called "weak on terrorism" by the Republican noise machine, so they vote for it. Republicans vote for anything and everything that allows the faux-security apparatus of the USA to grow and expand. Hence why it passes year in and year out.

Despicable!

Actually MR, since we're in Canada, it would have to be the TD Centre or Parliament Buildings...

But I agree with Kuli and others who contend that no political party in the US really loves liberty and freedom. They all love versions of it that place extreme controls on the people and ideas they don't love while allowing them freedom to do and think as they like.

 

[FanofFiction]

Have a terrorist fly 2 airplanes into the Canary Wharf, killing thousands, and you bet your ass they'd pass this in a heartbeat.

The Patriot Act had been sitting on the shelves for decades before Congress voted on. It was just sitting, waiting, for a time when it could be passed without anyone knowing fully what was in the thousands of pages of legalese. However, that does not excuse why after a decade, and an extension vote every few years, why this bill even exists anymore! I despised that pile of excrement from the day it was dislodged from the Congress' legalese writing commode machine.

Democrats are livid they will be called "weak on terrorism" by the Republican noise machine, so they vote for it. Republicans vote for anything and everything that allows the faux-security apparatus of the USA to grow and expand. Hence why it passes year in and year out.

Despicable!

The last time Canada was invaded by an external force, we pushed them back, befriended them, and became major trade partners. In Canada we do things differently.

 

[Kulindahr]

I'm confused, so at first they required a 2/3 vote to pass it but now they're only requiring a simple majority? What's the rationale behind that? Will the extentions be taken out as a result?

In order to have a rush decision they need a two thirds majority. It's a failsafe to prevent them from passing anything crazy. You know, like one of those "it seemed like a good idea at the time" ideas.

Yes. It's a special procedure, basically bypassing debate, used when the leadership thinks it will just sail through.

They miscalculated, and thus gave the Tea Party people the chance to show that in some ways, at least, they aren't authoritarians.

 

[Kulindahr]

The Patriot Act had been sitting on the shelves for decades before Congress voted on. It was just sitting, waiting, for a time when it could be passed without anyone knowing fully what was in the thousands of pages of legalese. However, that does not excuse why after a decade, and an extension vote every few years, why this bill even exists anymore! I despised that pile of excrement from the day it was dislodged from the Congress' legalese writing commode machine.

It was an accumulated wish list from police agencies of various sorts, things they wanted done so pesky things like civil rights wouldn't be in their way.

Just as an illustration, if anyone's seen the movie "Enemy of the State": when that was made, 90+% of what the government people did in it was illicit; now, it's the other way around.

And a rather extreme possibility shows the reach of the "USA PATRIOT" Act: using various little bits of the law, an FBI Special Agent who came upon a fisherman in a boat on a river classed as navigable could seize the boat and its contents and detain the fisherman, based on nothing more than a statement of suspicion by the agent. Even if the fisherman were later released, the government would be under no obligation to return the boat or contents. But with that statement of suspicion, the FBI could just keep the fisherman detained indefinitely.

This works because navigable rivers are technically included in the federal rubric of "transportation".