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Conservatives Want To Change the Patriot Act
Topic Started: Dec 4 2005, 05:16 AM (200 Views)
QuirtEvans
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I Owe It All To John D'Oh
David Broder in the Washington Post, about Lindsey Graham.

Finally, Congress Stands Up

By David Broder

Sunday, December 4, 2005; Page B07

When Lindsey Graham and John Sununu joined the ranks of Republican senators, the last thing the White House expected was that they would start challenging administration policies on national security.

Graham, 50, came to the Senate in 2002 after a career as an Air Force officer and lawyer and as a member, for eight years, of the House, where his most notable service was on the team pressing impeachment charges against Bill Clinton.

Sununu, who is 41, also won his first term in 2002, after six years in the House. An engineer by training, he learned politics from his father and namesake, who served as governor of New Hampshire and later as chief of staff to the first President Bush.

Both of them had shown early streaks of independence. Graham led an abortive conservative rebellion against House Speaker Newt Gingrich and supported John McCain over George Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary. Sununu challenged and defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Bob Smith in a hard-fought primary before beating Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the general election.

Graham and Sununu have been supportive of most Bush policies, but their current objections illustrate the way in which some of the president's anti-terrorism methods have caused grave concerns among libertarian conservatives.

Sununu has taken the lead in a group of senators pressing for changes in the Patriot Act, the legislation expanding FBI powers that the administration rushed through Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many of the changes they wanted were made in the Senate bill, but administration objections have stymied their acceptance in a House-Senate conference.

Sununu and the others, who range from senators as conservative as Larry Craig of Idaho to those as liberal as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick Durbin of Illinois, have threatened a filibuster to force further negotiations.

What Graham, Sununu and their brethren are looking for is specific and significant: a requirement that the government convince a judge that a search of records has a direct connection, not just vague "relevance," to a suspected terrorist; a right of judicial appeal to challenge gag orders on such searches; a requirement that targets of "sneak-and-peek" searches be notified within seven days of their occurrence; and a four-year "sunset" clause for these special powers.

Sununu and his allies have been discussing these points with the Justice Department and the White House for two years. What is frustrating, he told me in an interview, "is that they will not debate these specific changes; they respond only with sweeping generalizations that we need to reauthorize the Patriot Act. That's not good enough."

For Graham, the issue is the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and other (still secret) overseas facilities. Like 89 other senators, he supported McCain's legislation barring the use of torture or the extreme measures publicized at Abu Ghraib.

When Vice President Cheney lobbied the House to kill the McCain restriction, Graham jumped in to offer additional leverage to the administration's critics.

He first framed an amendment -- welcomed by the White House -- to bar enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay from taking their cases into U.S. courts, then enlisted liberal Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and conservative Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona in a bipartisan resolution to provide automatic judicial review of all military trial sentences of at least 10 years. The resulting compromise gained 84 votes and, Graham told me, sends a strong message to the House that both the McCain language and this compromise must be included in the final legislation -- the White House notwithstanding.

What came through most clearly to me, in talking with both senators, was their sense that Congress as an institution must assert itself and take responsibility for setting policy on these national security issues.

For too long, they both said, it has been too easy to say -- or imply -- that it's the president's job alone to decide how to protect the nation's safety and vital interests. That complacent attitude may have been tolerable during the false lull after the end of the Cold War, but it cannot be accepted during a time of war and continuing terrorist threats.

Last month the Senate asserted itself by passing a meaningful, bipartisan declaration that 2006 must be a "year of transition" in which Iraqis take over major responsibility for the security and stability of their own country.

That younger senators such as Graham and Sununu are organizing bipartisan coalitions on such corollary national security issues as the Patriot Act and treatment of detainees is good news for the country. It is time for a similar effort in the House.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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John D'Oh
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Good for them. As I may have said before, when politicians stop towing the party line, we all need to listed very carefully.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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Or toeing, even.

If you tow the party line, I want to know where you're towing it.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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Rick Zimmer
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QuirtEvans
Dec 4 2005, 05:16 AM
David Broder in the Washington Post, about Lindsey Graham.

Finally, Congress Stands Up

By David Broder


Graham and Sununu are, of course, joined in this by liberals as well as some moderates. Good for all of them!

This is really a matter for those who believe in our Constitutional rights and are willing to stand up for them. We didn't need the Patriot Act when it was adopted and we don't need it now, it was the system that failed allowing 9/11, notthe laws that were in place.

The Patriot Act should be filibustered to death. I don't expect this to happen; but hopefully those fighting are prepared to filibuster to at least get these changes.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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George K
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Rick Zimmer
Dec 4 2005, 11:28 AM
The Patriot Act should be filibustered to death. I don't expect this to happen; but hopefully those fighting are prepared to filibuster to at least get these changes.

Just a question, Rick. Do you really think that filibuster is a legitimate way of passing, or in this case, rejecting legislation? Put aside the romantic Jimmy Stewart images and look at the process. It is a way of the minority party to obstruct the wishes of the majority, no?

Not taking sides on the Patriot act (perhaps we should start another thread), or on Dems vs. Reps or Conservatives vs. Liberals. Just wondering, out loud, how "democratic" the process of filibuster really is. I remember Republicans doing it and I thought it was a cheap way of getting their voices heard in a Democratic congress. I feel the same way now.
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Rick Zimmer
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George K
Dec 4 2005, 08:36 AM
Rick Zimmer
Dec 4 2005, 11:28 AM
The Patriot Act should be filibustered to death.  I don't expect this to happen; but hopefully those fighting are prepared to filibuster to at least get these changes.

Just a question, Rick. Do you really think that filibuster is a legitimate way of passing, or in this case, rejecting legislation? Put aside the romantic Jimmy Stewart images and look at the process. It is a way of the minority party to obstruct the wishes of the majority, no?

Not taking sides on the Patriot act (perhaps we should start another thread), or on Dems vs. Reps or Conservatives vs. Liberals. Just wondering, out loud, how "democratic" the process of filibuster really is. I remember Republicans doing it and I thought it was a cheap way of getting their voices heard in a Democratic congress. I feel the same way now.

Valid issue for discussion, George. Gonna shift this to another thread so as not to hijack Quirt's on the Patriot Act, which I think is a massively important issue in our country, even if it seems to raise little attention these days.
[size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size]
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John D'Oh
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QuirtEvans
Dec 4 2005, 10:14 AM
Or toeing, even.

If you tow the party line, I want to know where you're towing it.

Nobody loves a smart-ass, Quirt, believe me, I should know. :P
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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QuirtEvans
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Quote:
 
Nobody loves a smart-ass, Quirt, believe me, I should know.


In both our cases, it's a few more people than nobody, I'd suspect. :o But your point is certainly well-taken.
It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010.
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John D'Oh
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QuirtEvans
Dec 4 2005, 12:16 PM
Quote:
 
Nobody loves a smart-ass, Quirt, believe me, I should know.


In both our cases, it's a few more people than nobody, I'd suspect. :o But your point is certainly well-taken.

:D

I'd always assumed 'tow the party line' was some throwback to towing a line behind a ship, or something, or...., oh, I don't know. You're never too old to find out you don't know what you're talking about, I guess.

If it wasn't for Google, I'd have probably got into a very boring, and ultimately very embarrassing (for me) argument about it.
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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