A New Standoff Has Emerged as the Future of Patriot Act is in Flux

The Patriot act is set to expire June 1st. Mitch McConnell wants to re authorize it, even though a bipartisan reform bill has just passed the House Judiciary Committee. And he might be willing to play dirty to make sure it never sees a vote in the Senate.
news.vice.com...

Pat Leahy (D-Vermont)on the USA Freedom Act which he sponsored " Some say this bill does not go far enough. I agree. But in order to secure broader support for reform legislation that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law, changes had to be made to the bill I introduced last year. This new bill does not contain all the reforms I want.. But we should pass it and continue fighting for more reform."

Personally I agree with the ACLU, the Patriot Act should be scrapped all together, but this reform bill does end Provision 215 which allows the bulk collection of phone records of ordinary citizens. A recent oversight board found that not a single act of terrorism has prevented due to the mass call records program.

Both the Obama Administration and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper support ending the bulk collection of phone data, yet Senate Republicans are determined to reauthorize a program that is useless and costs billions....

Does this remind anyone else of the billions we spend on tanks that the Army itself doesn't even want?
www.foxnews.com...

a reply to: HighFive

I don't think the barry admin really support gutting the collection. They had their chances to do something about it if they really wanted.

The sad sad reality is that the Patriot act is never going anywhere.

It should never have been put in place, cause now we will never see it gone.

a reply to: Sremmos80

Did you read the article?
Mitch McConnell wants to reauthorize the entire Patriot Act including bulk phone data collection.

A bipartisan bill supported by Obama and James Clapper seeks to end bulk data collection.

McConnell hopes to block that vote.

McConnell and Cotton need to be voted out of office for this along with the others that vote for it. Traitors to the Constitution all of them.

Sen. Rand Paul; “I’m opposed to the Patriot Act and will vote no,” the Kentucky Republican said at the South by Southwest festival, according to US News and World Report.

Brought to you by the Rand Paul for president ATS movement!


(So far I think it just may be me though) ?

a reply to: HighFive

Yea they can put on the show all they want.

I just don't believe they really want to.
He has his phone and his pen, he can get stuff done.

a reply to: Greathouse

Rand Paul helped kill the USA Freedom Act, a bill meant to rein in the NSA. It received 58 votes! 2 short of proceeding to an actual roll call vote. Essentially helping McConnell reauthorize the Patriot Act. The 40 republicans who voted against it said it went too far, Rand Paul said not far enough. But his bedfellows on the vote to kill NSA reform made doomsday predictions saying the legislation would allow the Islamic State terrorists to perpetuate another 9/11. Libertarians now have lost the opportunity to offer amendments....

I remember I still worked in a bank IS department when the 'Patriot' Act passed. I remember my boss at the time had to ask me about how to make updates to our systems because of course he had no idea how to do actual work. He had to make 'secret' software updates that us peons weren't allowed to know about for compliance, but they amounted to sending your supposedly private banking information and transaction to the Feds.

originally posted by: HighFive
a reply to: Greathouse

Rand Paul helped kill the USA Freedom Act, a bill meant to rein in the NSA. It received 58 votes! 2 short of proceeding to an actual roll call vote. Essentially helping McConnell reauthorize the Patriot Act. The 40 republicans who voted against it said it went too far, Rand Paul said not far enough. But his bedfellows on the vote to kill NSA reform made doomsday predictions saying the legislation would allow the Islamic State terrorists to perpetuate another 9/11. Libertarians now have lost the opportunity to offer amendments....

Yep he did that in order to kill the patriot act .

Bulk collection of private citizen data was going on before the Patriot Act, and it will continue whether or not the Patriot Act is renewed...

The NSA and other covert agencies do whatever they want with ZERO oversight, so this discussion is academic...

a reply to: Greathouse

How does that make sense?
Kill a bill that starts the reform process some how leads to killing the bill entirely?

The patriot act is here to stay, didn't you people heard the latest, ISIS is here in the US and they want to kill Americans, so the patriot act is no going anywhere.

a reply to: Sremmos80

Yeah it never makes sense when you only hear one side of the argument and run with it.

If you voted for that NSA restructure bill it automatically reauthorized part of the patriot act.

Last year, he infuriated some civil libertarians by voting to filibuster an NSA reform bill called the USA Freedom Act, which would have effectively ended the agency’s bulk collection of Americans’ phone records by forcing agents to get the records from private phone companies after obtaining a court order. At the same time, however, it would also have reauthorized the portion of the Patriot Act on which the program is based, as well as two other sections of the law.

Rand Paul doubles down on patriot act


I Admit let that hang on purpose to prove a point. ( yeah I had the source ready I was hoping someone would parrot the mainstream media jargon)

You guys are going to sit around and let the mainstream media do the same to him as they did to Ron Paul.


It would behoove you to actually research the man.

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: HighFive

I don't think the barry admin really support gutting the collection. They had their chances to do something about it if they really wanted.

The sad sad reality is that the Patriot act is never going anywhere.

It should never have been put in place, cause now we will never see it gone.

We have the same problem in Canada, they pushed through Bill C-6/C-36 which gave the government the ability to define foreign institutions as "government." Now they've pushed through Bill C-51 which is like the patriot act. So now, the Canadian government can sell all of your personal, private and COLLECTED information to pretty much anyone they want. It's a sad, sick and stupid world....

This is all coming down the pipe from the asshats we allegedly elected to represent the best interest of the people, well they sure as *** don't represent me or anyone I know. All they have done is line their own pockets by managing the best interests of multinationals and international bankers. If Harpernista wanted to get rid of the deficit, stop the austerity and avoid the coming war/martial law, all he has to do is nationalize the Bank of Canada (it's isn't owned by Canada, it's owned by the IMF through shareholder banks and Goldman Sachs management).

I am quite sure the same applies to the US, FED, etc.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: Greathouse

No I knew why he did it.

He wanted us to stay in the same boat cause they weren't getting rid of enough...

a reply to: Sremmos80

Yeah, The reason I found the need to point it out. Is because mostly all you get from the MSM on Rand Paul is spitballing.

originally posted by: Greathouse
a reply to: Sremmos80

You guys are going to sit around and let the mainstream media do the same to him as they did to Ron Paul

Rand Paul could have stood with several other republicans and democrats to eliminate the bulk collection of phone records. Instead he stood with the minority's of senators who want to extend the patriot act the way it is.
Rand Paul is compromising his libertarian principles to be more acceptable to the republican base. Ron Paul would never do that, he had integrity. Now Rand Paul wants to raise the defense budget?? I also think it is not wise for his presidential run, his stances on defense, prison reform, and special interests is what makes him the only viable candidate against Hillary.

a reply to: Greathouse

But why would he be against gutting something that he wants to get rid of?

I get that it in turn would renew it, but that means he still has the same fight to fight to get rid of it.

a reply to: HighFive

As completely obvious by my source.

Let's cut to the chase.

Who are you voting for?

a reply to: Sremmos80

Why worry about gutting something when you plan on voting against it and it's entirety? You're not really making sense? Why would he vote for a bill that would automatically approve parts of an act that he wants to get rid of entirely?