To hear President Obama and his fellow Democrats tell it, every problem that America is facing is due to the policies of the Bush administration. It’s only a matter of time until we hear press secretary Robert Gibbs place the blame for record snowfalls and sticking gas pedals on Toyotas on George W’s shoulders.
So can someone please explain to me how the Patriot Act, a law that President Obama called a “shoddy piece of legislation”, is suddenly a good thing?
Obama has called on Congress to extend three provisions of the Patriot Act that are due to expire at the end of this year.
The conditions that President Obama hopes to extend relate to wiretapping, business records, and potential terrorists acting alone.
The roving wiretap clause allows authorities to monitor the phone records of an individual, not just a particular phone number. This is a handy tool in the fight against terrorists who can frequently change phones.
The business records provision allows law enforcement to seize various records of a suspected terrorist, the most important being financial records. I don’t mean to sound flippant, but in the war against terrorism, as in many aspects of life, by applying the principle of ”follow the money”, authorities can gain quite a bit of intelligence.
And the “lone wolf” provision allows for the monitoring of an individual suspected of being involved with terrorist activities while not being linked to a particular terrorism cell.
During the George Bush administration, the Patriot Act was derided as “an infringement of our civil liberties.”
During the Barack Obama administration, provisions of the same “shoddy piece of legislation” are being renewed in the war against terrorism.
Or, to use the current White House terminology, against “enemy combatants.”
The “most ethical administration in history” is fast becoming the most hypocritical administration in history.
