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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell introduced a bill Tuesday night that would reauthorize a controversial surveillance authority of the Patriot Act until 2020, a push that comes just as a group of bipartisan lawmakers is preparing a last-minute push to rein in the government's mass-spying powers.

A McConnell aide said the majority leader is beginning a process to put the bill on the Senate calendar but said that the chamber will not take the measure up this week. That process, known as Rule 14, would bypass the traditional committee process. Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr is a cosponsor.

Under the bill, Section 215 of the post-9/11 Patriot Act would be extended until December 31, 2020. The core provision, which the National Security Agency uses to justify its bulk collection of U.S. phone records, is currently due to expire on June 1.

CID1990 wrote:Yet another example of the fact that there is no such thing as a temporary government measure.


Plus, if anyone has ever read USA PATRIOT they would be surprised how much special interest pork is in it (I assume that was the cost of getting it passed)

TheDancinMonarch wrote:Let me see. Democrats opposed when it was first passed. Republicans opposed when it was extended. Now Democrats oppose another extension. Seems like there is a high hypocrisy factor.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:Let me see. Democrats opposed when it was first passed. Republicans opposed when it was extended. Now Democrats oppose another extension. Seems like there is a high hypocrisy factor.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:Let me see. Democrats opposed when it was first passed. Republicans opposed when it was extended. Now Democrats oppose another extension. Seems like there is a high hypocrisy factor.

Col Hogan wrote:I hoped Obama would stick to his 2007/2008 campaign promise to eliminate the Un-Patriotic Act...but I figured the siren song of power would overwhelm him and it did...

This proves to me the the Republicans are without a doubt some of the most worthless pieces of dung on the face of the earth...only the Democrats are worth less...

Skjellyfetti wrote:

TheDancinMonarch wrote:Let me see. Democrats opposed when it was first passed. Republicans opposed when it was extended. Now Democrats oppose another extension. Seems like there is a high hypocrisy factor.

Eh. Neither side has opposed it to any degree in the Senate.

House Democrats passed it overwhelmingly in 2001 but have voted against each extension since.
House Republicans have voted overwhelmingly for it at each extension.

The problem is definitely both parties in the Senate, though.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
Eh. Neither side has opposed it to any degree in the Senate.

House Democrats passed it overwhelmingly in 2001 but have voted against each extension since.
House Republicans have voted overwhelmingly for it at each extension.

The problem is definitely both parties in the Senate, though.

The problem is definitely both parties.

Chizzang wrote:

CID1990 wrote:Yet another example of the fact that there is no such thing as a temporary government measure.


Plus, if anyone has ever read USA PATRIOT they would be surprised how much special interest pork is in it (I assume that was the cost of getting it passed)

I had an old co-worker that used to say that:
"Theirs nothing more permanent than a temporary solution"

The amount of money it takes to "run this government" of ours and manage the affairs of state
should embarrass every American

One notion that's perpetually popular is the idea that rich folks should be made to cough up more. While the US tax system is progressive — meaning that rich people hand over a larger percentage of their incomes in taxes than others — it's only just barely progressive, at least according to Citizens for Tax Justice. Some numbers to illustrate that fact: The richest 1 percent of people in the US account for 21.6 percent of all income, but account for 23.7 percent of all tax revenue. The country's poorest 20 percent have 3.3 percent of all income, but pay 2.1 percent of all taxes. Added together, the top 5 percent of income earners pitch in about 40 percent of tax revenue. Put another way, the individual tax receipts of the country's wealthiest 5 percent pay for the entire defense budget.

So what are the takeaways here? First and foremost, that the US government is too big for anyone to truly get his or her head around. Uncle Sam takes in and spends enough money every year to give every person on the planet about $500. Imagine that after giving everyone on the planet $500, you told those 7 billion or so people that they had to then pool their resources and work together toward a common objective — or, really, toward hundreds or thousands of objectives. It would be a rollicking mess.

The surprise is not that the US government is a hideous jumble of inertia, confusion, and dysfunction. The surprise is that it works as well as it does.

The other big take away is that most of the money the government collects in the form of taxes comes out of the pockets of individuals, and is then distributed back to and spent on individuals in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. All the odds and ends about how much this or that program costs, or whether there's a loophole exempting corporate cocaine-party yachts from sales tax, makes a relatively minuscule difference in the big picture. They're just a lot more fun to debate.

Ivytalk wrote: That said, with all the crap that Americans put out there on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, a lot of the whining about privacy rights should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ivytalk wrote: That said, with all the crap that Americans put out there on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, a lot of the whining about privacy rights should be taken with a grain of salt.

Chizzang wrote:

Ivytalk wrote: That said, with all the crap that Americans put out there on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, a lot of the whining about privacy rights should be taken with a grain of salt.

Ivy,
As a lawyer I thought you knew the definition of "irrelevant"...
Because your observation however true it might be in general terms it is irrelevant to the debate

Ivytalk wrote:

Chizzang wrote:
Ivy,
As a lawyer I thought you knew the definition of "irrelevant"...
Because your observation however true it might be in general terms it is irrelevant to the debate

I entered the debate. You ignored the first paragraph of what I said. And I stand behind the second as well.