Congress Takes Aim at Patriot Act

By Anonymous -
Dean says, "I would remove the parts of the Patriot Act that are clearly unconstitutional."

Jonathan Chait of the New Republic writes
Combined with his antiwar stance, Dean's opposition to the Patriot Act could be politically lethal in a general election. For years, Republicans painted Democrats as civil-libertarian purists unconcerned with fighting crime. ....Whatever the merits of Dean's absolutist position, from a pragmatic standpoint he is once again walking into a GOP attack ad while flaying his opponents for failing to do the same.
Meanwhile,
In a huge victory, the House voted on Tuesday evening -- by an extraordinary margin -- for an amendment to this year's Commerce, Justice and State funding bill that would bar federal law enforcement agencies from implementing "sneak and peek" search warrants. In one of its most controversial provisions, the USA PATRIOT Act allowed government agents to execute so-called sneak and peek warrants and search homes, confiscate certain types of property and essentially "bug" computers without notifying the subject of the search that it is happening.

Conservative Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-ID) offered the amendment, which passed by a vote of 309 to 118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor. The amendment still has to clear the Senate and the President before it becomes law.

The Otter Amendment is the first unequivocal indication that lawmakers are taking seriously a broad, grassroots backlash against excessive government powers, which has grown exponentially in the past several months. To date, at least 142 communities and three states, encompassing more than 16 million people, have passed pro-civil liberties resolutions that speak out against the PATRIOT Act, many of which call for specific fixes to the bill.

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