House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers | Hacker News Reader

House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

wired.com

181 pointstshtf39 comments

There's not much to celebrate here, unfortunately. The bill was brought to vote using an accelerated procedure that requires a 2/3 vote. When it goes through the regular process that only requires a simple majority, it will pass easily if the vote is remotely similar (277-148).

This is just the first skirmish in a battle that will go on for at least 10 days and may go on for months. That said, there's a lot to celebrate -- it changes the dynamics of the debate in the Senate, and increases the chance that Leahy's bill (S.193) introducing new safeguards as part of the reauthorization may make it to the floor.

So, stay tuned!

Disclaimer: I'm one of the organizers with Get FISA Right, a grassroots civil liberties organization working to reform or repeal the PATRIOT Act.

Kudos to you sir! FISA needs to be tweaked.

Thanks! And yes it does. We're working on it ... we'll have an update later today or tomorrow about the next step at http://getfisaright.wordpress.com/

At least this time it will be debated and amendments will be considered, which is important for the EFF. On the other hand, this one will likely last longer.

Though encouraging, this is most likely bad news. I remember when the auto bailout was rejected. I was happy! And then two weeks later they passed one with ten times the pork.

I bet it gets worse, not better. They'll update it to reflect the current state of the internet and its widespread adoption while still keeping all the authoritarian provisions, if not in name.

Indeed, S.289 (Feinstein's bill) is even worse than HR 514. Here's a summary: https://www.popvox.com/orgs/getfisaright

Content aside, the words chosen to construct the article's title is intruiging.

The same piece of news is currently on the HN front page twice [1][2], framed in two very different ways:

Wired: House Fails to Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers

BBC: House rejects extension of 'Patriot Act' powers

[1] Here [2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2196126

Seriously, the headline should be "House Succeeds at Discontinuing Patriot Act Spy Powers"

Government needs the flexibility to exercise the pending three acts in order to protect citizens. However, it would be nice to know they are being held accountable.

In other words... which ever division gets this almighty power to tap phones, businesses, etc. needs to be transparent to a "non-affiliated" (a loose term to describe two government agencies, I know) almighty power. Something like the relationship between the fed reserve and the treasury.

Also, the authors should re-word the act and say these powers only apply to suspected terrorist groups... just to give us a little piece of mind.

Whenever 'flexibility' and 'government' are put together, the result is power and corruption. Due process and habeas corpus are not just inconveniences against the ability to fight so-called 'enemies', but fundamental rights belonging to all. Removing individual liberties is not protecting, but endangering citizens.

He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. -Thomas Paine

I wholeheartedly disagree; the provisions outlined by the Patriot Act, including these three, do not protect US citizens. They serve only to erode our rights.

Perhaps I misread the article, but it seems the Patriot Act is still firmly in place - with only three sections expiring: Section 215, 206 and 6001.

'Section 215' seems questionably undoable - in the days of deep packet inspection and tower specific RSSI/locational based queries. It's sorta impossible to not infringe upon privacy concerns...

Section 215: 'which permits the government to secure wiretapping orders without disclosing the identities of its targets'

The point is whether the government can use that information for broad-base surveillance. Whether the technology is there to gather the data is orthogonal to question of whether it should be legal to do so.

So this means no more patriot act? Isn't that a good thing? The tone of the article makes it sound like a bad thing?

It doesn't really mean the end of anything it just means congress will look at alternative proposals. With both the Republican leadership and the Obama administration supporting it the passage of something similar is practically a lock.

Hopefully it will just be a little less odious.

Or more likely the same powers will just go to the agencies without any actual act to oversee them.

It's not gone, it's just going to take a less expedited procedure to get it through the House. There are faster, amendment-free, debate-light procedures, and then there are slower, more amendment conducive procedures. In this case, they're going to have to bring it to the full floor and let people speak against it or try to stick watering-down amendments on it, but since the regular procedure only requires a 50%+1 vote instead of a 2/3 vote, it'll almost certainly ultimately pass in one form or another.

It was shocking to see republicans switching votes in the final minutes, I was surprised no one could mention on CSPAN if the remaining 10 congresspeople were gone...

This has never really been a partisan issue. This is a bill proposed by the Republican leadership at the behest of the Obama administration (who wanted to see an extension through the next election).

But so-called Republicans like Rand and Ron Paul hold beliefs that are even further from the Patriot Act than liberal ideals are (in that libertarians believe is as little government as possible while liberals believe in a larger government).

This Congress is one where you certainly can't just add up the Ds on one side and the Rs on the other and expect to have a picture of how votes will go down. Both parties are experiencing significant fracturing internally. Republicans are fracturing along social conservative, fiscal don't-really-care vs. fiscal conservative, social don't-really-care and Democrats are splitting along moderates vs. hard-left lines, and on both sides the non-ideologues are all finger-to-the-wind trying to figure out which side will get them more votes next election. Expect more chaos from those folk over the next few weeks/months.

A lot of the political hatin' going on lately is predicated on very simplified propaganda-based models of what is actually going on lately; does the idea that the Tea Party and the Democrats could actually agree on some points like this blow your mind, or was it obvious to you in advance this could happen? If the former your models need tweaking, this outcome should not have been a surprise to anyone who was paying attention.

Add to this the fact that this vote _doesn't matter_ in the sense that deciding to turn it down isn't a final decision. This actually makes it easier for someone to vote against it for purposes of political expediency, knowing it won't affect the outcome as much. Voting in this meant much more jockeying for position.

As an irrelevant aside, I disagree with your present tense. Fractures are always existent within both Republican and Democratic parties; few congresses have been a matter of adding up the Ds and Rs except for on the few issues most bitterly fought over by D and R. In general these sub-divisions are the nature of the political beast.

"(in that libertarians believe is as little government as possible while liberals believe in a larger government)."

Oh please, liberals don't want larger government in everything, just fiscal issues. They are as socially liberal as the libertarians in congress like Ron Paul.

>They are as socially liberal as the libertarians in congress like Ron Paul.

I think you have been misinformed.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/11/sorry_four_loko_chuck_s...

The mechanics of the classic liberal are still widely different at the extremes. For example, a rather 'lefty' area may decide to invest in a large social project to increase awareness about a particular issue whereas a Ron Paul libertarian would see that as government waste.

Of course, most people (including myself) lie somewhere in between.

Come to think of it, why was an expiration put into the original bill to begin with? It's not anyone would have been able to stop them if they passed a permanent law to begin with.

To make it slightly more palatable (at them time) to those on the fence. If anybody did raise an objection it was quickly brought up how this was 'just' a temporary measure. It is going to be a long time before the patriot act goes away for good.

Was anyone on the fence? I thought I remember hearing that no one even read it.

then you're listening to simplistic explanations of politics.

the climate was such that the desire for Congress to do _something_ necessitated compromise for speed of decision. "No one actually read it" reflects the reality that the bill was _going_ to pass. the accommodations made for people who _would_ have been on the fence were made to speed the process.

Typically things with major, and potentially changing, fiscal impact include a sunset provision.

Most laws have a sunset provision. It provides an easy way to bring the topic back up again.

I don't think this is really a failure.

Somehow I suspect they'll try again.

It really is a shame that we cannot count on an automatic veto from Obama. This is an area where I really would hope for some change.

Obama supporting Feinstein's S.289, which is even worse than the House bill that just went down. On this issue, his policies haven't changed at all from the Bush Administration. As you say, disappointing. Back in 2006 he was on our side on this issue. Sigh.

I think I might be ok with vastly expanded police powers if I was the one who decides how and when to use them.

Then you're missing the point. That's the same view our leaders have.

This might be good news..

Remember their promise that US Patriot Act would be reviewed and debated before being renewed..the accelerated procedure did not allow for that but the regular process does in fact allow debate and review and reading the full act.

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