Who knows the names of the defecting (defected) republicans? This would be a great time to force a real fillibuster rather than a procedural one. I would love to see those opposed to cloture on the act reading the yelow pages in the well of the Senate whilst the Gorelick wall is being reconstructed

This might surprise some folks, but I don't consider this such a bad thing. The Patriot Act was really minimally about the War on Terror -- it had a lot more to do with the War on Drugs and all the civil liberties stuff that entails (no-knock searches, relaxed search-n-seizure rules, no-warrant surveillance, etc.). I'm a conservative, but of a more libertarian stripe than others: I don't like the federal government accruing too much power to itself, and the Patriot Act was a pretty naked power grab.

Good riddance, I says.

No one should take this as an endorsement of the Democrats. They are, as usual, a pack of hemorrhoidal assholes. Just so we're clear.

Corzine on FoxNews this morning says it's all about the libraries...

Not to be outdone by the Times in its Bush-bashing, the WaPo, via MSNBC (which has since changed the big headline) ran this-

Experts: Iraq election not a turning point

Cover to the Dems, indeed. Power Line quotes Diane Feinstein as saying, "I don't want to hear again from the attorney general or anyone on this floor that this government has shown it can be trusted to use the power we give it with restraint and care."

Why didn't anyone have the balls to tell her to sit down and put her fucking fingers in her ears.

Then why not allow a floor vote instead of gutlessly hiding behind a procedural fillibuster? A real debate would possibly ensue with one side citing successes in the war on terror that resulted from the Patriot Act and the other citing real abuses of civil liberties. Can't say I've seen much evidence of the latter and suprisingly enough Dianne Feinstein has agreed with me.
Let's face it civil liberties vs security is a cost vs. benefit argument. Saying that absolute protection of our country can occur without some compromise on civil liberties is as foolish as arguing that unlimited freedoms doesn't come with some cost vis a vis security. We should look for an optimum and frame the debate in such a manner

This would be good, if Frist weren't such a moron. Get the Dems on record -- all of them. And start prepping the '06 ads.

Ace, didya see Schumer's comments captured in the Corner? I didn't see Malkin capture those.

"I went to bed last night unsure of how to vote on this legislation...but today's revelation that the government listened in on thousands of phone conversations without getting a warrant is shocking and has greatly influenced my vote. If this government will discard a law that has worked well for over 30 years without a wit of discussion or notice, then for sure we better be certain that we have safeguards on that government....Today's revelation makes it crystal clear that we have to be very careful."

Gee, all this because of the NYT leak? Those leakers sure chose a great moment to talk. I question the timing.

As someone who has to safeguard classified stuff every single day, I'm really getting fucking sick of these leakers. They're doing irreperable harm to America. And for what? To win turf battles? To promote personal agendas? Hey guys, we have democratically-elected intel oversight committees, it's *their job* to do this oversight, not the job of the New York Times or the Washington Post. And, unfortunately for some people's egos, not the job of the average American.

Elitist? Yes. But that's just the fucking way it is.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Except that the leak came from the NSA...

If anyone can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, it's Bill Frist.

As someone who has to safeguard classified stuff every single day, I'm really getting fucking sick of these leakers.

Really?

Sweeeet. Can you tell us how fast an aircraft carrier really goes?

A picture I would like to see: Sulzberger doing the perp walk out of the NYT building, along with those of his staff responsible for unauthorized disclosure of classified information. They knew it was classified. They were asked not to publish it. They were told it would damage US security. They decided that they needed to publish it anyway. Fuck 'em. Shut the place down.

Please don't just summon them to a grand jury. Bust the whole lot and lock them up pending trial. Then raid the CIA, FBI and State to bust the assholes who leak classified information as a matter of course.

What we need is a massive clampdown on this crap. "Business as normal" has become relatively senior bureaucrats leaking classified information in order to influence public opinion and political decisions. I will guarantee you that if it was a soldier or a lower ranking government employee who accidentally let something classified out, or who "did a favor" for a reporter, they would be taking up residence underneath the jail. Why do we tolerate worse from career "public servants" and?

What is Porter Goss doing about cleaning things up and what will it take before someone can flush these cockroaches into the open and stomp them. I'm with the other Dave - I'm sick and tired of this shit.

Last post was mine. Ace, I hate your damn' preview screen. It always drops out my name and stuff.

Dave IGR, Did you see PowerLine this AM? There's a brilliant piece there saying that if the Plame case makes leaking a felony definitively, then this case tops the Plame case by far. Good stuff.

Here.

Where's the gay aspect in this story?

I'm with Monty. They loaded this up with stuff that has nothing to do with terrorism. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt first time around, but this time it's just so freaking obvious what they're really trying to accomplish that I'm offended they think we're so stupid.

Scrap this crap and start over.

I wonder how much of this is purely due to the Patriot Act *name* having been permanently demonized as the Chimpy McHitlerburton Memorial Kill All Librarians and Shred the Constitution Act?

If the Republicans in Congress just proposed each provision of the Act as a separate, isolated bill, I have a hunch they could get them all passed, and the objections would vanish as their plain meaning could no longer be painted plausibly as "shredding the Constitution?"

Nays on the Republican side:
Craig
Hagel
Frist
Sununu
Murkowski

Yeas on Left side:
Nelson
Johnson

There is nothing wrong with the Patriot Act. It makes sense.

Sununu

Frist's 'Nay' was purely procedural, I think, so he can bring it back later.

Let's stock up on Sudafed now. Without the Patriot Act queen Feinstien is going to have to find some other unrelated bill to attach her blatently anti-meth lab amendment.

"Does the CIA's war against Bush continue?"
Damn right it does.
I'd say it's time to prevail upon Paul Anka to send Vinnie fuckin Falcone over to give Porter Goss a hand riding their fuckin asses.

Slublog: not fast enough to outrace an Iranian Silkworm surface-to-ship missile, unfortunately.

DeeDaGo: *ALL* these leaks have been worse than Plame, not just because they're criminal, but because they actually affect national security. The only thing the Plame leak affected was Joe Wilson's need to purchase dick pills.

FYI, in case folks didn't know about congressional procedurals, Frist voted no so he could call another cloture vote at a later date. I'm sure if he was the deciding vote, he would have voted yay (still, he's fucking worthless for letting it get this far).

Grrr.

Cheers,
Dave at Garfield Ridge

Jamie Gore-lick's "wall" is back up. The morons in teh U.S. Senate like to investigate everything that might embarass W. Can someone tell me why no one has looked into the ramifications of Gore-lick's wall at a time when investigations were being conducted by the CIA into inteliigent leaks to the Chinese and by the FBI into illegal campaign contributions by the Chinese to Sick Willie? Senator McCain?

Between the filibustering of the Patriot Act, and McCain's "Al Qaeda Bill of Rights." I think today is the day the War on Terror ended. We just decided to quit.

Dave is absolutely right. These leaks are beyond dirty politics, whomever's leaking is fucking around with important things. This is no joke, and it's not some political game to be had. These are national security secrets being drop-kicked into the newspapers while we're fighting a war unlike one we've fought before. But these self-important shits can't see past their own narrow power grabs to do the right thing.

Sweeeet. Can you tell us how fast an aircraft carrier really goes?

According to New Orleans May Ray Nagin, about 450 knots.

Link

Whoops, that should read "New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin." The lack of an edit feature has foiled my nefarious plans once again.

Monty and spongeworthy, can you cite what section of the Patriot Act you believe is wrong ?

roc:

Well, section 201 on wire intercepts seems to be rather broadly worded -- too much so for my confort. And section 210 on the electronic communications records (which amends 2703(c)(2) (title 18)) is pretty vague as well.

Overall, it doesn't do much to delineate the boundaries and limits of federal warrants for signals intercepts. Essentially, anything is fair game as long as the feds have reasonable suspicion that the communication presents a threat. "Reasonable" is the key word here -- there is no legal definition, which leaves the feds open to define it however they wish.

"You fuckin' people. You have no idea how to defend a nation. All you did was weaken a country today, Kaffee. That's all you did. You put people's lives in danger. Sweet dreams..."

Forgive me for asking but has the news media reportred recently on anyone unjustly persecuted by the Patriot Act?
And I do believe we have not had ONE terrorist attack in 4 years.
Sounds like a great time to junk it,
Jackasses.

Agree with JJS. It's not broken so lets 'fix' it. Reminds me of when my Houston Rockets won back to back NBA championships and decided that it was time to push Clyde Drexler out just when Jordan was returning to the league. To make matters worse they changed their uniforms.
OK, so the analogy is a stretch but in the war on terror what we are doing is working and not a lot of civil rights abuses to my knowledge have been documented.

Looks like the dems are looking for votes