The Senate Intelligence Committee's Secret Session
The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse
In a stunning slap at the democratic legislative process, the Senate
Intelligence Committee, headed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), has
suddenly and quietly scheduled a closed-door session for this Thursday
to mark up its version of a renewed USA PATRIOT ACT, the frankenstein
legacy of former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his then assistant
Michael Chertoff (now secretary of Homeland Security).
The controversial act, many provisions of which seriously undermine
basic Constitutional rights and protections, was just being examined in
hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Sen. Arlen Specter
(R-PA), where it came under heavy criticism from both right and left.
Both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees have jurisdiction over
the act, but the Judiciary committee, with its open hearings, was
widely seen as having primacy.
Critics of some of the act's provisions, such as the notorious library
records provision, which allows federal agents, or local law
enforcement authorities working for them, to inspect the patron or
customer records of libraries, video stores and bookstores, without a
warrant and without notification, or the sneak-and-peek provision,
which lets federal agents spy and surveil on people without later
notifying them, carry a "sunset provision," which means if they are not
renewed this year, they would expire.
http://jusinkase.blogspot.com/2005/05/senate-intelligence-committees-secret.html
Ratton-Pourit
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