Our Cartoon Debate on PATRIOT Act Reauthorization

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If the original PATRIOT Act was ill-advisedly passed in a state of panic, its reauthorization, should it occur, will be the result of bureaucratic inertia, the corruption of media discourse on matters relating to "national security," and, above all moral cowardice masquerading as political "realism.

Julian Sanchez writes in the Nation:

We know the rules by now, the strange conventions and stilted Kabuki scripts that govern our cartoon facsimile of a national security debate. The Obama administration makes vague, reassuring noises about constraining executive power and protecting civil liberties, but then merrily adopts whatever appalling policy George W. Bush put in place. Conservatives hit the panic button on the right-wing noise machine anyway, keeping the delicate ecosystem in balance by creating the false impression that something has changed. We've watched the formula play out with Guantánamo Bay, torture prosecutions and the invocation of "state secrets." We appear to be on the verge of doing the same with national security surveillance.

Originally posted on the Bill of Rights Defense Committee blog


 

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This page contains a single entry by Phil Leggiere published on October 21, 2009 10:52 PM.

Dragnet against Domestic Terror Targets "Food Not Bombs" Group was the previous entry in this blog.

Judge: FBI need not lift 5 year old gag order is the next entry in this blog.

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