secret patriot act?

[Aimless]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...t-patriot-act/

Is this something to fret about?

[LittleFuzzy]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011...t-patriot-act/

Is this something to fret about?

Not enough information. But I'm skeptical. The Congressional Intelligence committees may seem like an important committee. By all rights they should be an important committee. But mostly they're for grandstanding and don't do much serious work.

[Enoch the Red]

Reid: Rand Paul's Opposition To PATRIOT Act Gives "Terrorists The Opportunity To Plot Against Our Country"

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) blasted Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on the Senate floor late Wednesday night. Reid called Rand Paul's opposition to the renewal of the PATRIOT Act "political grandstanding." However, that wasn't the worst thing Reid accused the freshman Senator from Kentucky of.

"When the clock strikes midnight tomorrow, we will be giving terrorists the opportunity to plot against our country undetected," Reid said on the Senate floor. "Now, the Senator from Kentucky is threatening to take away the best tools we have for stopping them."

Oddly, Reid cities James R. Clapper, the gaffe-prone Director of National Intelligence, as someone who is encouraging Congress to renew portions of the PATRIOT Act that are due to end.

"Does this mean the PATRIOT Act is perfect? Of course not. But today, the Republican Leader and I received a letter from James Clapper, a three-star retired general from the United States military The nation's Director of National Intelligence. He knows better than any of us the real effect of letting terrorists fighting tools expire," Reid said.

Clapper, you may remember, did not know about the 2010 London bomb plot and once called the Muslim Brotherhood a "largely secular" group.

Where's the outrage from members here, (especially the ones that were so critical of the Patriot Act circa the Bush era) about the Democrats pushing the Patriot Act through the Senate?


That is not to say the Republicans didn't do their part to get it through the House, instead that people who seemed to care about it now remain silent as the Senate forces the bill through without allowing debate/amendments.

[Aimless]

Not enough information. But I'm skeptical. The Congressional Intelligence committees may seem like an important committee. By all rights they should be an important committee. But mostly they're for grandstanding and don't do much serious work.

Harmless or not, I'm surprised it may even be up for consideration by anyone remotely serious/legitimate.

Are any "secret laws" already in existence?

[Nessus]

One can bemoan the frequency of Democratic party spinelessness and lack of coherence only in so many ways. It's much more interesting to dissect the Pubbie mindset, but that's just me.

[LittleFuzzy]

Harmless or not, I'm surprised it may even be up for consideration by anyone remotely serious/legitimate.

Are any "secret laws" already in existence?

Dems control the administration. It is and always has been the less common practice for whoever is in power to do anything which might reduce the scope of that power.

Whether there is any "secret law" around, you'd have to define what the term means. The way the senator is using it, it appears to be "ominous-sounding term for how the administration does not care to exhaustively detail security processes and decision-making in general session?" i.e. grandstanding. My impression is that he's doing one of two things. Either this is pure rumor-mongering in preparation for a standard "run against DC" reelection campaign, or he's trying to generate public disapproval for a provision in the legislation which he has taken objection to, to try and sway other members of the committee who he has completely failed to persuade himself. While the latter does keep room for the possibility that he's genuinely concerned about administration activities and secrecy, the way he's doing it doesn't fit all that well, while it does fit most "seeking cheap advantage" scenarios. The most charitable construction I can put on his actions would be that he's asked the administration about something like how it would interpret its authority under that one section or to explain in detail how it intends to make use of it and the administration hasn't provided what he considers a fully adequate response.

The most direct example of actual "secret law" would be would be "black" areas of the budget.