Should the Patriot Act be allowed to expire?

The Patriot Act currently lasts for another couple of years, requiring Congressional action to continue it. Should it be continued or allowed to expire?

(I'm intentionally not creating the "Repeal it now" option; I'm assuming that Congress and the president are very unlikely to do that.)

Allowed to expire, however, I believe the cat's already out of the bag, and can't be put back in.

Allow that **** to kick the can!

It should be fixed to better respect Constitutional protections.

We should let it expire, although I'd prefer it be repealed now.

I think that with the trend of trying to tone down the War on Terror they will be more likely to let it expire. However I imagine that those provisions that have proved useful and effective in the past will be renewed through the amendment process and probably will go largely unnoticed by the general public..

Alowed to expire?

It should be given last rights, a blindfold and then immediately taken out and shot by a firing squad armed with assault rifles on full auto.

Kill the f'er...immediately.

It is amusing to me that those crying about the Patriot Act are the ones who cry loudest when there is a terrorist attack. Of course, simple solutions appeal to people who do not understand all of what they speak of. The Patriot Act is a large, complex piece of legislature which does alot of things. Some are flat out good(enhanced border security and investigative power for the INS for example). Some not so much. What should happen is it should be improved, not some knee jerk reaction that the same people calling for would be the ones complaining loudest about ramifications of it expiring.

Neither, it should be revised to better combat the threats this nation faces as they arise. The enemy is an ideology, and as a result it is constantly evolving in tactics and operation. We need to be just as fluid.

Phys251 said:

The Patriot Act currently lasts for another couple of years, requiring Congressional action to continue it. Should it be continued or allowed to expire?

(I'm intentionally not creating the "Repeal it now" option; I'm assuming that Congress and the president are very unlikely to do that.)

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I can't actually answer your poll because you affixed reasonings to the "yes" and "no".

We should continue to extend it. As one of the bills biggest critics and a man who voted against it, Russ Fiengold, even acknowledged that 90% of it was a sound bill. And that was back at the time it was passed. Since that time much of the troubled areas have been removed through legislation or the courts. The bill goes a long way of updating our 3 decades old intelligence legislation, much of which presented investigators with HUGE swatches of grey area with the advent of such crazy things such as "cell phones" and "the internet", both of which were the work of science fiction at the time of the last major survellience bill (Of which, large parts of Patriots simply amended).

We should vote to extend it and continue the process that we'd been doing over the past decade, taking a scapel to it and removing the more problematic parts piece by piece as the publics patience and desire for heightened security at the price of liberty wanes. What we shouldn't do is take an axe to the wound when the scapel woud save the limb while still stopping the wound.

While one may feasibly go "But we can just repass the good stuff from it", I don't believe that's realisitc. It wasn't realistic prior to PATROIT as this topic is always a contentious one, but when you combine the fact that anything that is born from Patriot would be labeled as it's "spawn" and gain the political stigma that goes along with it, there is little chance that attempting to pass the "good parts" would actually work out.

Redress said:

It is amusing to me that those crying about the Patriot Act are the ones who cry loudest when there is a terrorist attack. Of course, simple solutions appeal to people who do not understand all of what they speak of. The Patriot Act is a large, complex piece of legislature which does alot of things. Some are flat out good(enhanced border security and investigative power for the INS for example). Some not so much. What should happen is it should be improved, not some knee jerk reaction that the same people calling for would be the ones complaining loudest about ramifications of it expiring.

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There is no possible way that the massive violation of civil liberties in the past decade can be justified by a few reasonable updates to law enforcement techniques. The cost benefit ratio is not even close to being even. The PATRIOT act needs to be repealed immediately and then one can discuss re-creating some of the acceptable provisions in new legislation.

Redress said:

It is amusing to me that those crying about the Patriot Act are the ones who cry loudest when there is a terrorist attack. Of course, simple solutions appeal to people who do not understand all of what they speak of. The Patriot Act is a large, complex piece of legislature which does alot of things. Some are flat out good(enhanced border security and investigative power for the INS for example). Some not so much. What should happen is it should be improved, not some knee jerk reaction that the same people calling for would be the ones complaining loudest about ramifications of it expiring.

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The knee jerk reaction was passing the PA in the first place. It should be allowed to die, it should be actively hunted to extinction. Nothing good has come from the PA, which should be no surprise because just by fact that it's named the Patriot Act, you know government was up to no good. If there is anything "good" in the PA, then Congress can pass a smaller bill containing only that part. But there is too much direly wrong with the PA to think that a mere pruning job is in order. It must be destroyed.

Zyphlin said:

While one may feasibly go "But we can just repass the good stuff from it", I don't believe that's realisitc. It wasn't realistic prior to PATROIT as this topic is always a contentious one, but when you combine the fact that anything that is born from Patriot would be labeled as it's "spawn" and gain the political stigma that goes along with it, there is little chance that attempting to pass the "good parts" would actually work out.

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That is a sacrifice worth paying. Potentially reducing the effectiveness of law enforcement is unfortunate, but it is minor compared to consequences of recent government abuses. There are decent odds that congress would be able to re-pass the appropriate legislation especially if they hid it in some omnibus bill 5 minutes before voting on it and included enough pork to make everyone happy. No country dissolved into tyranny because they had out of date intelligence legislation, the same cannot be said for the recent violation of civil liberties.

The PA is not something that can be fixed with a few tweaks here and there. There are some aspects that are positive, though. Hence, it should be allowed to expire*, then re-written and scaled back appropriately.

*-Repealed now, ideally, but let's get real... (unfortunately, expiration and re-writing probably won't happen either)

Phys251 said:

The Patriot Act currently lasts for another couple of years, requiring Congressional action to continue it. Should it be continued or allowed to expire?

(I'm intentionally not creating the "Repeal it now" option; I'm assuming that Congress and the president are very unlikely to do that.)

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It needs to be revamped if anything, obviously the Obama Administration is blatantly abusing it.

radcen said:

Hence, it should be allowed to expire*, then re-written and scaled back appropriately.

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And given what you know about politics, you believe that such a re-write...regardless of how sound a bill it is...would likely muster enough bipartisan support to pass let given the potential fodder for public fury anything that could be linked to "Patroit" would provide in campaigns?

Zyphlin said:

And given what you know about politics, you believe that such a re-write...regardless of how sound a bill it is...would likely muster enough bipartisan support to pass let given the potential fodder for public fury anything that could be linked to "Patroit" would provide in campaigns?

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Given what we know about politics, how likely is it that they'd allow it to expire in the first place. They're more likely to be tacking on.

Ikari said:

Given what we know about politics, how likely is it that they'd allow it to expire in the first place. They're more likely to be tacking on.

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Oh, I don't expect that it will be let to fully expire.

But I was going off the scenario the poster suggested.

Zyphlin said:

Oh, I don't expect that it will be let to fully expire.

But I was going off the scenario the poster suggested.

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That's my plan for it too though. Kill it and anything "beneficial" can be written back as a limited bill dealing with only that power. If that bill cannot rise above the level of partisan bickering, then we didn't need it in the first place.

Zyphlin said:

Oh, I don't expect that it will be let to fully expire.

But I was going off the scenario the poster suggested.

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I was just stating what I think *should* happen. I don't actually think it will happen.

Redress said:

It is amusing to me that those crying about the Patriot Act are the ones who cry loudest when there is a terrorist attack. Of course, simple solutions appeal to people who do not understand all of what they speak of. The Patriot Act is a large, complex piece of legislature which does alot of things. Some are flat out good(enhanced border security and investigative power for the INS for example). Some not so much. What should happen is it should be improved, not some knee jerk reaction that the same people calling for would be the ones complaining loudest about ramifications of it expiring.

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it amuses me that you make stuff up all the time

Phys251 said:

The Patriot Act currently lasts for another couple of years, requiring Congressional action to continue it. Should it be continued or allowed to expire?

(I'm intentionally not creating the "Repeal it now" option; I'm assuming that Congress and the president are very unlikely to do that.)

Click to expand...

As long as it's not replaced with something worse.

Indeed said:

As long as it's not replaced with something worse.

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The Patriot Act, another legacy of the first moron, GWBush. It's demise should be accelerated, not allowed to expire. Truth be told is that the gov't never gives back any power it has taken and it's taken lots of power with the Patriot Act. We're screwed!

the wording of the options makes me unable to vote, but in my opinion, yes, it should be allowed to expire. whatever replaces it should have a lot more oversight and transparency.

i understand how total information awareness really helps catch terrorists, but i just don't see it as being compatible with the Bill of Rights, and i see a big potential for abuse. perhaps there's another course of action where we can split the difference and resolve the constitutional issues.

Terrorism is a minor threat in the world, and is unworthy of such drastic measures. There are much greater threats to our lives and safety than Jihadists that we could focus our attention on. What we eat kills us a lot more than any terrorist ever could. And to echo was is posted above, the bill of rights and our constitutional protections far supersede the desire for safety from this minor threat.