Shhhh quiet did you hear that?

[Charlie P]

There tearing away a little more of the Constitution.

The FBI would get expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations under Patriot Act revisions approved Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Some senators who voted 11-4 to move the bill forward said they would push for limits on the new powers the measure would grant to law enforcement agencies.

"This bill must be amended on the floor to protect national security while protecting Constitutional rights," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md.

Ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., supported the bill overall but said he would push for limits that would allow such administrative subpoenas "only if immediacy dictates."

Rockefeller and other committee members, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., also are concerned that the bill would grant powers to federal law enforcement agencies that could be used in criminal inquiries rather than intelligence-gathering ones.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the bill places new checks and balances on the powers it would grant, such as new procedures that would allow people to challenge such administrative orders. He called the Patriot Act "a vital tool in the war on terror" and lauded the Democrats who voted for it in spite of misgivings.

Portions of the Patriot Act - signed into law six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks - are set to expire at the end of 2005. The bill would renew and expand the act.
The bill also must be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein and other Democrats planned to again offer amendments.

Overall, Rockefeller said, the committee gave a nod to most of the Patriot Act in its first few years fighting the nation's new enemies.

"We concluded that these tools have helped keep America safe ... and should be made permanent," Rockefeller said in a statement.Still, civil libertarians panned the bill and the closed-door meetings in which it was written.

"When lawmakers seek to rewrite our Fourth Amendment rights, they should at least have the gumption to do so in public," said Lisa Graves, the ACLU's senior counsel for legislative strategy. "Americans have a reasonable expectation that their federal government will not gather records about their health, their wealth and the transactions of their daily life without probable cause of a crime and without a court order."

---

[david m]

idiots.

spying on our own citizens isn't going to make anyone safer.

[tardfarmer]

If you are a U.S. citizen you are viewed by our government as a piece of dog dirt.

Illegals and potential "terrorists" flood this country, get all sorts of freebies - including reduced tuition to college while you're spied on.

In wisconsin they just passed a law that to buy over the counter cold medicine you have to show a valid ID. Considering that nationwide 90% of the meth labs are run by illegals from mexico, why don't they point their attention to the problem -- ILLEGALS, and leave the citizens alone.


I wish an illegal would attack Bush.

[tardfarmer]

THANK GOD FOR THE PATRIOT ACT (I and II) (extreme sarcasm)



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4072746.stm



'Bloody chainsaw' man enters US

Mr Despres also had a knife, a hatchet and brass knuckles
A man carrying a home-made sword and what looked like a blood-stained chainsaw was allowed into the US from Canada, the Associated Press reports.
The news agency says Gregory Despres' weapons were confiscated, before US custom officials in Calais, Maine, let him cross the border on 25 April.

The next day he became a murder suspect after bodies of his two neighbours were found in his hometown in Canada.

Mr Despres, 22, was arrested on 27 April and is now awaiting extradition.

Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up

Bill Anthony
US Customs and Border Protection spokesman

The bodies of Mr Despres' neighbours were discovered in the town of Minto, New Brunswick.

The decapitated body of Frederick Fulton was found on the kitchen floor in his house. The man's head was under a kitchen table.

His common-law wife was discovered stabbed in a bedroom.

'Nobody asked'

AP quoted Bill Anthony, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, as saying the Canadian-born Mr Despres was questioned for about two hours before being allowed to enter the country.

Mr Anthony said Mr Despres could not be detained because he was a naturalised US citizen and was not wanted on any criminal charges on the day in question.

"Nobody asked us to detain him," the spokesman said.

"Being bizarre is not a reason to keep somebody out of this country or lock them up... We are governed by laws and regulations, and he did not violate any regulations".

Mr Anthony added that officials in Calais did not have a forensic laboratory.

"They can't look at a chainsaw and decide if it's blood or rust or red paint," he said.

Mr Despres was detained, after police spotted him wandering down a motorway in a sweat shirt with red and brown stains.

[Charlie P]

Ending a 60-year practice, the White House no longer expects the CIA director to attend secret national security meetings, according to an internal Bush administration memo.
CIA Director Porter Goss will join meetings of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council only "at the direction of the President," said a May 2 memo given to the Daily News.

The White House order, first reported by Time magazine yesterday, was sent by national security adviser Stephen Hadley and Frances Fragos Townsend, President Bush's controversial top adviser on counterterrorism. Director of National Intelligence John *****ponte replaces Goss at the meetings in a move seen as marginalizing the CIA.

"If you're not in the room, you're not playing an influential role," David Rothkopf, a Clinton administration official and author of a new book on the National Security Council, told the magazine.

What's up with this.We need to expand the Patriot act but lessen the role of the CIA?

[Charlie P]

Tard, I heard they caught the guy because one woman decided to do her job.

BTW that story wasn't off the AP was it?

[tardfarmer]

BTW that story wasn't off the AP was it?

No, cause everyone knows the AP lies.....

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Deleted User]

[Deleted by Admins]

[silentassassin]

spying on our own citizens isn't going to make anyone safer.

Yea that's a big concern for me too. Because I know the Federal government has thousands and thousands of people setting around in the intelligence field with nothing better to do than try and decipher if my wife is in fact going to cook dinner tonight[:-][8D]