House Fails To Extend Patriot Act Spy Powers 284
schwit1 writes "The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public. The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act's broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013."
Re:Who is Roblimo (Score:3, Informative)
Roblimo was the editor in chief of Open Source Technology Group, the company that owns Slashdot, SourceForge.net, freshmeat, Linux.com, NewsForge, and ThinkGeek from 2000 to 2008.
He used to post alot of the stories here from about, oh 2000 to '04. And he was/is the interview editor.
Re:good job Republicans! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:good job Republicans! (Score:3, Informative)
In the last 20 years, a Republican has been President for 10 years (2 years H.W. Bush 1, 8 years G.W. Bush), Republicans controlled the Senate for 10 years and controlled the House for 12 years.
Re:good job Republicans! (Score:3, Informative)
Moreover, it failed because Republicans tried to pass the extension _without debate_, thereby upping the required threshold to 66%.
If they had allowed debate, it would have sailed through as it had much more than 50%. I suspect that this will be the next step (allowing debate).
Re:good job Republicans! (Score:5, Informative)
Good job Republicans! Wow, never thought I'd say that.. Well, after being in power for 17 of the last 20 years, it's about time you did something right.
Um... 90% of Repubs voted FOR extending it...! http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll026.xml [house.gov]
Re:good job Republicans! (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the vote list:
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2011/roll026.xml [house.gov]
Key Stats:
Republicans:
Yea: 210
Nay: 26
Democrats:
Yea: 67
Nay: 122
Republicans killed the bill my ass.
Why are you thanking them? Here are the numbers (Score:3, Informative)
GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes
DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes
http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26 [gop.gov]
Re:Why are you thanking them? Here are the numbers (Score:4, Informative)
Correction:
GOP: 210/26 (y/n) -> 89%
DEM: 67/122 (y-n) -> 32%
His "own party" was neutral on the thing (Score:3, Informative)
And meanwhile his own party blocks the effort to extend his powers.
So did Republicans - it would have passed without NO votes from both sides.
This was not a Democratic block at all, it was a bi-partisan block with many people on both sides questioning the extent of the Act.
Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, obviously the two parties are basically the same. That's why House Democrats, as a bloc, voted AGAINST renewing the act 122-67, while House Republicans, as a bloc, voted FOR renewing it 277-26.
Re:Minority government (Score:5, Informative)
Well, don't start celebrating yet. This was lost only due to being submitted under a special procedure that require 2/3 majority approval. If it gets resubmitted under the standard procedure requiring only a majority approval, it has more than enough votes to pass.
Unfortunately, I expect this to be a short lived victory.
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, considering that it was largely the newly minted Tea Party caucus that sunk these three provisions, I'm thinking that a petition from a fringe leftist group probably didn't have much to do with it.
However, if it makes you feel better, you are free to pretend whatever you like.