US Senate and House vote to extend Patriot Act provisions; Obama expected to sign

Update, 751pm ET: The House has approved a 4-year USA PATRIOT act extension, 250-153.

The US Senate voted today to extend three key provisions of the Patriot Act which were scheduled to expire tonight at midnight. The measure is now before the House for debate, and is scheduled to complete its work tonight. Civil liberties advocates charge that the provisions, in particular portions related to electronic surveillance and wiretapping, are a violation of the Constitution. If Congress approves the extension, it goes before President Obama, who is currently in Europe. Reuters reports that White House spokesman Nick Shapiro says the President will use "the autopen to sign" the bill quickly into law. The autopen is a machine that replicates his signature.

One of the three provisions, Section 206 of the Patriot Act, provides for roving wiretap surveillance of targets who try to thwart Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance. Without such roving wiretap authority, investigators would be forced to seek a new court order each time they need to change the location, phone or computer that needs to be monitored.
Another provision, Section 215 of the Patriot Act, allows the FBI to apply to the FISA court to issue orders granting the government access to any tangible items in foreign intelligence, international terrorism and clandestine intelligence cases.
The third provision, Section 6001 of the Intelligence Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act of 2004, closes a loophole that could allow individual terrorists not affiliated with specific organizations to slip through the cracks of FISA surveillance. Law enforcement officials refer to it as the "lone wolf" provision.

More at CNN.com.

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: Civlib • human rights • security • Technology

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gman

Autopen? Hell, yes! Now you can sign bills into law and not even have to be in the same room! This leaves the President more time to make inspiring speeches and meet with recording industry lobbyists.

Just like your founding fathers wanted.
Neuron

“…among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
- Donald Petersen
  
  it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards
  
  That would entail a helluva lot of gettin’ up off our fat asses, rifling through the kitchen drawers trying to figure out where we left our last tube of Give-a-Shit, and making some kind of… y’know, what’s that word…? Oh yeah! Effort.
  
  And I think there might be some element of, uh, risk. And maybe sacrifice. I don’t have to do that kind of shit anymore… do I? Heck, most of us have jobs, several of us can almost afford our mortgages, my Xbox is practically paid for, and nobody tracks my library check-outs since I don’t bother to read.
  
  Plus, I’m a white male, so they’re automatically on my side. What do I have to worry about?
  
  Quit pokin’. I think I’ve earned a little hammock time. It’s my birthright as an American.
  - floraldeoderant
    
    +1
Dan Mac

And here are some pics of the folks who implement the Patriot act:

http://cryptome.org/info/obama-obl-cia/obama-obl-cia.htm
dcamsam

While it is true that very few Republicans voted against the extension and also that a larger percentage of Democrats voted against the bill, it is still true that the majority of Democrats voted for the bill extension.

Actually, no, it isn’t true. As noted, two-thirds of the House Democratic caucus voted against the bill. That’s quite a bit more than half. And while the Senate was less impressive, when taken together, a majority of the Democratic members of Congress (141 of 245) did, in fact, vote against this bill.

Which isn’t to say that it’s inaccurate to call this “bi-partisan”, given that the number of Democrats who voted for the bill is substantial, but that it’s ridiculous to pretend that there isn’t a significant difference between the parties on this issue.
Jake0748

Boooooo!!

:(
yclept

If only there were a political party that valued personal freedoms over the rights of the state. Or a party that valued smaller government and less regulation.
Anonymous

Well, none of my representatives are getting any more votes from me.
Anonymous

love how they keep pushing these extension renewals to the last minute so it has to be approved without further analysis yet again
Robert

OK, I admit it: I’m confused. The *Alaskans* all voted no on this? WTF? I’m glad to see some Republicans and Democrats are voting no, narrowing the margin given what happened last time. But I don’t get Alaska?
- Stonewalker
  
  Alaska really doesn’t like the feds getting in their business.
astrochimp

All of these provisions seem fine, per se.

The violation of the constitution comes with (i) the flimsy grounds on which court orders are granted in such cases… and, uh, (ii) the fact that they routinely do all these things without a court order anyway.

Getting all pissy about these specific provisions misses the forest for the trees: If law enforcement had to provide real grounds in order to get real warrants in the first place, they wouldn’t be a problem.
Anonymous

And before bashing Bush and the Republicans on this, let’s get our own house in order and accept that most Dems will be voting for this. Including Al Franken. This is not a partisan issue…it’s a Rulers vs Ruled issue.
Teller

Gee, I wonder what the House will do?
Anonymous

If anyone is wondering how their senator voted on this issue, here is the roll call.

It wasn’t immediately clear to me that this was the correct vote because the bill’s title is actually “A bill to provide for an additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958, and for other purposes”. I really feel like this blatant mislabeling (through the routine use of amendment to pass unrelated law) is a powerful illustration of how perverse our congress has become. Absolutely disgraceful.
- wnoise
  
  Hooray, both my senators voted no. The corresponding house votes are http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/112/house/1/376 .
  - Anonymous
    
    Who is doing Gabrielle Giffords’ voting?
    
    Also, interesting tidbit — the autopen was supposedly invented by Canadian author Alice Munro.
fr4nk

“The terrorists hate us for our freedom!” Well, the government took care of that problem.

I’m not usually one to blame/bitch-at the President, but hey, Mr. Obama, you can invoke the Change, Hope, etc. any time now, starting with a simple refusal to sign this Anti-Constitution.
Dan Mac

It’s rarely mentioned, but one aspect of the Patriot Act is to make legal the hovering up as much business intelligence as possible on foreign companies. Where intelligence goes once it is in the hands of the government is another story, but a very important facet of the bill is that intelligence gleaned can be shared legally with other levels of government. The business of America is after all business.
The other use is to be able to spy on foreign governments and human rights organizations, many who have American citizens employed somewhere in their telephone chain (United Nations in particular), making it difficult to wide range wiretap legally without the Patriot Act.
Mantissa128

Oh America, why ya gotta be so crazy.
Anonymous

Autopen indeed! Wow. They already didn’t read the bills. Now they don’t even sign them either.

This is a level of corruption that will shame us for generations to come.
Stonewalker

Huh.. I’m watching live debate now… It doesn’t look like the House has voted yet.
Stonewalker

Hm, nevermind. It seems they are just talking about how great the PATRIOT Act is… Mr. Obama is probably signing it right now…. sigh….
Melted Crayons

I think the Government’s logic goes something like this:

‘Because anyone in the US ‘could be’ a terrorist, the only way to catch the terrorists is to wiretap all the terrorist suspects. And since everyone is a terrorist suspect, we wiretap everyone.’

It’s probably safe to assume that all voice calls are computer-monitored for key words, as are texts, emails, etc. All your point of sale card transactions are matched up with you. Flights, hotel stays, etc.
Dan Mac

TEMPEST
- Anonymous
  
  Faraday Cage. :)
dcamsam

And before bashing Bush and the Republicans on this, let’s get our own house in order and accept that most Dems will be voting for this. Including Al Franken. This is not a partisan issue…it’s a Rulers vs Ruled issue.

Franken voted no. Before trotting out the “Democrats and Republicans are, like, the same” pony, maybe we should examine the facts.

The fact is that around 10% of Republicans in the House and Senate voted against this. Meanwhile, more than one-third of Democrats in the Senate and more than two-thirds of Democrats in the House, including the minority leader, Pelosi, voted against this.

Arguing that “this is not a partisan issue” because OMG RAND PAUL voted against it is akin to arguing that same-sex marriage isn’t a partisan issue because an insignificant fraction of Republicans support it. It’s silly. The issue is partisan, and the Democrats are more likely to be on the right side than the Republican.
Anonymous

If you plan on voting for anyone who didn’t vote no or did not vote, you should probably not vote.
nezzyidy

@dcamsam – While it is true that very few Republicans voted against the extension and also that a larger percentage of Democrats voted against the bill, it is still true that the majority of Democrats voted for the bill extension.

In this case the majority of both parties voted for the bill extension, therefore the bill can be said to have bi-partisan support. We can’t blame this on the Repubs alone this time.
Anonymous

The reason it has an unrelated name, is that Harry Reid attatched the entire text of the patriot act renewal to an unrelated and filibuster proof bill in order to shut down debate on Rand Paul and Patrick Leahy’s amendments.
double birds

I know you guys don’t love Rand Paul, but he’s one of the only Senators who’s fighting its renewal. See: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/05/26/rand-paul-to-harry-reid-i-wont-back-down-on-patriot-act/
technogeek

… well, $#!+.
Anonymous

“let’s get our own house in order and accept that most Dems will be voting for this. Including Al Franken.”

Franken voted no. So did Sanders.