|
juliaoceania -> RE: Obama signs Patriot Act (5/27/2011 3:05:53 PM)
|
quote:
Make it a topic of discussion now though, and youre a bad person.
Whats changed?
No, you did not make the Patriot Act the topic of discussion...interesting spin job there
quote:
Did Republicans ever oppose it, as a party? No.
Theyre not the hypocrites...
Heres the part where the silence from the left seems the loudest -
Harry Reid (D-Nev.) accused Rand Paul of trying to protect terrorists for opposing it
(I can hear a pin drop from across the room)
And Obama signed it
(Nope - I still hear nothing)
Here is what Reid said about it in 2006 (pssstttt, Bush was President)
quote:
Reid Statement on the Patriot Act
Washington, DC — Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid today delivered the following floor remarks on the Senate’s vote for final passage of the Patriot Act. Democrats have supported the PATRIOT Act from the beginning, overwhelmingly voted for the improved version today, and will continue to fight to make it even better in the future.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID ON FINAL PASSAGE OF THE PATRIOT ACT REAUTHORIZATION BILL
March 2, 2006
Mr. President, yesterday the Senate passed a bill negotiated by the junior Senator from New Hampshire to strengthen protections in the PATRIOT Act. In light of the improvements contained in the Sununu bill, I will now vote in favor of the pending conference report.
As I have emphasized many times, Democrats support the basic authorities contained in the PATRIOT Act. We voted for the original Act in 2001. We unanimously supported the reauthorization bill that passed the Senate last summer. And in recent months, we have been vigilant to ensure that no provision of the Act would expire during ongoing negotiations over a long-term extension of the law.
But our support for the PATRIOT Act does not mean a blank check for the President. Last December, a bipartisan group of senators joined together to insist on improvements in the flawed reauthorization bill that had returned from a House-Senate conference. Republican and Democratic senators alike declared that Congress can provide the government with the powers it needs to protect Americans, and at the same time ensure sufficient checks and oversight to prevent abuses of these powers. Security and liberty are neither contradictory, nor mutually exclusive.
Our call for improvements in the PATRIOT Act has now borne fruit. We stood up to the White House to demand a more balanced approach to anti-terror tactics, and we have succeeded. Thanks to the courageous stand of Senator Sununu and a handful of other Republicans, along with the longstanding efforts of Chairman Specter, Senator Leahy and other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, the Senate will soon pass a stronger, better PATRIOT Act.
The current bill is not perfect, and falls short of the unanimously supported Senate bill we passed last summer. I would have preferred additional improvements in the conference report. But the version of the PATRIOT Act we will soon reauthorize is a vast improvement over the law we passed hastily in 2001.
Now, here you are attacking people who went along and supported the bill the entire time as partisan hacks... it is YOU that are the partisan hack. You look for hypocrisies where there are none, and turn your back on glaring ones.
I have always been and will continue to be, against the patriot act no matter what party supports it (and seeing the both parties always have, it seems a rather dumb thing for you to rant about)
|
|
|
|
