Patriot Act Renewed

Remember the dreaded Patriot Act, the example of everything the left hates? The Dem majority just extended it yet again:

After a wave of news about attempted domestic terror attacks, Democrats facing a tough election year quietly voted this week to extend the Patriot Act legislation that many of them had decried under former President George W. Bush.

The House passed a one-year reauthorization of the Patriot Act Thursday night 315-97, just a day after the Senate moved the bill on a late-evening unanimous voice vote.

With the law facing a sunset date of Feb. 28, the Senate opted to vote for the extension of three crucial provisions of the act rather than opening debate on a revised bipartisan plan passed by the Judiciary Committee in October that would have imposed stricter privacy safeguards.

“In the end, it became non-controversial,” Chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) told POLITICO. “[There was] the growing concern about increase on the pace of attacks on the homeland… and frankly, I think the Patriot [Act] got a bad name under the Bush Administration.”

And why did it get a bad name under the Bush Administration? Because the left was apoplectic about aggressively fighting terrorism. Now that potential acts of terrorism could mess up their political plans, the Patriot Act suddenly looks like a pretty good idea.

It always was a good idea but Democrats were too naive to recognize it.