Renewal of two controversial Patriot Act provisions set to expire at the end of the year have been approved by House and Senate Committees over the past month, and appear headed for floor votes in both bodies. President Obama has endorsed extending the provisions.

The two provisions include the “records” rule and the “roving wiretaps” provision. The so-called “records” rule grants federal officials with a court order the power to force private parties such as businesses, hospitals, and libraries to hand over "any tangible thing" they believe has "relevance" to a terrorist investigation.

“Roving wiretaps” allow wiretapping multiple lines of communication without informing FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts which specific phone lines or communication media are being targeted.

President Obama has reversed himself on the issue, since he once opposed Patriot Act provisions as a fishing expedition by federal snoops in a December 15, 2005 Senate speech:

If someone wants to know why their own government has decided to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document — through library books they've read and phone calls they've made — this legislation gives people no rights to appeal the need for such a search in a court of law. No judge will hear their plea, no jury will hear their case. This is just plain wrong.

Obama's 2005 speech was spot-on with regard to the facts. A recent Orange County Register editorial noted that “The evidence that any of these provisions has prevented or deterred a terrorist act is between slim and none — you can be sure that if they had been useful in helping to identify the handful of would-be terrorists who have been apprehended or prosecuted that government officials would have trumpeted the news.” And the Obama administration's own government confirms the Orange County Register's able summary. “According to the U.S. Attorney General's office,” ABCNews.com reported November 30, “there have been 220 such orders issued, but no major case to date has transpired because of information procured from them.”

Now that Obama is in power, what was once “just plain wrong” is suddenly just plain right.

Despite the fact that the records provision has never been used to prosecute any terrorists, the legislation has strong support among neo-conservative Republicans in Congress. "This critical legislation protects our national security, as well as our civil liberties, and the clock is ticking," claimed Republican Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin.

The 180-degree political reversal that has coincided in precise time with the changeover of the party in power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by Obama and his supporters has led more honest leftists like Salon's Glenn Greenwald to question the sincerity of statements supporting strict adherence to the U.S. Constitution made during the Bush administration:

I could understand and accept a lot more easily this blithe acquiescence to Obama's record if it weren't for the fact that progressives and Democrats spent so many years screaming bloody murder over Bush's use of indefinite detention, military commissions, state secrets, renditions, and extreme secrecy — policies Obama has largely and/or completely adopted as his own.  One can't help but wonder, at least in some cases, how genuine those objections were, as opposed to their just having been effective tools to discredit a Republican president for partisan and political gain.

Some leftist civil rights organizations such as the ACLU and People for the American Way have petitioned Congress not to renew these provisions of the Patriot Act. But most of the political left have simply rolled over now that “their man” is in charge.

Persons seeking limited government, particularly those seeking government under the limits of the U.S. Constitution, must oppose the tendency to secrecy as an essential stepping stone to tyranny. This explains why the Founding Fathers opposed giant intelligence establishments, even in the midst of Indian wars of terror that occasionally resulted in the deaths of thousands and the burning of entire towns. “Every one knows the vast sums laid out in Europe for secret services,” Elbridge Gerry noted at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. But no one proposed then to emulate those establishments here in the United States. That's why James Madison, as one of his first acts as Speaker of the House in the first Congress, introduced the Bill of Rights with the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment contains an unequivocal prohibition against government searches without court warrants, probable cause and an oath. It also requires searches specifically describe what is being searched and what object is expected to be uncovered in the search.

Of course, the fact that no criminal trial has transpired as a result of the records provision of the Patriot Act is hardly a surprise. Anyone apprehended under such unconstitutional standards would never be brought to public trial. Giant intelligence establishments are generally loathe to reveal any secrets, no matter how trivial or how ancient. That's why President Obama recently agreed to postpone declassification of intelligence marked for the public domain years ago by both Presidents Clinton and Bush, despite the fact that some of the information goes all the way back to the Second World War.

Surveillance, torture and detention without jury trials have long gone hand-in-hand throughout all of human history. The Soviet KGB reputedly had listening devices everywhere they could, brought people for beatings and torture to the infamous Lubyanka prison in Moscow and then “disappeared” its prisoners to the gulag. The Nazi Gestapo also had an all-pervasive intelligence network, engaged in torture, and sent millions of detainees to concentration camps without trial.

That's why constitutionalists have opposed the Patriot Act from the beginning. It is a stepping stone to a far more brutal form of government than Americans have historically known.

Thomas R. Eddlem, a freelance writer, served as the John Birch Society's director of research from 1991-2000.

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DDW said:

	It's all of Washington DC That should be wire-tapped and spied upon. That's where the real terror comes from. It's a vile sewer that need to be purged.
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December 03, 2009
Votes: +4

rprew said:

	Contact your congressional delegation JBS needs to develop a letter opposing extension of the Patriot Act on its 'Legislative Action' page. In the meantime, we can still mail/email/phone our congressional delegations to oppose this horrible violation of American rights.
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December 03, 2009
Votes: +1

Pat Henry said:

	Write Congress! I wrote my Representative and Senators before adding this comment, and I urge all others to do the same! Thank you, Mr. Eddlem, I used some of your excellent copy in the body of my letter. I find the JBS pages very useful for this, quite often. You deserve every American's support.
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December 03, 2009
Votes: +5

Smiity Smit said:

natural person Reserve all of your rights under the common law. The fact is that the Consitution has not been the law of this land since 1938, when it was superceeded by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). The US went bankrupt in the 1930's and as a result was forced to have the law of the seas (Admiralty) come onto law. All law under this jurisdiction is commercial law. So under commercial law, they can do as they please. See, Admiralty law make you subjects to the rulers, not sovereign citizens of a republic as you were prior to the Civil War. If you doubt any of this, simply research it and find out for yourself. Stop talking about the Constitution when that's not the law under which you are being adjudicated.

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December 04, 2009
Votes: +5

Thomas Paine said:

	Our government doesn't represent us anymore The International Banking cartel has taken full control of our congress. We need to go back to pre- 1913 law when there was no Federal Reserve, and the Senators were appointed by the State Legislatures. The States would not have allowed this run away Federal Government if they still controlled the Senate.
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December 04, 2009
Votes: +4

Pat Henry said:

Admiralty notwithstanding By asserting my common law rights, I can also assert Constitutional rights, can I not? In other words, by standing on Constitutional grounds and acting, if current "laws" bring me before an authority, I can then Legally assert my legal rights (even if this means unjust punishments). This is what we essentially did in the pro-life Rescue movement, praying God to avenge us on those who oppose true law. (And current shakings are part of that!) Because the Constitution was not repealed for We the People, we can still vote in those who will abide by it - and we'd better soon. Am I wrong in this? If we all "just lived under common law rights" then who would adjudicate in disagreements between the parties so living? Clearly, a Constitutional government would be required (or something very like it). Further, whatever happens on the Federal level, the State and County governments are legitimate. (For some excellent articles on taking this tack as a major thrust of preserving our rights under God, see the Liberty Defense League website.)

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December 04, 2009
Votes: +4

shofarshalom said:

preamble to petioning of congress Does it make any sense as to why we are infringing on liberties here domestically all the while pledging to spread the "gospel" of democracy and freedom abroad. Seems like an oxymoron is running the show. Let's get together and have a little common sense shall we? And bring the message of liberty home as well as our smoking guns and the sons and daughters of liberty that dutifully carry them. And let's give the American people a break as well, not making them scared to death that anything they say or write on the internet WILL be used against them...I wonder sometimes if there is any sense of liberty and the desire for the adventure thereof left in the halls of Washington? Freedom comes at a cost, it aint man made nor can it be obstructed, it is the source of everything wonderful, the abstract brought into tangible form, art, poetry, music, math, science, developing technologies, humane treatments of all creatures (domestic and foreign), entrepreneural endeavors that employ millions, and at last but not least the very fabric of, the zest and zeal of life and love, yes none can ever be restrained, only thwarted for a brief season, but all will shine. And brief measures like the Patriot Act will never bring "safety" only resentment from those of the governed. shalom

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December 09, 2009
Votes: +1

libert_E said:

	... You all ought to check out the Continental Congress of 2009. They've been discussing NEW strategies to implement these principles and to forcing onto our federal, state and county governments the "teeth" necessary to getting them back to acting rightly.
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December 13, 2009
Votes: +1

Richard A King said:

	stop the pat act it is immoral, illegal, sick
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December 15, 2009
Votes: +1