The temporary sunset of some patriot act provisions is a victory for the constitution and all law-abiding Americans. What had started as a temporary safety measure in response to 9/11 has now, as predicted by most concerned citizens and civil libertarians, become an indelible part of the American policing apparatus. This is not a partisan issue, and the permanence of mass data collection, should be unacceptable to anyone who cares deeply about limited role of government and due process as enshrined in the bill of rights.
What is being lost in the discussion is the fact that there was always the ability of government, to go after terror suspects data, by following protocols to obtain warrants, or in exigent circumstances going warrantless, as allowed by 4th amendment search and seizure case law, developed over decades. But if you listen to majority of the politicians on both sides of the aisle, including the former constitutional professor President Obama, the silence over the constitutionality of the act is deafening, specifically as to the recent ruling by a D.C. federal Judge deeming such collection of bulk data collection to be illegal. Instead, the floors of the legislature and media airwaves ring with fear mongering and accusations of grandstanding; as if, to stand for the constitutional rights of the American people is now considered nothing but political pandering, only to be relegated to the label of a Snowden sympathizer.
The media, across the board, has become too much of a joyful accomplice in this great misphrasing of what is at stake, as they throw softball questions to each show participant, allowing the politicians to go into a frenzy of false bravado and patriotism while not offering a single instance of reason and constitutionality to back their position. Lindsey Graham recently said that “…if there is anyone even thinking about joining ISIS, [he] would not go to a judge and just send the drone”. Does Senator Graham know how imbecilic that sounds? And does he care who is listening while he is denouncing the constitution and the law, and in his own mind seems to be running for, not the presidency but to be Supreme Ayatollah of the U.S. In essence a sitting U.S. Senator is proclaiming that he will willfully violate the bill of rights, and he finds this politically advantageous. Anyone would be hard pressed to argue that anything but the “Patriot Act” mindset has caused this breakdown in our being, first and foremost, a nation of laws.
The same Republicans, like his partner in hawkishness, Senator McCain, who defends with an even higher if not equal level of irrationality, this unconstitutional law, since 2001, have done nothing, to curb in the Saudi royals and their funding of terror networks, nor did they help the Arab spring prosper to bring democracy to the Middle East. Instead they continue to support the proliferation and sale of arms to the region, and have actually grown closer to the new Egyptian dictator, and Saudi Royals, as was evinced by them bee-lining for the funeral of the dictator King. A King, by most objective observers, whose key family members, are the core source of the spread of a terroristic ideology that lead to the Talibanization of the region, which over time, finding vacuum, grew into the threat of ISIL and ISIS that we all face today.
We all know that the so-called Patriot Act will be resuscitated one way or another by those who have very little interest in American exceptionalism, beyond using that phrase as a rhetorical device. And the fact remains that a lot of the Republicans who proclaim the loudest that they are keeping us safe through unconstitutional means, fail to understand what the “US” really means. All the while shamelessly refusing to adapt to what it should mean in the 21st century, as they stand steadfast against any reasonable comprehensive immigration reform that would really, in the long run, make us safer and stronger.
