The permanent Patriot Act passed it's first hurdle (Congress) today.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstor...20050714c.html
The article above quotes that there has been no abuse of the existing act.
The article below refers to making contested sections of the act good for 10 years (then reviewed for renewal) instead of permanent a "concession" by Republicans...
http://www.rednova.com/news/general/...n_patriot_act/
Quote:
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The act allowed expanded surveillance of terror suspects and gave the government the ability to go to a secret court to seize the personal records of suspects from bookstores, libraries, businesses, hospitals and other organizations -- the so-called "library clause."
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The other contested section was about "roving wiretaps", which basically boils down to "one warrant fits all". This means that if they get a warrant to wiretap
your phone they can wiretap any friends/family/others they deem you are suspected of using a phone at.
I'll address the couple of Republican cheerleaders that will come along and accuse me of being paranoid, Republican bashing or obviously worried about my own activities by reminding them that the government often refers to adult businesses as "money laundrying" and that is pretty much a free ticket excuse for any investigator since it is the way they often claim that terrorists are being funded. Hopefully if any investigation happens to you as a result of activist prosecutions (Google Pat Trueman, obscenitycrimes.org, RFC, AFA) nobody who's phone you use will say anything that could get
them investigated. I don't see anything in the regulations that prevents it.