Do We Really Need the USA Patriot Act?: "By now it should be clear that the Bush administration cannot be trusted to tell the truth about its intentions or its actions. Sad to say, this regime can be trusted all too often to abuse both power and confidentiality. Arbitrary arrest. Lengthy detention without charges. Physical and mental abuse amounting to torture and leading to death. Attempts to punish for thought or association as well as action. Doctored reports. Systematic withholding of information and documents. These are the hallmarks of the Bush administration. They are also symptomatic of a misuse of power that the US Constitution, unlike the USA Patriot Act, was devised to prevent.

Senate Democrats like Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, John Rockefeller of West Virginia and Diane Feinstein of California are right. We should be thinking in terms of curtailing, not extending or expanding the scope of a hugely controversial act never responsibly debated in the first place.

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the FBI General Counsel Valerie Caproni confessed that delays inherent in the requirement for judicial sanction have led to 'no specific instance' of harm to the national security."

(Via WhirledView.)