Obama renews Patriot Act for Another Year

Thanks, Barry!

Any and All Disruptive In-Flight Behavior Now "Terrorism"

America is now reaping what the Patriot Act hath sown: much behavior that flight attendants consider disruptive, whether it be a loud argument, throwing food, or spanking a child, is now considered 'terrorism' under the law. This is what happens when you let power-hungry neocons paint the law with overly broad strokes: some guy gets thrown in with all the other Al-Qaeda suspects because he had one too many martinis on a plane.

LA Times
Bruce Schneier

Another suprise... Patriot Act Abused!

Well who saw this coming? The Patriot Act, which has given law enforcement sweeping powers to invade citizens' privacy, has been abused by officers overstepping the mandate given to them by that same act. Here's the story from Wired and from Slashdot. Slashdot, as always, has some good comments. Some samples:
"Funny. I seem to recall a lot of screaming about the possibility for abuse and I distinctly recall being told to shut the fuck up, we can *trust* them to do the right thing."
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"There is no excuse for the mistakes that have been made, and we are going to make things right as quickly as possible," the attorney general said.

And this time, we mean it!"