The Patriot Act

[The Constitarian]

I believe we should repeal the Patriot Act.  It has gotten near zero results and more importantly it has taken away far to many rights.

[The Constitarian]

Why's it called the "Patriot Act", btw? (Trick question)

It's not.  It's the PATRIOT Act.  PATRIOT is an acronym.

It was called the acronym USA Patriot Act because it sounded good and the people behind it knew no one in congress would actually read it.  It's real name is "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"

   I call it the Totalitarian Manifesto.

[The Constitarian]

Strengthen it.

Why?

[The Constitarian]

Strengthen it.

Why?

Law enforcement still needs to jump through hoops to search for and detain terrorist suspects. Plus, the fact that there has not been abuses shows that law enforcement has used what few powers we've expanded responsibly and judiciously only when necessary. At very least, we should maintain the current sections of the Act.

I know a homeland security agent.  He personally does 3 or 4 warrantless searches every month using the Patriot Act.  Out of all of the searches his whole department has made 1 terrorism related arrest since the Patriot Act was written.

[The Constitarian]

At the very least, leave it in place -I would rather err on the side of caution rather than risk having another terrorist attack on our home soil as a result -direct or indirect- of having the PATRIOT Act repealed. 

Those who willingly sacrifice freedom for security shall receive neither- Ben Franklin

[The Constitarian]

Leave it.

We've had many of these debates before, and I'm frankly unimpressed with the arguments of anti-Patriot Act people.  Emsworth's argument comes closest, but then again he had to admit in the process that he thought Lincoln was tyrannical.  You'd basically have to admit that a number of Presidents had tyrannical authority in the past to argue that the Patriot Act is unprecedented or unconstitutional.

Just because presidential power has been abused before doesn't make allowing it to continue to happen a good idea.