Urgent! : Call Your Representative to Stop Patriot Act Extension! (Updated with Roll Call)

(UPDATE) As expected, they passed it. Keep calling your Congressmen who voted yes.

Roll call for today's vote:

Yeas: Republican 210, Democratic 65, total 275

Nays: Republican 27, Democratic 117, Total 144

Not voting: Republican 3, Democratic 11

And this was the February 8 roll call:

Yeas: Republican 210, Democratic 67, total 277

Nays: Republican 26, Democratic 122, Total 148

Not voting: Republican 5, Democratic 4

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The House Republicans are at it again TODAY to extend the provisions in the Patriot Act. The vote is set in the evening.

The previous vote on the extension was defeated because it required 2/3 majority. This time, all they need is a simple majority, and they expect it to pass easily.

Contact your Representative and tell him/her to vote NO.

Particularly those Democratic Congressmen, 67 of them, who voted YES the last time around.

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Patriot Act Extensions Rejected by House

because GOP had sought to expedite the bill by requiring two-thirds majority.... They didn't get the votes.

(The Egyptian effect, perhaps?)

From Huffington Post:

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday failed to extend the life of three surveillance tools that are key to the nation's post-Sept. 11 anti-terror law, a slipup for the new Republican leadership that miscalculated the level of opposition.

The House voted 277-148 to keep the three provisions of the USA Patriot Act on the books until Dec. 8. But Republicans brought up the bill under a special expedited procedure requiring a two-thirds majority, and the vote was seven short of reaching that level.

The Republicans, who took over the House last month, lost 26 of their own members, adding to the 122 Democrats who voted against it. Supporters say the three measures are vital to preventing another terrorist attack, but critics say they infringe on civil liberties. They appealed to the antipathy that newer and more conservative Republicans hold for big government invasions of individual privacy.

Checking the roll call, here's the deal:

Yeas: Republican 210, Democratic 67, total 277

Nays: Republican 26, Democratic 122, Total 148

Not voting: Republican 5, Democratic 4

So, in order to totally defeat the extension that can be passed by simple majority (amendments will be allowed), we need to convert those 67 Democrats who voted Yea, without losing any of the Republicans and Dems who voted Nay. Then, the Nays could be 215 versus 210 Yeas. In addition, we need at least 3 of the Republicans and Dems who did not vote today to vote Nay (or not vote at all, again).

Come on, Democrats, don't you hate the GOP dominated House? Here's your chance to stick it to those conventional, war-loving Republicans! Here's your chance to tell your constituents that you are the defender of individual rights and freedom from the tyranny of the state (like true liberals).

Keep calling your Congressmen, GOP or Democratic. Tell them to vote NO.

(h/t heartless)

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Urgent! Look What They Try to Sneak In: Vote to Renew Patriot Act Provisions on Tuesday February 8, 2011

US Congress and the Obumbum administration probably correctly believe we the sheeple simply don't have time to pay any attention to anything other than the 2011 Super Bowl, snow, the Egyptian Revolution, American Idol, and rising gasoline and food prices.

They are going to vote on renewal of the key provisions of the Patriot Act TOMORROW, Tuesday February 8, 2011, the Act which has most recently given us the pornographic pat-downs and scans at the airports.

If Congress does not extend these provisions, they are set to expire on February 28, 2011. The new Congress with Republican majority is expected to easily pass the bill to renew the provisions.

CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMEN ASAP!!!

It's time we stood up like Egyptians.

From Washington's Blog:

The ACLU reports:

Three sections of the Patriot Act — the so-called 'library provision' that allows a secret court to issue orders for anything deemed relevant to an investigation; the roving wiretap provision that allows the government to get a wiretap order that doesn't specify the person or place to be tapped; and the 'lone wolf' provision, which permits intelligence wiretapping of people not connected to a terrorist group — are scheduled to expire on February 28. It's February 7.

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Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) recently suggested that Congress doesn't have enough time to consider reforms this year. That was the excuse for last year's Patriot Act reauthorization. Members of Congress had suggested that they would use 2010 to really examine the effects of the USA Patriot Act and return to it in early 2011 ready to make much-needed changes.

And where are we now? Well, Congress is betting that while they weren't thinking about the Patriot Act in the past year, you weren't either. Late in the day on Friday, we learned that the House will vote tomorrow, Tuesday, Feb. 8, on a bill to extend the expiring Patriot Act provisions until December 8, 2011. They want to sneak this reauthorization through, and they're hoping that you don't notice.

Well, once again, we're asking you to tell Congress that you are watching, that you don't buy their fear-mongering or their scare tactics, and that you want real Patriot Act reform. We've put a new action alert up urging Congress not to rubber stamp the Patriot Act once again, and we urge you to take action. For almost 10 years, the Patriot Act has given the government too much leeway to pry into our private lives.

As the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others have documented (see this, this and this), the Patriot Act would not have prevented 9/11, and has led to numerous crimes by the FBI and other agencies.

Call Congress NOW and tell them to vote down renewing the Patriot Act. Word from D.C. is that the Patriot Act will be renewed unless there is strong public outcry today.

Remember, the Patriot Act was apparently written before 9/11, and the government's spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this) . These assault on the Constitution did not keep us safe.

Indeed - as I've previously noted - the "national security" apparatus has been hijacked to serve the needs of big business, and is not really protecting us.

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Obama Signs Bill to Boost US Tourism Promotion

Obama is now Travel-Agent-In-Chief.

Obama signs bill to boost US tourism promotion (3/4/2010 Breitbart)

"Looking for an edge in the global war for tourism dollars, US President Barack Obama Thursday signed into law moves to attract more overseas travelers.

"Obama signed the act "which establishes a corporation for travel promotion to encourage international travel to the United States," the White House said in a statement.

"The effort is to be funded through a matching program featuring up to 100 million dollars in private sector contributions and a 10-dollar fee on foreign travelers who do not pay for a visa, with no money from US taxpayers.

"Supporters of the law highlighted a forecast by the impartial Congressional Budget Office that it would create some 40,000 US jobs -- and cut the ballooning US deficit by some 425 million dollars." [The article continues.]

Charging 10-dollar fees for travelers from countries with the visa waiver program is supposed to encourage international travel?

Huh?

What am I missing? Visa waiver program participants include most of Europe and wealthier countries in Asia/Pacific (Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand). The travelers from these countries already suffer a newly added inconvenience of having to register online with the U.S. embassies before they travel to the U.S. and obtain approval.

The bill the president signed was H.R. 1299 "United States Capitol Police Administrative Technical Corrections Act of 2009", "which establishes a Corporation for Travel Promotion to encourage international travel to the United States; and makes miscellaneous amendments to authorities of the United States Capitol Police" according to the White House statement.

What a joke. How things have NOT changed. Capitol Police administrative amendments and a creation of a government-sponsored travel promotion scheme on the same bill.

Section 9 of the bill, TRAVEL PROMOTION ACT OF 2009, details out the plan.

The Corporation for Travel Promotion is to be a non-government, non-profit corporation receiving the money from the government and supported by the Department of Commerce. (How could that be a non-government corporation?) The government will give $10 million seed money, and $100 million per fiscal year for which the Corporation will have to raise the matching fund.

Breitbart's article says "no cost to taxpayers", but it sure looks to me that it will cost taxpayers.

In addition, the Department of Commerce will create the Office of Travel Promotion to act as a liaison with the Corporation and do some research on tourism promotion. Hey more new jobs will be created in the federal government, making the government even bigger, and we should all cheer.

It looks like a win scored by the travel industry. Instead of trying to do the tourism promotion on their own, they have managed to get the government to match the fund for promotion. They'd better hope that wealthier travelers from Europe and Asia wouldn't mind being assessed a $10 fee each time they come to the U.S with a threat of penalty for not paying, and wouldn't mind the hassle of having to obtain a pre-approval for their trips.

If the industry and the Obama government believe all this will boost tourism, they are delusional.

Oh by the way, did you know that the Patriot Act's extension was recently approved, without any debate, with all the abusive spying program intact, as it was attached to the bill that deals with medicare reform? What else has snuck in in disguise these days?

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