I frequently hear from the left how the Bush administration threatened our civil liberties due to the Patriot Act.  The constant drone that the administration was using the provisions in the Patriot Act, not to intercept terrorist “chatter”, but to spy on Americans was outright laughable to me for several reasons. 

First, and most obvious, why would you care if your calls were being monitored unless you had, or were planning activities that were illegal?  I’m not in favor of the government listening in on civilian phone conversations or email messages, but to pull out Shakespeare, me thinks you doth protest too much.  If you’re so worried that the government might learn about your shady dealings while at the same time trying to protect us from Al Qaeda, maybe you should take young Obi Wan Kenobi’s sage advice– “you want to go home and rethink your life.”  Second, who do you think you are that you are so important that some CIA analyst in some non-descript office building is going to waste their time listening in on how you and your friends smoked a little pot or shoplifted a six pack.  I mean, they are trying to catch terrorists who threaten thousands of lives, not pathetic Americans who are wasting their miserable lives in the land of opportunity.

Sunday night, February 28^th, the Patriot Act was set to expire without re-approval.  After all of the incessant whining and moaning about how evil the Bush administration was to even propose something as heinous as the Patriot Act, and after many Democrats campaigned on overturning it, you’d think that we’d be looking at the Patriot Act in our rear view mirrors now.  Guess again.  Remember both houses of Congress have Democratic majorities.  Last Thursday, the House voted 315-97 to extend the Patriot Act.  The Senate also approved its extension.  And then on Saturday, President Obama signed it back into law.

This just proves how impotent both Obama and the Democrats truly are.  They have the majority, but they are acting like they are ruling from a position of weakness.  If the Patriot Act was as execrable as they said on the campaign trail and during the Bush’ years, why wouldn’t they kill it now?  I can only think of two reasons.  One, they have access to information about useful it really has been in the war on terror.  They may play it up with their constituents that it’s a threat to our civil liberties, but when it comes right down to it, they like the defense that it affords this country against a potential terrorist attack.  Or two, they were right all along that it is a threat to our civil liberties, but now that they have power, they are the ones benefitting from the misbegotten information that it allows them to gather. 

We had all better hope that it’s the first reason.  Either way, they have proven once again, how two-faced they really are.