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Sununu's Folly (Patriot Act)
National Review ^ | 12-16-05 | The Editors

Posted on 12/16/2005 2:58:23 PM PST by smoothsailing

December 16, 2005, 5:19 p.m.

Sununu's Folly

If New Hampshire Republican Senator John Sununu wants to endanger our national security, shouldn't he at least know what he's talking about? Apparently that's too much to ask of the usually admirable senator, who is helping filibuster the reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Even former Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno has endorsed the Patriot Act; it is the single most important piece of counterterrorism legislation passed post-9/11.

If the status quo holds after Friday's failure to invoke cloture — Republicans got only 52 votes when they need 60 — -the 16 provisions of the law that were sun-setted and that are the most important will lapse at the end of the year.

Sununu's criticism of the reauthorization, set out in a Union Leader op-ed earlier this week, are wrongheaded and empty.

Sununu says the Patriot Act is at odds with our country's convictions that "evidence must be shown to obtain a search warrant; we have a right to face an accuser; and when wrongly prosecuted, we can appeal our case to court." Not true. The Patriot Act does nothing to change those assumptions of our legal system. The government cannot get a search warrant without showing a judge probable cause either that a crime has been committed or that the subject of the warrant is an agent of a foreign power (such as a terrorist organization).

When people are accused or wrongfully convicted, they fully maintain their rights to confrontation and appeal; but those rights come into play only after a person has been formally accused. They have always been irrelevant while the government is conducting an investigation, even of an ordinary crime. Why should things be any different in the case of a threat to national security, which is what the Patriot Act covers?

Sununu then hones in on the favorite targets of Patriot opponents: Section 215, the so-called "library records" provision, which actually doesn't mention libraries and allows the government access to a wide variety of business records and other evidence; and national-security letters (NSLs), which allow the FBI to compel information — "without the approval of a judge," Sununu darkly observes.

He neglects to note that federal prosecutors have for decades been fully empowered, in investigations of run-of-the-mill crimes like gambling and minor frauds, to issue grand-jury subpoenas, which can compel all the same evidence with absolutely no court supervision. There was no widespread abuse of these tactics prior to Patriot, just as there is no record of their being abused in the four years since Patriot sensibly extended them to national-security investigations.

Sununu claims that his problem with Section 215 and NSLs is that they can't be appealed and that recipients of government requests for information are subjected to "gag orders." That claim is misleading. The Justice Department has long taken the position that Section 215 orders can be appealed.

The proposed Patriot Act reauthorization not only formally creates a judicial-review process allowing a judge to modify or set aside flawed Section 215 orders or NSLs, but adds other protections as well: It loosens the nondisclosure requirements to facilitate court challenges; calls for "minimization procedures" that will limit the government's ability to retain and disseminate the intelligence collected; and provides for monitoring by an inspector general to make certain the authorities are being used properly.

On the basis of these misunderstandings, Sununu stands with Democrats blocking an up-or-down vote on the reauthorization. If Sununu and his Republican colleagues Larry Craig, Lisa Murkowski, and Chuck Hagel weren't giving Democrats cover, the Democrats probably wouldn't be able to maintain their near-unanimity on this politically perilous vote. What a shame.    

http://www.nationalreview.com/editorial/editors200512161719.asp   


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: New Hampshire; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 109th; patriotact; sununu
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To: the gillman@blacklagoon.com
Good for you! Not everyone around here knows reply etiquette.

LOL! Carry on!

61 posted on 12/16/2005 4:45:43 PM PST by smoothsailing ('68'69 Nam vet-NEVER FORGET)
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To: the gillman@blacklagoon.com
See ya in the camps, chump.

I appreciate your normal amount of courtesy and respect you always demonstrate when discussing an issue, which is none.

Over the years, I've learned to give any opinion of yours the same amount of respect.

62 posted on 12/16/2005 4:49:32 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: Petronski
You know what I don't get? Why would anyone oppose this.

All but 2 Democrat Senators are blocking this, and to me at least, it's just another way for them to have their petty vengeance on President Bush.

It amazes me, given the 4 year track record of the Patriot Act, why it would be opposed now. It's a proven tool in the fight.

63 posted on 12/16/2005 4:54:40 PM PST by smoothsailing ('68'69 Nam vet-NEVER FORGET)
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To: RightWhale

Yes, that would be the Democrats and those who don't understand the consequences.


64 posted on 12/16/2005 5:00:06 PM PST by mtnwmn
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To: Dog Gone

Sport.

While you were screeching the end of the world and stockpiling your Y2K bunker, I came out of retirement to run Y2K projects in Nuclear plants and Electrical companies, in order to be certain there would be no apocalypse.

The worth of your opinion is well known.


65 posted on 12/16/2005 5:12:18 PM PST by the gillman@blacklagoon.com ("It's time for a f****** war, so join the army of hardcore")
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To: msnimje
No more Sununus in the Republican party.

Come on now everyone preferred this traitor over the other traitor Smith. He was GW,s choice.</sarcasm>

66 posted on 12/16/2005 5:12:20 PM PST by itsahoot (Any country that does not control its borders, is not a country. Ronald Reagan)
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To: the gillman@blacklagoon.com
Yippee for you.

In other words, you listened to the threat and did something about it.

I suppose you're not able to see the laughable contradiction contained within your own post.

67 posted on 12/16/2005 5:25:55 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: smoothsailing

Well, we really are done with 9-11. America won't be serious about the WOT until we are hit again, hard.


68 posted on 12/16/2005 5:38:11 PM PST by colorado tanker (I can't comment on things that might come before the Court, but I can tell you my Pinochle strategy)
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To: smoothsailing

Interesting, everyone wants to talk about Sununu, but nobody even mentions Craigs name, and no one is going to question his conservative credentials.


69 posted on 12/16/2005 5:40:11 PM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: smoothsailing
the usually admirable senator, who is helping filibuster the reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Never trust an Arab. CAIR loves Sununu, just as the PLO loved his father. Sununu Sr. had Bush go 3 times to visit Michigan Arabs in 2000--and still lost the state.

70 posted on 12/16/2005 5:48:32 PM PST by montag813
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To: Sonny M
It is interesting. I don't know what his reason was, though.

I found it interesting that 2 D's, Ben Nelson and Tim Johnson voted for cloture.

71 posted on 12/16/2005 5:52:32 PM PST by smoothsailing ('68'69 Nam vet-NEVER FORGET)
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To: go-dubya-04

Why don't you take your liberal, pro-flag burning pap to a more hospitable site...say, DU or moveon.org? A troll, eh?


72 posted on 12/16/2005 5:57:47 PM PST by Salvey (ancest)
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To: montag813
Do you think it's campaign money from CAIR that motivates Sununu, or something far more sinister?
73 posted on 12/16/2005 5:58:03 PM PST by smoothsailing ('68'69 Nam vet-NEVER FORGET)
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To: Dan from Michigan

" I know. She pushed for it when Clinton was president. I opposed it then, and still do today."

That sure says a lot about the So-called Patriot Act if Reno was for it.


74 posted on 12/16/2005 5:58:50 PM PST by dljordan
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To: Dog Gone
My message to the "let's care more about the terrorists" senators:

Image hosted by TinyPic.com

Feel free to use this to email or print to YOUR senators, as you see fit. Here is the URL: http://tinypic.com/ioknj6.jpg

75 posted on 12/16/2005 6:00:39 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat (I am SO glad to no longer be associated with the party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: Recovering_Democrat

I agree with that 100%.


76 posted on 12/16/2005 6:04:18 PM PST by Dog Gone
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To: smoothsailing

both are up for re-election.


77 posted on 12/16/2005 6:08:31 PM PST by Recovering_Democrat (I am SO glad to no longer be associated with the party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: Dog Gone
I love these "class of 98" reunion threads!

Attack of the consprazoids!
78 posted on 12/16/2005 6:13:52 PM PST by roses of sharon
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To: smoothsailing
I don't know what his reason was, though.

I don't know either, and I can only guess, but if I had to guess, since he is also on the board of directors of the NRA, I'd guess something in there bothered him, or he saw something in the bill that he doesn't like or has been used in a way he doesn't like.

I have alot of faith and trust in Senator Craig and his character and judgement, he is a true conservative and is privvy to more info then me, so I'm sure he has good reasoning, I just wish he would explain it and talk about it.

I did notice that the NRA isn't taking a stand on this either way, which is a nice way of giving alot of conservatives the okay to go against it.

I think its healthy for the bill to be debated, evaluated, and fine tuned, every so often (thank god for sunsets).

Some parts may need strenghting, and other parts may have been overly used.

79 posted on 12/16/2005 6:20:24 PM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: Salvey
Sununu is of Arab descent, as are the awful Zogby brothers, though I believe that all three are at least, nominally, "Christian."

So was former Texas Senator Phil Gramm.

Is it okay to guess, you weren't a supporter of former senator Gramm?

80 posted on 12/16/2005 6:22:55 PM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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