Congress needs to address many of these issues individually. The predilection toward legislation based on sensation, rather than reality needs to stop. So does the monolithic, one-shot, everything-to-everyone, sure-fire, one-size-fits-all, cure-all legislation.
There is no way they can honestly debate something this gargantuan. I’ll bet half of them haven’t even read the bill in its entirety. I am to the point where I think we should require a comprehensive test on each bill before they vote so we can ensure they have, at least read the damn thing!
I believe that only about six Congresscritters bothered to read the Patriot Bill prior to voting on it.
I think both of you are correct. There will inevitably be a lot of unconstitutional garbage that was put there either deliberately or by not considering the full implications of what is being proposed. And 88keys is also right - Safire does the matter no service by running around yelling that the sky is falling when instead he just got nailed upside the head by a paper boy throwing the Sunday Times. Defenders of this bill will be able to point to Safire's column and smugly proclaim that, since he has a couple of details wrong, his entire argument can therefore be rejected.
I'm in absolute agreement with that!
Furthermore, there are some untrustworthies who will indeed slip things into an "omnibus"-type bill, as well as others who mean well but are sloppy in wording and lay it open to "judicial activism"...
(but I still think if Safire is going to go on about it, he should have done us all a favor, scrutinized the bill, and if he's got the facts, gone to the Congress who's actually going to vote on it, instead of writing a "scare-mongering" column...) ;)