Scrap the PATRIOT Act

No administration can be trusted not to abuse this law, which is behind the ongoing assault on our privacy.

By Jim Hightower

It’s back. The PATRIOT Act — a grotesque, ever-mutating, hydra-headed monstrosity from the Bush-Cheney Little Shop of Horrors — has risen again. This time, it’s got an added twist of Orwellian intrusiveness from the Obamacans.

Since 2006, Team Bush, and now Team Obama, has allowed the little-known, hugely powerful National Security Agency to run a daily dragnet through every American’s phone calls — all on the hush-hush, of course.

Now exposed, leaders of both parties are pointing to the PATRIOT Act, saying that it makes this wholesale, everyday invasion of our privacy perfectly legal.

When the story broke, Obama dissembled, calling these massive and routine violations of the Fourth Amendment “modest intrusions” that are “worth us doing” to make us more secure. He added disingenuously that Congress is regularly briefed about the program.

In fact, only a handful of members are briefed, and they have been flatly lied to by Obama’s director of national intelligence. Yet, Senator Dianne Feinstein loyally defends spying on Americans, claiming it protects us from terrorists. The California Democrat also admitted she really doesn’t know how the mountains of data are being used.

This is nothing but a bottomless “Trust Us” swamp, created by the PATRIOT Act’s panicky passage and irresponsible reauthorization. Secretly seizing everyone’s phone records is, as the ACLU put it, “beyond Orwellian.”

As a New York Times editorial flatly and rightly says, “The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.” But no administration can be trusted to restrain itself from abusing the unlimited power of the PATRIOT Act.

It’s not enough to fight NSA’s outrageously invasive spying on us — the law itself is a shameful betrayal of America’s ideals. It must be repealed.

OtherWords columnist Jim Hightower is a radio commentator, writer, and public speaker. He's also editor of the populist newsletter, The Hightower Lowdown. OtherWords.org