Cowardice in the US House of Representatives

Late Thursday the US House of Representatives defeated a motion to limit the powers of the Patriot Act. While it is likely President Bush would have vetoed the amendment, it would have sent a powerful message that the Patriot Act was enroaching too much on the rights of Americans. Ten Republican representatives who originally supported the amendment switched sides at the last moment.

The amendment would have blocked a section of the act that requires libraries, booksellers and others to release information about the reading habits of people under government investigation using a lesser standard of probable cause than is required under a normal criminal investigation. (click here for the full article)

After all this time, and after all the information about the poorly structured and abusive nature of the Patriot Act, it is truly a wonder that Republican House representatives would still continue to back a horrible set of laws, pushed through by an incompetent Bush Administration.