The End of Hope and Change

From The Atlantic:

It isn't strictly accurate to say that Barack Obama once cared about civil liberties violations in the PATRIOT Act -- he has actually raised detailed objections to the decade old legislation at least twice. In 2005, then-Sen. Obama signed a letter laying out specific concerns that stretched to almost six pages. The next year, the former constitutional law professor took to the Senate floor, where he congratulated his colleagues for "a real, open, and substantive debate about how to fix the PATRIOT Act," and encouraged them to keep up their efforts: "I urge my colleagues to continue working on ways to improve the civil liberties protections after it is reauthorized," he said.

President Obama has now stopped talking about the civil liberties violations he once knowledgeably identified. If all goes as expected, he'll soon sign a four year extension of the PATRIOT Act, quadrupling down on an earlier mistake. This is particularly notable due to the way this latest extension is being passed: Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid had promised a week long debate on the legislation so that abuses identified by civil libertarians could be addressed. The fact that Reid's word proved worthless means that Sen. Rand Paul's worthy amendments may or may not be considered depending upon his adeptness at procedural maneuvering. 

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full article here