House votes to ban snooping on reading habits;
Three Wisconsin Republicans disagree
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House voted Wednesday to block the FBI and the Justice Department from using the anti-terror Patriot Act to search library and book store records, responding to complaints about potential invasion of privacy of innocent readers.
Despite a veto threat from President Bush, lawmakers voted 238-187 to block the part of the anti-terrorism law that allows the government to investigate the reading habits of terror suspects.
The vote reversed a narrow loss last year by lawmakers complaining about threats to privacy rights. They narrowed the proposal this year to permit the government to continue to seek out records of Internet use at libraries. Full AP story.
WISCONSIN VOTE: Three Wisconsin Republicans-- Mark Green, Paul Ryan and F. Jim Sensenbrenner -- voted to allow the government to continue to investigate what you read. Tom Petri voted for the amendment, along with the state's four Democrats.
posted by xoff @ 9:33 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
It was so nice of the Republicans to cover their asses by allowing this most unpopular provision to expire. Now they can vote to keep the rest of the odious parts of the bill and still say, "Hey! Don't blame us; we didn't renew the whole thing!"
Or am I just too cynical?
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