Geodog

Patriot II

The Washington Post has a good editorial on the recently revealed DOJ draft sequel to the so-called Patriot Act:

The result of such changes would be to magnify the government's discretion to pick the legal regime under which it investigates and prosecutes national security cases and to give it more power unilaterally to exempt people from the protections of the justice system and place them in a kind of alternative legal world. Congress should be pushing in the opposite direction.

Before the department asks Congress for more powers, it needs to disclose how it is using the ones it already has. Yet the Justice Department has balked at reasonable oversight and public information requests.

I'm glad to see even the normally supportive Washington Post troubled about Ashcroft's attempt to carve out even more exceptions to the constitution.