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Last week, Congressman Mike Rogers introduced a bill that would extend three controversial provisions of the PATRIOT ACT into February 2012. The PATRIOT Act was ratified in 2001 by President George W. Bush in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. In the rush to fill the holes in the authority of the intelligence and law enforcement agencies to spy on alleged domestic and foreign terrorists. Many organizations—such as the ACLU and the American Library Association—continue to criticize lawmakers for failing to protect the civil liberties of American citizens and residents. The Act was reauthorized in 2005, 2009, and 2010. With the support of President Obama, it is likely that the Act will be reauthorized again this year. Each renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act’s controversial provisions have largely gone unnoticed by the mainstream media, thanks to its inclusion under the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act. The only sign of strong opposition against the PATRIOT Act happened in 2005, when Democrats attempted and failed to filibuster its first renewal. A spokesperson for the Cato Institute, which broke the story of this year’s PATRIOT Act renewal said “I’d love to be proven wrong but I suspect this is how reining in the growth of the surveillance state becomes an item perpetually on next year’s agenda.”

GUEST: Shahid Buttar, Executive Director Bill of Rights Defense Committee, and Aaron Swartz, Executive Director of DemandProgress.org

Find out more at www.bordc.org and www.demandprogress.org.