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BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

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It’s been one of the most controversial tools in the fight against terrorism -- but Congress approved a four-year extension of the PATRIOT Act without much of a fuss at all. Unless you count this:

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): “I am worried about a government that is sifting through millions of records without asking ‘are you a suspect.’ Without asking are you in league with foreign terrorists. Are you plotting violent overthrow of your government?”

Tea Party favorite Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was the law’s lone -- or at least -- loudest -- Congressional critic. The PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement to conduct surveillance on people suspected of plotting terrorism.

WNYW: “It includes wiretaps and court-ordered searches of business records. Lawmakers It allow court searches of business records. Individual liberties are ensured to not be abused. Lawmakers rejected attempts to reduce the strength of the powers to sooth concerns that individual liberties could be abused.”

Senator Paul sought to amend the act by making firearms records in particular -- off limits. He also tried to change language regarding what constitutes “suspicious activity” requiring financial institutions to report people to the government.

Both amendments failed overwhelmingly -- but Slate’s David Weigel calls it a “noble defeat” for the freshman senator.

-- While a San Francisco Chronicle blogger calls it a deserved defeat, saying his opposition...
“...was greatly over-shadowed by fact that we live in a time of great fear of even possible terrorist attacks.”

22 senators joined Paul in opposition -- 18 of them Democrats. But the fact that a Republican was loudest in his opposition -- and a Democrat -- Majority Leader Harry Reid -- pushed for its extension was an irony not lost on Al Jazeera’s Kimberly Halkett. She dug up some 2005 video of then-Senator Barack Obama:

OBAMA: “We don’t have to settle for a PATRIOT Act that sacrifices our liberty or our safety. We can have one that secures both.”
REPORTER: “But most Democrats on Capital Hill only seem to revile the Patriot act when the Republicans controlled the the White House.  Now ten years later with a Democrat in the Oval Office they’re no longer complaining about the expansion of police power stifling civil liberties.”

But MSNBC’s Kelly O’Donnell says there’s an explanation for that.

“...there is bipartisan discomfort with some of the aspects of this, all dealing with civil liberties. The counterpoint, of course, is especially after Osama bin Laden's capture, and the collection of all that at his compound -- there are many senators in the intelligence community who say the authority needs to be there to go after potential suspects.”

Another interesting angle -- President Obama was almost 4,000 miles away in France at a G8 meeting -- and the law needed his signature before the midnight deadline. It marked the first time in his administration a bill was “robo-signed” into law. That is -- an autopen machine signed it for him.
 

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