Is that the way it works?

Not all of it, just three key portions:

The three portions relate to roving wiretaps, seizing business records and monitoring suspected "lone wolf" terrorists.

Weren't roving wiretaps supposed to be the end of civil liberties as we knew them when Bush approved them? I'm confused. Why are they ok now...?

Oh right, it's because we're racist.

No? Isn't everything because we're racists?

Anyway, just wanted to point out the hypocrisy. I'm glad Obama listens to the people around him that know more than he does and has decided in this instance to do the right thing.

As a blast from the past, and giving Leahy the credit for co-authoring the Patriot Act, here is his statement on wiretapping from February 15, 2006 regarding domestic wiretapping.

The Times story doesn't mention whether the roving wiretaps to be reauthorized include the ability to monitor domestic conversations; it only deals with "monitor[ing] an individual instead of a particular phone number", which presumably could include an individual inside the United States.

We'll see if Pat Leahy decides that such is also ok now when it wasn't politically expedient for him to support when George Bush was President.

Russ