December 16, 2005 09:00 AM UTC

Ken Salazar Beats Back PATRIOT Act

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• by: Colorado Pols

Early this afternoon, Senator Ken Salazar teamed up with a few others from both parties to keep alive a filibuster against renewing key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, arguing forcefully that they amounted to a violation of Americans’ basic privacy rights.

He was successful, as the Rocky Mountain News reports:

Backers of the sweeping anti-terrorism law warned that the move could leave gaping holes in the country’s homeland security, but Salazar and other lawmakers said they had too many unresolved questions about civil rights protections.

“I dare say, the American people will hold us accountable if anything happens and we’re not able to extend and reauthorize the Patriot Act,” Kyl said.

Friday’s debate was influenced by a New York Times report that President Bush signed an executive order in 2002 authorizing the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on international telephone calls and e-mail messages within the United States without court-approved warrants.

“These allegations, if true, are deeply, deeply troubling,” Salazar said. “If we needed a wake-up call about the need for additional civil liberty protections, this report is the wake-up call.”

The issue of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure is truly bipartisan, as a trip to Newt Gingrich’s Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances website makes pretty clear: this is one of those transcendent issues in American politics that puts Grover Norquist on the same side with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Democrats are looking for a short-term reauthorization of the Act while they continue to negotiate for changes to the most onerous provisions. That’s all Salazar says he wants, but either way it should prove to be a very smart political stand for himprovided nothing John Kyl warned of comes true in the meantime, of course.