Naked Capitalism Link of the Day

Today's link: House fails to extend Patriot Act Spy Powers, at Wired:

The House failed to extend three key expiring provisions of the Patriot Act on Tuesday, elements granting the government broad and nearly unchecked surveillance power on its own public.

The act was hastily adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks. Three measures of the act are set to expire at month’s end, and the House’s lack of a two-thirds vote on Tuesday failed to move the sunsetting deadline to Dec. 8, as proposed. The vote was 277-148.

The failure of the bill, sponsored by Rep. James F. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wisconsin), for the time being is likely to give airtime to competing measures in the Senate that would place limited checks on the act’s broad surveillance powers. The White House, meanwhile, said it wanted the expiring measures extended through 2013.

These included the "roving wiretap," "lone wolf" and "business record" provisions of the Patriot Act. Maybe now that a Republican majority in Congress faces the use of these powers by a Democratic President, the Republicans will find the civil liberties religion and join some Democrats in leading us back away from a police state.

Update: As Conor says here, Republicans have a long way to go, even though some Tea Partiers stepped up.  He highlights a great quote from Dennis Kucinich, partially making up for his olive pit lawsuit from a couple of weeks ago:

"The 112th Congress began with a historic reading of the U.S. Constitution," Kucinich said. "Will anyone subscribe to the First and Fourth Amendments tomorrow when the PATRIOT Act is up for a vote? I am hopeful that members of the Tea Party who came to Congress to defend the Constitution will join me in challenging the reauthorization."

Indeed, 26 Republicans voted to oppose the extensions.