Blog of Rights

Lisa
Graves

A Long Week and a Long Way to Go

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 2:12pm
Hello! I'm sorry it's been a few days since my last post! I think between Monday of last week and the votes on the House floor and in the Senate Judiciary Committee last Thursday, I may have slept only about 12 hours! Not that I've been sleeping since then--there has been much to do in the aftermath of those votes and much remains to be done!

Which Is More Important to Amend the Patriot Act? Punishing the Smuggling of Chewing Tobacco or Improving Train Security and Protecting Civil Liberties? House Committee Says Snuff!

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 1:08am
Late last night, the House Rules Committee in party-line votes ruled against allowing several very important amendments to the Patriot Act, such as a rail security amendment, but allowed an amendment on smuggling chewing tobacco! Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved a seriously flawed bill that makes all but two o

Rules Discussion to Be Followed by Floor Debate

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 8:09am
This afternoon the House Rules Committee will be considering requests of Members to be able to bring up amendments to the Patriot Act reauthorization on the floor for a debate beginning tomorrow.

There appears to be no break in the rush by some in the House to try to force a quick debate on Patriot and vote on making almost all of

Floor Action and Amendments Expected

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 8:30am
Today, House Members are submitting proposed amendments to the Sensenbrenner bill to the House Rules Committee. The next question on Patriot likely to be posed on the floor is whether House leadership will allow an open and fair rule for amendments to improve the bill or whether it will force stringent limits on the number and ty

Flawed Specter/Feinstein Bill Headed for Committee Vote

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 4:17pm
On Wednesday, Senators Specter and Feinstein of the Judiciary Committee introduced a flawed bill to reauthorize the Patriot Act that does not really fix many of the concerns raised by nearly 400 communities across the nation (representing millions of Americans).

The Specter/Feinstei

Many Bills, Few Changes

By Lisa Graves, Legislative Counsel at 4:10pm
Besides the bill just introduced in the Senate Intelligence Committee, there are three other bills to reauthorize, all of which fall short of what is needed to bring the Patriot Act's far-reaching and intrusive powers in line with the Constitution:

The Senate Intelligence Committee's bill from June would make the expiring prov
Statistics image