How long would it take to write 342 pages?

[helderheid]

That's how big the Patriot Act is. 342 pages.



"...The 342-page Patriot Act was signed into law six weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It expands the power of the federal government to wiretap cell phones, check library records, eavesdrop on computer use, access financial records and detain terrorism suspects without charges. ..."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2003-07-13-patriot_x.htm

[POAS]

1. Better question, how long to read it?

Still better question, why didn't they read it before passing it?

[leftofthedial]

2. It took PNAC about eight years to write it

[annabanana]

6. This "wish list" was decades old... "The Patriot Act" title

was pretty much tacked onto the wish list at the end.

[Emit]

48. But, did you know that the word "patriot" in the PATRIOT Act is an acronym for

"Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism"?

Wonder how long it took tnem to work that one out?

On edit, better yet, poster #25 has the entire acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001"

It would take me weeks just to come up with such a clever <</sarcasm>> Orwellian acronym!

[Error]

3. 150 lawyers, three days

[Bucky]

5. Or 3 lawyers 150 days

Actually, I'm thinking this is the rate at which stenographers could type it. Lawyers are supposed to revise and consult. I think the 8 years is a better estimate.

[DCKit]

52. 20 Monkeys, two shifts

It's all about the motivation.

[Cabcere]

59. *snerk*

:spray: Nice.

[helderheid]

60. LOL!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. Reminds me of the one where the fellow asks God, tell me

God, how long is a million years to you, and the lord said about a second, so the fellow asks the lord for a million dollars and the lord replies, "Just a second".

[helderheid]

7. Good one!

[EFerrari]

8. At my best, I can do five good pages a day.

:crazy:

[helderheid]

10. passed into law 6 WEEKS after 9/11

:crazy:

[EFerrari]

11. Holy cow.

I never put that together.

[helderheid]

12. I just did.

:scared:

[EFerrari]

13. Don't worry. They don't have us.

:)

[helderheid]

14. :)

[Turbineguy]

15. So.... instead

of preventing the 911 attacks, the Bush Admin was writing the Patriot Act. So it turns out they weren't doing nothing, they just couldn't tell us what they were doing. The 911 attack only forced them to do a little editing. It's the editing that took six weeks.

Well, at least that's cleared up. And here I was all the time thinking they were just incompetent.

[EFerrari]

17. For 9/11 alone, impeach.

www.impeach07.org
www.sfimpeachnow.com

[helderheid]

41. "press for truth" would do the trick

[EFerrari]

47. And for Katrina, Greg Palast's report

that the WH knew the levies were breached and didn't warn anyone. That's murder, basically. And it got Greg arrested by Homeland Security so you know he was onto something.

And Iraq.

[Rex]

9. Nothing compared to the volume of info our government has been

collecting on us over the years! I bet they have TIA up and running GREAT! Now the question is, how to exploit so many people with the knowledge.

Give them time.

[IChing]

16. About the same amount of time it took to

plan and instigate 911

[NightWatcher]

18. Better Question: How many printed copies existed before the vote?

answer, 2
One at the House and one in the Senate.

Too bad the whole anthrax thing kept everyone out of the office before the vote.....there I go acting all "tin foi hat'ish" again

[helderheid]

19. Another question - it passed 6 weeks after 9/11 - how long before it was

presented at all??

[EFerrari]

20. What kind of a Congress passes legislation without reading it?

Isn't that like driving a car with your eyes closed?

:scared:

[misanthrope]

27. They do it all the time...

...Talk to some Capitol Hill staffers.

[hootinholler]

31. Senator Byrd points it out in one of his books.

Sorry, I've fogotten the title.

-Hoot

[misanthrope]

44. I think John Conyers said the same in Fahrenheit 911**nm

**

[EFerrari]

33. In denial here.

:(

[sofa king]

49. Yeah, they never read all that stuff.

Neither do the staffers, for that matter, though some claim they do. Usually the staffers only review the language of the sections that fall within their particular area of expertise--and I use the term "expertise" as loosely as it can possibly be used. Both sides of the aisle rely heavily on lobbyists to do the gruntwork of drafting the language and being honest (or deceitful) about the intent of the language. They also rely heavily on outside sources to point out flaws in the language before it can be slid in and/or voted on.

That's why the Patriot Act was kept so tightly under wraps--so that a hundred thousand eyes wouldn't be able to review it and expose it for the piece of shit it is.

As an outside source, I never read everything, either, but instead we split our review of the legislation amongst three primary people and a host of pinch-hitters. My third of the work comprised about half of my billable hours, which rarely dropped below 45 hours a week. And that was just for stuff relating to Native Americans. I imagine the spread for security and defense lobbyists--and those who challenge them--must be wide indeed. That's why I said "a hundred thousand eyes."

As an example of how staffers gain their "expertise," back in 2000 I went to the office of every single freshman Representative with a letter from the Chief of a particular tribe, and asked to get the contact info for the Indian affairs point person for each office. When I talked to one staffer from Cleveland, the first thing he said was "oh, hell, you're not coming after us about that Chief Wahoo thing already, are you?"

No, I told him, there were much more important issues the Rep. would have to vote on.

"Okay," said the staffer, "I'll go ask the Representative who the Indian affairs person is," and he stepped behind her closed door.

About two minutes later he came back, looking sheepish. "Um, I'm the Indian affairs guy."

Instant expert. (As it turns out though, I heard the fellow learned fast and did quite well.)

[AliceWonderland]

34. That's an excellent question indeed. Lots of excellent questions here... n/t

[mb7588a]

21. Most of it had already been written and introduced in Congress. nt.

[helderheid]

22. when?

[IChing]

26. The 300 page act was written by Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh,

Dinh has served as Associate Special Counsel to the U.S. Senate Whitewater Committee, as Special Counsel to Senator Pete V. Domenici for the Impeachment Trial of President Clinton, and as counsel to the Special Master in In re Austrian and German Bank Holocaust Litigation.


Viet Dinh has been called a "political pit bull" and "a foot soldier" for Attorney General John Ashcroft.

He is also defending right now J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) who are accused of spying for Israel.

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2004/02/62388
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_D._Dinh
http://intellit.muskingum.edu/spycases_folder/franklin.html

[helderheid]

28. When was it written?

[IChing]

35. I have no documented proof but have read

that it was being composed and drafted way before 911

Some of the research I have done suggests this. But I cannot categorical confirm this.
Some of the writings of Leo Strauss, the neo-cons, PNAC and others have had all
laid out some of the primary foundations for the Act and these papers and philosophies go back to the
early 50s.

Look at the history of the guy who wrote it and who he works for and who he is defending now.

[helderheid]

36. I appreciate this - thank you!

[Emit]

51. Viet Dinh implies during this interview that they started it on 9/11

MARGARET WARNER: Now for a closer look at the man at the helm of the Justice Department and the act that has stirred such controversy, we're joined by Viet Dinh, the former assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department. He helped draft the Patriot Act; and he now teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center. ~snip~

John Ashcroft, clearly the president's point man on the war on terror here at home, what's been his impact Viet Dinh? That is, to what degree has he personally shaped the response, the whole way this administration has responded domestically to the war on terror?

VIET DINH: I think totally and from the beginning, on September 11 the president called a meeting of his National Security Council for obvious reasons. At the end of that meeting, the president pulled the attorney general aside and said, "John, you make sure this does not happen again." John, you make sure this does not happen again.



The attorney general then set out a course of vision and a course of leadership that defined our work at the Department of Justice to ensure that preventing and disrupting terrorist activity is the overriding goal of the Department of Justice.

It started with a top-to-bottom review of the tools we had at our disposal which ended up in the near unanimous passage of the USA Patriot Act; it continued with the reorganization of the FBI in order to improve communication and coordination; it continued with the transfer of the Immigration Services over the homeland security and the assistance with the Department of Homeland Security to make that transition seamless, and it continues to this day whereby over 300 persons have been charged in terrorism-related investigations. Over 130 persons have been convicted.

But overwhelmingly I think the number-one statistic that illustrates the success thus far of the campaign is a non-statistic. Nothing has happened in the last 24 months. And every single day that nothing happens, that all is well in America, everybody's bored on their drive home, is a momentous achievement for law enforcement, for the Department of Justice, for all the state and local partners and for John Ashcroft personally.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/july-dec03/patriot_8-19.html

I remain skeptical.

[IChing]

57. They can say that but most of the provisions where already

discussed years before in various academic papers and books

[Emit]

58. Yes. I found it interesting and misleading, though, that he gave that impression. n/t

[whistle]

23. With all of the legal terminology in a document of that sort, plus reviews

....and revisions, I would say six weeks would cover it, if there were 1,500 lawyers assigned to job. I would think that typically a team of four to six lawyers each with a staff of six to eight people would be required for a task of this scope and size involving months of research before an appropriate outline would even be scoped out and agreed upon. This document was prepared by neo-conservatives groups who set their thoughts down long be 9/11, perhaps even before PNAC (Project for the New American Century - 1997) become a formal published document and then widely circulated and read by like minded people, primarily fascists.

[helderheid]

24. 1500 lawyers!

[whistle]

32. Read it for yourself, there was no team of lawyer that could bang out this document

...in three weeks:

<snip>
HR 3162 RDS

107th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 3162
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
October 24, 2001
Received



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN ACT
To deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,


http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

[kath]

25. Fun facts to know and tell - full name is the USA PATRIOT Act of2001 and is an acronym

and is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.

Excuse me while I :puke: :puke: :puke:

[helderheid]

40. Are you SERIES??!?!?!!!!111

[hootinholler]

29. Oh, so it doesn't have to be coherent, then

In that case, maybe a week.

:evilgrin:

-Hoot

[helderheid]

43. I can write it in a day with those standards!

:P

[Der Blaue Engel]

30. I wrote a 520-page book in 12 weeks

But then my book is a hell of a lot more interesting.

:D

[helderheid]

37. I bet! Linky?? :D

[Der Blaue Engel]

38. Lol

Still not published, but DU will be one of the first places I crow about it if it ever happens. :)

[helderheid]

39. Yeah!! Thanks Blue Angel!

[babylonsister]

42. Kick for ignorance by everyone. How often has this happened?nt

[TheWraith]

45. Depends on manpower.

If you had three hundred lawyers cranking on the thing, you could probably write it in a matter of a week. (Not including review, proofing, etcetera.) A smaller staff, maybe several weeks. One person, 6-12 months. Again, just for writing it, not including any kind of legal review (which we know was pretty sketchy on the USAPA).

[sutz12]

46. IIRC, it was sitting on the shelf...

because most of it would never pass muster in Congress, let alone survive any kind of a challenge in the Supreme Court. Most of the stuff was already known to be un-Constitutional. Of course, Ashcroft was never known as a strict Constitutional prosecutor. Convictions over rights. It's the conservative way. :)

[Swamp Rat]

50. I discussed this with ACLU President Nadine Strossen.

She told me that THEY had it prepared years in advance.

[helderheid]

53. WOW!

:wow:

[rosesaylavee]

54. Very good point.

K & R

[THUNDER HANDS]

55. for me, about 8 hours

but i type 225 words a minute.

[helderheid]

56. In legaleez?