TAP talks with Shahid Buttar, a civil-rights lawyer and executive director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, about recent constitutional flare-ups:
Has the fact that there’s a Democrat in the White House — and one who has engaged in high-profile legislative battles over things like health care and financial reform — taken threats to civil liberties off progressives’ radar screens?
I hope not but fear that has indeed been the case. The debate over the PATRIOT Act here offers an illustrative example. When the president — who campaigned against it in no uncertain terms — caved to the intelligence agencies by supporting a “temporary” reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act over congressional objections last fall, it shifted the landscape and left members of Congress who do care about civil liberties on an isolated fringe.
