Politech: John Kerry voted for the Patriot Act, and now opposes it [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

http://nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200401260838.asp
> Today's Kerry excoriates Attorney General John Ashcroft for violating 
> American civil liberties with his evil tool, the Patriot Act. "We are a 
> nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night," Kerry huffs. 
> "So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing 
> the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties 
> at the same time." Maybe Kerry should have thought about that before 
> voting for the Patriot Act in 2001 — since laws and liberties are pretty 
> important and all.
> Back before he had to worry about competing with one Howard Brush Dean, 
> Kerry was positively delighted by the Patriot Act. "It reflects," he said 
> on the Senate floor, "an enormous amount of hard work by the members of 
> the Senate Banking Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee. I 
> congratulate them and thank them for that work." While supportive of 
> "sunset" provisions in the bill, Kerry pronounced himself "pleased at the 
> compromise we have reached on the anti-terrorism legislation." These are 
> not the words of a man about to help inaugurate an era of brown-shirt law 
> enforcement.


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