The Obama administration is supporting extending three controversial provisions of the Patriot Act which are set to expire this December.  The controversial provisions allow government to conduct roving wiretaps which makes it easier to wiretap people as opposed to specific phone numbers, access to library, medical, and business records, and monitoring of “lone wolf” terror suspects not active with any particular group.

The American Civil Liberties Union has recently criticized the Obama administration for continuing the Bush administration policy of detaining individuals and denying them the ability to challenge their detention.   For example, there are people who have been held at the Afghanistan Bagram Air Base for six years with no trial.  Additionally, the ACLU claims that some prisoners were not connected with the war in Afghanastan, but have been sent there from other locations.

“Guantánamo was the Bush administration’s effort to do an end run around the Constitution, and the Obama administration is now essentially using Bagram as a way to do an end run around Guantánamo and the constitutional right of habeas corpus found to apply there,” said Jonathan Hafetz, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union National Security Project. “Simply shipping detainees from around the world to an alternative destination is not a solution and flouts the principles laid down by the Supreme Court.”

Below is a video of Former Congressman Bob Barr discussing the Patriot Act with Glenn Beck in 2008.