The House passed the Patriot Act renewal bill today by a vote of 280 to 138. President Bush will sign the bill tomorrow.
For the last few months, the debate over the Patriot Act has been over really small potatoes. To use a football analogy, the players were battling over inches instead of yards. But then everything associated with the Patriot Act tends to have a larger-than-life political significance. “Dog bites man” isn’t a story, but “Patriot Act lets dog bite man” always gets splashed across the front page.
In any event, I haven’t seen the latest text, but I’ll blog on the details after I do.