Obama Extends Patriot Act With E-Signature: Was It Legal?

As we all know, The Patriot Act is the only thing keeping us from being brutally murdered in our sleep by our own countrymen. Warrantless wiretapping, "sneak and peek" warrants (OMG cutest sounding provision EVER) that allow law enforcement to kick first/ask questions later, and everyone's favorite: the library provision that lets authorities giggle at how many old Archie comics you've checked out. Obama extended all of these wonderful, terror-fighting things today for another four years. But he did it like most of us agree to the 98245234th update of iTunes' Terms and Conditions: with an electronic signature. Who reads that stuff anyway?

Politico reports that a conservative Republican congressman from Georgia is arguing that Obama's "auto-pen" signature violates the Constitution. In a letter sent to the White House, Rep. Tom Graves asked Obama to present "a detailed, written explanation of your constitutional authority to assign a surrogate the responsibility of signing bills passed by Congress into law." And in fact, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution reads "every bill which shall have passed the House…and the Senate, shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the president of the United States." In this case, Graves isn't sure whether or not Obama actually received and read the bill before signing, as he did so "minutes" before it was to expire.

And is it legal for presidents to sign bills into law with an e-signature? Sure! According to President George W. Bush's Office of Legal Counsel, who said it was peachy back in 2005. Also peachy: deporting suspected terrorists to foreign countries to be tortured, as well as pouring water down detainees throats to simulate death, hundreds and hundreds of times. Quite a few House Republicans, and most House Democrats voted against the extension, but it passed, for Freedom. We can see how the "lone wolf" provisions have been useful in nabbing would-be terrorists, but The Patriot Act remains a privacy-trampling, specious security blanket over our supposedly free society.