Yesterday, the infamous Patriot Act was renewed, with its worst anti-liberty provisions essentially intact. Every single Republican senator voted for it. That’s bad.

What’s worse is that 14 Democratic senator joined them to vote to renew the power of the Bush Administration to sneak and peak in your home without telling you, to grab your private records, including records of all your commercial activity to feed into the Total Information Awareness program secretly growing once more within the National Security Agency, and to force anyone who knows about these unconstitutional searches to keep quiet.

The Senate was the last line of defense for our liberty. With the appointment of John Roberts and Samuel Alito, the Supreme Court is now a voice for right wing immoderation that will do nothing to prevent President Bush from taking as much power as he likes.

These 14 Democratic senators knew better than to vote the way they did, but they were afraid. After all, the legislation had the word “Patriot” in it, and who can vote against anything aligned with patriotism, no matter how corrupt and contrary to the founding principles of the United States? Not these guys, that’s for sure.

Call them The Spineless Fourteen:

Joseph Biden, Delaware
Tom Carper, Delaware
Hillary Clinton, New York
Kent Conrad, North Dakota
Diane Feinstein, California
Tim Johnson, South Dakota
Herb Kohl, Wisconsin
Mary Landrieu, Louisiana
Blanche Lincoln, Arkansas
Bill Nelson, Florida
Ben Nelson, Nebraska
Mark Pryor, Arkansas
John Rockefeller, West Virginia
Charles Schumer, New York