Patriot Act moves closer to renewal.

Yesterday, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to reject the effort to block the renewing the Patriot Act. Sen. Russ Feingold started out as a lone dissenter to the Patriot Act, but he has started an avalanche. The question to me is...after all the nasty provisions of the Patriot Act has been revealed...why are so many Dems and liberal Repubs afraid to just come out swinging, against the blasted act? Why? I mean, the act has been revealed to have been abused and misused, and there's a dubious connection between the act and its purpose of stopping terrorism. In fact, the Patriot Act has been used to prosecute drug offenders! EFF wonderfully breaks down the Patriot Act, and it's not pretty. We live in a day and age when the Pentagon considers a gay "kiss in" to be a "credible threat." Where library records are obtained of ordinary Americans, and when the records do not show any connection to terrorism, they are not destroyed! Meanwhile, the 9/11 Commission reported at the end of 2005 that we are not any safer now than we were in 2001. My question is...isn't it up to the government to prove the case for the Patriot Act? Why has the Senate (excepting Russ Feingold) generally blindly voted for this act, without reading it? Doesn't this run counter to what a representative democracy is supposed to resemble?