~ THE NEW USA PATRIOT ACT ~
Are You a Patriot?
by
John Kaminski.
The USA Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the land, has
eliminated the Constitutional guarantee of probable cause when
investigating a crime, and now allows the police — at any time and
for any reason — to enter and search your house, your files, your
bank account — and not even tell you about it.
Are you a patriot? Well, the fact of the matter is, you are whether
you want to be or not. But are you an American or a mindless
corporate stooge? Well, that's another question.
The recent passage and signing of the Patriot Act has effectively
nullified at least six amendments of the Bill of Rights addendum to
the U.S. Constitution. As a result of this, America is longer
America, but a police state, pure and simple. This Patriot Bill is,
in fact, a massive violation of the Constitution it purports to
uphold and improve.
Among other things, it mandates that judges give police search
warrants when they ask for them, for any reason. In fact, judges
can't deny these warrants to police, because police don't need a
stated reason to ask for them.
The Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of American freedom. During the
debates on the adoption of the Constitution in the 1790s, its
opponents repeatedly charged that the Constitution as drafted would
open the way to tyranny by the central government. Many states would
not have signed the original Constitution without knowing that these
amendments would be added, according to the federal website which
displays the Constitution. These amendments became known as the Bill
of Rights, which Americans have cherished, protected and fought for
for over 200 years.
The Patriot Act rushed through Congress and signed by President
George W. Bush is a major step toward a totalitarian state in which
individual liberty is crushed by the whim of police and corporate
demagogues masquerading as patriots.
The Patriot Act:
Violates the First Amendment freedom of speech guarantee, right to
peaceably assemble provision, and petition the government for redress
of grievances provision; it violates the First Amendment to the
Constitution three times. More on this below.
Violates the Fourth Amendment guarantee of probable cause in
astonishingly major and repeated ways. The Fourth Amendment to the
Constitution reads: "The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches
and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but
upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons of
things to be seized." The Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the
land, has revoked the necessity for probable cause, and now allows
the police, at any time and for any reason, to enter and search your
house — and not even tell you about it.
Violates the Fifth Amendment by allowing for indefinite incarceration
without trial for those deemed by the Attorney General to be threats
to national security. The Fifth Amendment guarantees that no person
shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of
law, and the Patriot Act does away with due process. It even allows
people to be kept in prison for life without even a trial.
Violates the Sixth Amendment guarantee of the right to a speedy and
public trial. Now you may get no trial at all, ever.
Violates the Eighth Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment).
Violates the 13th Amendment (punishment without conviction).
Most of the following information is taken from the ACLU's written
objections to Congress before and after the passage of the Patriot
Act. My comments are in brackets [].
The Patriot Act does the following (I'm putting the immigration stuff
at the bottom because that least affects most of the people who will
be reading this):
[It keeps judges out the process and lets cops do what they want
(cops meaning FBI, CIA, etc.)] It minimizes judicial supervision of
telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities in
anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal investigations
unrelated to terrorism. [Unrelated to terrorism — that means
anything. How long do you think before that includes political
dissent? Oops, too late, that's already happened.]
It expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches —
again in anti-terrorism investigations and in routine criminal
investigations unrelated to terrorism. [Unrelated to terrorism — that
means anything they want it to mean. If we don't agree with Nazi
Republican ideas, they can now arrest us.]
It gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to
designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and block any
non-citizen who belongs to them from entering the country. Under this
provision the payment of membership dues is a deportable offense.
[That means, among other things, that Bush and Ashcroft can decide
Greenpeace and Ralph Nader are terrorists, and under this law, it can
put them in jail.]
It grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, financial,
mental health, and educational records about individuals without
having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order. [It
means they can do what they want for no good reason, except to
persecute and imprison people with humanistic, noncorporate rip-off
views.]
It could lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens
for "intelligence" purposes and use of intelligence authorities to by-
pass probable cause requirements in criminal cases. [Bye bye peace
movement. You're all going to jail; me too.]
It puts the CIA and other intelligence agencies back in the business
of spying on Americans by giving the Director of Central Intelligence
the authority to identify priority targets for intelligence
surveillance in the United States. [This is what America worked so
hard for all those years to eliminate.]
It allows searches of highly personal financial records without
notice and without judicial review based on a very low standard that
does not require probable cause of a crime or even relevancy to an
ongoing terrorism investigation. [They can do any of this stuff
without any reason whatsoever. This is the kind of freedom these
fascists always wanted — freedom to put everyone who disagrees with
them in jail.]
It creates a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" that could
sweep in people who engage in acts of political protest and subject
them to wiretapping and enhanced penalties. [This means they can jail
anyone who disagrees with them, and keep them in jail for life
without a trial.]
On immigration specifically, the new law permits the detention of non-
citizens facing deportation based merely on the Attorney General's
certification that he has "reasonable grounds to believe" the non-
citizen endangers national security. While immigration or criminal
charges must be filed within seven days, these charges need not have
anything to do with terrorism, but can be minor visa violations of
the kind that normally would not result in detention at all. Non-
citizens ordered removed on visa violations could be indefinitely
detained if they are stateless, their country of origin refuses to
accept them, or they are granted relief from deportation because they
would be tortured if they were returned to their country of origin.
It permits the Attorney General to indefinitely incarcerate or detain
non-citizens based on mere suspicion, and to deny readmission to the
United States of non-citizens (including lawful permanent residents)
for engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment. [Or, what
used to be the First Amendment. Now, it doesn't exist.]
Let me just take a bit more of your valuable time to make a couple of
points crystal clear, again using material from the ACLU's objections
to passage of the Patriot Act.
Wiretapping and Intelligence Surveillance
The wiretapping and intelligence provisions in the USA Patriot Act
sound two themes: they minimize the role of a judge in ensuring that
law enforcement wiretapping is conducted legally and with proper
justification, and they permit use of intelligence investigative
authority to by-pass normal criminal procedures that protect privacy.
Specifically:
1. The USA Patriot Act allows the government to use its intelligence
gathering power to circumvent the standard that must be met for
criminal wiretaps. Currently FISA surveillance, which does not
contain many of the same checks and balances that govern wiretaps for
criminal purposes, can be used only when foreign intelligence
gathering is the primary purpose. The new law allows use of FISA
surveillance authority even if the primary purpose were a criminal
investigation. Intelligence surveillance merely needs to be only
a "significant" purpose. This provision authorizes unconstitutional
physical searches and wiretaps: though it is searching primarily for
evidence of crime, law enforcement conducts a search without probable
cause of crime.
2. The USA Patriot Act extends a very low threshold of proof for
access to Internet communications that are far more revealing than
numbers dialed on a phone. Under current law, a law enforcement agent
can get a pen register or trap and trace order requiring the
telephone company to reveal the numbers dialed to and from a
particular phone. To get such an order, law enforcement must simply
certify to a judge — who must grant the order — that the information
to be obtained is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."
This is a very low level of proof, far less than probable cause. This
provision apparently applies to law enforcement efforts to determine
what websites a person had visited, which is like giving law
enforcement the power — based only on its own certification — to
require the librarian to report on the books you had perused while
visiting the public library. This provision extends a low standard of
proof — far less than probable cause — to actual "content"
information.
3. In allowing for "nationwide service" of pen register and trap and
trace orders, the law further marginalizes the role of the judiciary.
It authorizes what would be the equivalent of a blank warrant in the
physical world: the court issues the order, and the law enforcement
agent fills in the places to be searched. This is not consistent with
the important Fourth Amendment privacy protection of requiring that
warrants specify the place to be searched. Under this legislation, a
judge is unable to meaningfully monitor the extent to which her order
was being used to access information about Internet communications.
4. The Act also grants the FBI broad access in "intelligence"
investigations to records about a person maintained by a business.
The FBI need only certify to a court that it is conducting an
intelligence investigation and that the records it seeks may be
relevant. With this new power, the FBI can force a business to turn
over a person's educational, medical, financial, mental health and
travel records based on a very low standard of proof and without
meaningful judicial oversight.
The ACLU noted that the FBI already had broad authority to monitor
telephone and Internet communications. Most of the changes apply not
just to surveillance of terrorists, but instead to all surveillance
in the United States. [All surveillance. The WTO geeks will love this
one. Now we can be just like China.]
Law enforcement authorities -- even when they are required to obtain
court orders - have great leeway under current law to investigate
suspects in terrorist attacks. Current law already provided, for
example, that wiretaps can be obtained for the crimes involved in
terrorist attacks, including destruction of aircraft and aircraft
piracy.
The FBI also already had authority to intercept these communications
without showing probable cause of crime for "intelligence" purposes
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In fact, FISA
wiretaps now exceed wiretapping for all domestic criminal
investigations. The standards for obtaining a FISA wiretap are lower
than the standards for obtaining a criminal wiretap.
Criminal Justice
The law dramatically expands the use of secret searches. Normally, a
person is notified when law enforcement conducts a search. In some
cases regarding searches for electronic information, law enforcement
authorities can get court permission to delay notification of a
search. The USA Patriot Act extends the authority of the government
to request "secret searches" to every criminal case. This vast
expansion of power goes far beyond anything necessary to conduct
terrorism investigations.
The Act also allows for the broad sharing of sensitive information in
criminal cases with intelligence agencies, including the CIA, the
NSA, the INS and the Secret Service. It permits sharing of sensitive
grand jury and wiretap information without judicial review or any
safeguards regarding the future use or dissemination of such
information.
These information sharing authorizations and mandates effectively put
the CIA back in the business of spying on Americans: Once the CIA
makes clear the kind of information it seeks, law enforcement
agencies can use tools like wiretaps and intelligence searches to
provide data to the CIA. In fact, the law specifically gives the
Director of Central Intelligence - who heads the CIA -- the power to
identify domestic intelligence requirements.
The law also creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism." The new
offense threatens to transform protesters into terrorists if they
engage in conduct that "involves acts dangerous to human life."
Members of Operation Rescue, the Environmental Liberation Front and
Greenpeace, for example, have all engaged in activities that could
subject them to prosecution as terrorists. Then, under this law, the
dominos begin to fall. Those who provide lodging or other assistance
to these "domestic terrorists" could have their homes wiretapped and
could be prosecuted.
[If you have any doubt that these are the trappings of a police
state, then you need to go back to elementary school and read about
the Constitution, which we no longer have.]
[Fox News Channel reports tonight that 90% of the American people are
really happy with what Bush has done. I think somebody wrote this all
in a book once, that when a free people gave away their freedom, they
did it happily and with much fanfare.]
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