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The Continuing Hunt for PATRIOT Act Abuses
Throtex writes "Orin Kerr, Associate Professor of Law at George Washington University writes at The Volokh Conspiracy that the Department of Justice is having trouble finding abuses of the USA PATRIOT Act. This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time. Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"
How about Guantanamo Bay, at least if there were some way to actually question the people being detained there? Some 545 people from 40 countries are being held there. Nearly all of the detainees are being held without charges and some have been imprisoned there for more than three years.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
1. What about of the one-quarter of all complaints that were outside of OIG's juristiction?
2. What is a rough itemization of the unwarranted complaints? The government's own PDF only gives cartoon-like examples of people who clearly need to adjust their tinfoil hats. This story is highly dubious since the wording, figures, and conclusions sseem to suggest that people who question the PATRIOT act are stupid, crazy or both. A story that would be much more illuminating would be one that investigates the government's report, instead of simply parroting it like a good comarade. But then, where are the names? How would a journalist even go about such a story? And more significantly for the times we live in, how would such a story ever see the light of day in the mass media. It wouldn't, that's how.
It's way past 1984.
I Want To Believe
It does not matter if the government has actually abused citizens via the Patriot Act. The only thing that matters is that it can.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Personally? I don't care if there was a single abuse of the Patriot Act or not. It should not have been passed in the first place. The simple fact of the matter is that the government should not have passed an act that allows for civil rights violations.
"Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"
Hopefully that is the case but it also shows why it is important to "fuss". You cannot just mindlessly accept things and hope for the best. If you don't agree, and many people do not (although only 1 senator doesn't) then it is important to raise a fuss to let them know you're watching.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
If a government action that would otherwise be illegal becomes legal under the patriot act, is that an abuse? Or does it have to be blantently obvious and clearly wrong? What about the patriot act being used for non-terrorism related purposes? Isn't that an abuse?
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Of course he won't find them, if he's only relying on publically disclosed information.
(not read TFA)
Whether or not there have been abuses (and whether or not the public at large is aware of them yet - no small matter considering the fine print of the Act), has absolutely nothing to do with whether we are "fussing over nothing." We are discussing the unraveling of hundreds of years of sacred American values and traditions.
Consider the meaning of these traditions. The fact that someone working for our president can point his finger at you and say, "you, come with me," and then you spend years in a cage without a lawyer, due process, a phone call, etc, is bad. The only time it is not bad is in the theoretical and impossible perfect world where we all have perfect, omniscient knowledge and only, ever, use this power for good.
The rules we have to regulate our law enforcement activities are not there to make law enforcement easier or harder. They are there to protect us against ourselves - they inscribe a well-known and ancient protection against human nature, and our ancestors had to bleed into the earth for many, many generations to secure these freedoms, after wearying, inconceivable repitition of abuses, time, after time, after time.
We made our constitution difficult to change to protect our children from cowards. Cowards who run crying, begging for protection from terrorists at any price - even though they kill fewer people than slipping and falling, even though they are selling freedoms that sufficed for us through many, many crises before. I'm sure there are many here who are scared enough of Osama to sell out their civil rights on the chance it will make them a little safer. It's the price we all pay for the general ignorance of history.
The PATRIOT act itself stirs up a lot of confusing debate because it is a beast of many parts; I hope we can stay on topic and remember that we are not objecting to interdepartmental communications and red-tape reductions in law enforcement, but rather the rolling back of safeguards that were established very recently - and in response to abuse of power by American law enforcement so systematic and staggering that even Congress and the President were frightened into enacting them.
Hoover's FBI is not ancient history, it is recent history. And we are Americans - it is shameful to forget our past so conspicuously as to suggest complaints over the PATRIOT act are trifles and fuss. These are matters of principle, of black-letter constitutional law. We do not need to wait for abuses to "fuss." The abuses have already happened, again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again... This is why we had safeguards for PATRIOT to remove in the first place. How many times does it have to happen for us to really get it? How thick is America's collective skull?
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This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time.
Although the fact that publicly reporting you've been charged under the act is itself a crime doesn't help.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
Perhaps the Department of Justice, like many government agencies, are so biased for themselves, they can't see their own failings. That combined with a total lack of accountability leads to the inefficient operation and complete inability to change seen across the government.
haven't been able to talk to thier lawyer or any outside contact.
You receive a National Security Letter demanding that you turn over information. You consider it an abuse, but you can't argue with them and you can't tell anyone about it (or you're in violation). So it's a big secret, nobody has to know, and they don't have to report it to Congress.
So there could be hundreds of abuses that we'll never know about...all because it's written into the law as a big fat secret.
The PATRIOT provisions requires the Deparment of Justice Office of the Inspector General to collect and respond to complaints, when appropriate, and issue a report on its findings twice a year.
The March 11, 2005 report is here.
And from TFA:
Consider the stats from the latest report, released on Friday. DOJ received 1,943 complaints about alleged civil liberties abuses. Of these, 1,748 either did not warrant an investigation or were outside DOJ's jurisdiction:
Approximately three-quarters of the 1,748 complaints made allegations that did not warrant an investigation. For example, some of the complaints alleged that government agents were broadcasting signals that interfere with a person's thoughts or dreams or that prison officials had laced the prison food with hallucinogenic drugs. The remaining one-quarter of the 1,748 complaints in this category involved allegations against agencies or entities outside of the DOJ, including other federal agencies, local governments, or private businesses. We referred those complaints to the appropriate entity or advised complainants of the entity with jurisdiction over their allegations.
Of the 195 complaints that did warrant investigation, 170 involved what the report describes as "management issues" rather than civil liberties abuses, such as reports by "inmates [who] complained about the general conditions at federal prisons, such as the poor quality of the food or the lack of hygiene products."
The bottom line is that PATRIOT, while not itself a "law", merely modified existing statutes, mostly to bring them up to date (e.g., dealing with cell phones, wireless devices, email, etc. in the context of "wiretaps") and expand definitions in others. The result is imperfect, like all laws, and should be watched for abuse. But there is nothing inherently evil about it. Interested persons would do well, at a minimum, to at least read the text of the act.
No. Because the fact that there is now a potential for abuse means that someday it will happen even if it hasn't already. The lid on Pandora's box is wedged open and the tyranny that Jefferson and Adams and the rest of the founding fathers fought to protect us from is slowly escaping to menace us once again.
I feel compelled to point out that the ACLU does not actually defend the constitution, but simply uses (or mis-uses) it whenver it's convenient to advance their agenda. As Nadine Strossen pointed out in the October 1994 issue of Reason
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
> This follows from the fact that what the media originally aired as abuses were merely allegations of abuse at the time. Could it be that there has just been a lot of fuss over nothing?"
The fact that we're able to ask questions and write articles about the PATRIOT Act indicates that the PATRIOT Act is not being abused. If the PATROIT Act really were being abused, we wouldn't know about it -- because the victims (and anyone foolish enough to write about them) would be disappeared.
Likewise, you'll know that PATRIOT is being abused - if and only if you stop finding evidence that it's being abused, because all the evidence will be private. Except for this evidence, which (because it's public) is evidence that it's not being abused.
The logic sounds complicated, but it's really quite simple:
Could it be that the corporate media reported only flimsy allegations of Patriot Act abuse, because it was cheaper, and more convenient for the Justice Department to deny? And never investigated more serious abuses, covered up by the Justice Department, because it was cheaper, and the Justice Department is investigating only those reported in the media - not the more serious abuse? Could it be that the Justice Department is investigating only those abuses easily dismissed as mere allegations? Could it be that the corporate media is reporting only the Justice Department press releases, without investigating whether these investigations are serious?
Once the Justice Department is being run by partisan bureaucrats (including Ahscroft and Gonzales) who will create and defend an anticonstitutional Act, authorize torture and rendition and other abuses, what would make them investigate their own abuse? Why would a media corporation that missed the story when it was "news" ever cover it again, when we're supposed to be "over it"?
--
make install -not war
"Putting all that aside, I don't want to dwell on constitutional analysis, because our view has never been that civil liberties are necessarily coextensive with constitutional rights. Conversely, I guess the fact that something is mentioned in the Constitution doesn't necessarily mean that it is a fundamental civil liberty."
Of course this is true. The Constitution recognizes civil liberties, rather than grants them, in the view of the founding fathers. In this respect the ACLU and the writers of the Constitution agree. You quoted this as if it were a bad thing to have an idea of civil liberties independent of the Constitution.
Because no abuses are being found. That is a danger sign... Whenever someone tells you 'there is no abuse', worry.
/. crowd demands empiricism for everything else, but then seems to do an about face when it suits them. I can just hear the howling and derision if someone with an anti-/. viewpoint posted something as inane as your post. Just imagine a Christian saying, 'The very fact that we have no proof of God's existence is compelling evidence that He exists.'
Well, with your reasoning there is no scenario wherein that aren't any abuses. If there are reports of abuse, then there's abuse; if there aren't reports of abuse, well, then there's still abuse. It's nearly impossible to prove a negative, and while your little anecdote sounds like it was a very unfortunate situation, it's hardly proof of anything as it pertains to the Patriot Act.
But it's funny how the
Oh well, it just goes to show that people will just believe what they want to believe.
You are simply, and rather blatantly, misreading me. Your misreading makes me out to be "making too much fuss." But I am not suggesting by any means this is the end of everything. "Merely," the unraveling of hundreds of years of sacred American values and traditions.
Very trivially:
"unraveling of hundreds of years of sacred American values and traditions" != "the end of American civilization", "the end of everything"
Living like slaves didn't end civilization in China (yet). I suspect there are people not able to make distinctions this fine, but I hope you are not one of them.
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there have been exactly *zero* successful prosecutions of terrorists in the USA under this act--so, was it really worth it, or even necessary to pass this bill? what *good* has it done? this is just a classic example of 'lowering expectations'...
and of course, the Bush disinformation machine continues cranking at high speed--even the network news is delivered prepacked and 'on message': Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News
so forgive me if i don't breathe a sigh of relief about this 'news'...
Well, they would, wouldn't they?
Even with the best will in the world, internal investigations by any agency are seldom anything but whitewashes. If it's not an independent investigation, with full access to DOJ information, it has no credibility. Even if a true independent investigation comes up with a dry well, absence of evidence is not conclusive proof that everything was always wonderful-- only that that particular investigation didn't find anything. But if the DOJ denies the appropriateness of outside scrutiny, I for one would be profoundly suspicious of their reasons why.
This is especially true since so many provisions of the Patriot Act allow secret action by the DOJ. Not easy to establish accountability under those circumstances.
Put differently, if you were to ask Ashcroft or Gonzalez if they think they overreached in any way, what's the likelihood that they'd ever admit that they had only been crying wolf and that it would have been far better if the DOJ's authority were more constrained? I hope you're not holding your breath waiting for that.
Anyway, this whole approach is backwards. The principle should be that the DOJ has to positively demonstrate the benefits that have been derived from these encroachments on our rights. Not just the empty assertions that have been made so far. Then, that benefit should be weighed against the real costs to everyone of their draconian policies.
And there are moral principles at stake that supersede any such cost/benefit analysis. For example, if the DOJ has had any role in handing over people to be tortured in other countries, that's not a criterion for extending the Patriot Act-- that's a crime against humanity.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
and the right was later reinstated at the end of the war
Haven't you been paying attention to Bush? There isn't going to be an end to this war. No, I'm not being flip here, he's said that multiple times and he really means it no matter what the spin doctors say.
The problem isn't the abuse of power, it's the power to abuse.
-metric
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Since this is about abuses of the PATRIOT Act.
But if the actions in question are "legal", then those actions cannot be an "abuse".
So his analogy would be on topic.
Who gets to define what an "abuse" is?
Gitmo is certainly "legal" if you ask our current government. Yet it is also completely contrary to our stated VALUES of due process and justice.
So, is Gitmo an "abuse" of our justice system?
If "yes", then we can talk about abuses of the PATRIOT Act.
If "no", then the discussion is meaningless because the word "abuse" has no meaning.
One of the odd things about debates over the Patriot Act is that even its harshest informed critics actually only oppose a very small part of the Act;
Why is that odd?
No, really, I don't get it. It would be utterly astonishing if that wasn't true. Treating that as news is like treating it as news that only a small number of incidents of speeding or drunk driving actually lead to accidents, or that the majority of suicide attempts don't lead to death.
Do you have a point, or are you just trying to muddy the waters?
I'm not familiar with the PATRIOT Act, so I'm not going to comment on that law at all, but to reuse the psychiatric hospital as an example, there are three scenarios:
The point is that human nature tends to lead to abuse of power; whenever people claim that no-one is trying to abuse powers, there's something odd going on (either lots of really moral employees, and no bad apples, or abuse being hidden). When abuse is attempted and cracked down on, it suggests that attempted abuse does occur, but is caught and prevented. Of course, I've assumed that penalties for successful abuse are high enough to act as a deterrent in the face of near-perfect detection; if this is untrue, abuse will be rampant regardless, as there's no reason for the bad apples to behave.
I appear to have a blog. Odd.
Its NEVER a fuss about nothing when it comes to my freedoms, even if it "seems" harmless! Freedom isn't something to be taken and given at will, depending on the threat of the week. Even if this hastn't been abused yet, it will be, mark my words. If you want to sacrifice a little liberty here and there for a supposed sense of safety, I'm sure Aus or England would love to have you.
The suspension of rights for the wars that you mention are in no way comparable to the suspension
of rights in the Wars on Drugs and Terrorism. The wars that you mentioned had endings, while the
WOD and WOT are the encroachments of a police state.
You say that we cannot afford to give more civil protections to Tony Soprano than we do to Osama bin
Laden. Let me paraphrase that: We cannot give more civil protections to a citizen than we can to a
noncitizen enemy combatant who is suspected of committing mass murder. Surely that is not what you
meant. I would prefer to take the chance of being killed by a terrorist than to risk being tortured by the government.
To misquote the tired old chestnut from B. Franklin, those who would sacrifice a little liberty for a
little more security deserve neither. Franklin was talking about you, wombatcontrol.
President Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus entirely ... and the right was later reinstated at the end of the war.
Oh good. Then it's just a matter of waiting for the government to declare an official end to the War on Terror. Should be any moment now...
Certainly those who protest the PATRIOT Act now must recognize the horrendous erosions of civil liberties that occurred in the previous Administration under the guise of the "war on drugs" including no-knock warrants and other practices.
Yes, we do. Your point?
Oh, I think I see your point: previous administrations have trashed the Constitution, so it's OK for this one to as well.
However, during the civil war (and, arguably, during WWII w.r.t. Japanese internment) Habeas Corpus was suspended outright. Was this a problem? Yes. Was it the end of everything? No.
... a euphemism for "they were murdered in American concentration camps," but we aren't really aloud to say that out loud, because we want to continue to believe that America hasn't had, doesn't have, and never would have concentration camps, no matter how hight the mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Everything? I guess not. But it was VERY BAD if you were japanese and you were placed in internment.
And for some of the detained, it was the end of everything. They "died" while being detained
In any event, for those who are "lawfully" murdered under such toxic laws, these abuses really are "the end of everything." Life will certainly go on (though perhaps only at the microbial level if the worst of the worst were to happen), civilization will probably go on (though as history shows, at some point we'll have one abuse too many, and civilization will fall. The more abuses we heap on, the sooner that day will come), and for most of the detainees, some semblance of continued existence will go on, though certainly diminished in emotional and financial terms from what they would have had had they not been subject to such abuses.
As for America's formerly good reputation for fairness, enlightened, and lawful behavior, that is gone and probably will never be recovered. The PATRIOT act, however, was just one nail in the coffin of that dead ghost, however. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et. al. have hammered a bunch of them in, the litany of which (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and so on) should raise the hairs on the back of the neck of every decent human being, everywhere.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Issues raised by the rest of your post pale beyond those two critical points. But you still have a few fundamental misconceptions.One is with a court-issued warrant, one is not. Not a difficult distinction to make. Police were issued a warrant to search Cunanan's library record in a specific library. Wiretapping and financial records require warrants for a particular suspect and purpose. PATRIOT ACT allow law enforcement to search *all* library records, without a warrant - without even a suspect.Are you trying to suggest that civil liberties are a partisan political issue? I assure you that the people most vocal in opposition to PATRIOT ACT are very much anti-war-on-drugs, and anti-abuses-of-civil-liberties that accompany it. They're probably more likely to oppose than support Bush, but they're not terrible happy with Democrats, either. Civil libertarians don't fit neatly into any pigeonhole but their own.I don't understand this. None of PATRIOT ACT applies to Osama unless he sets foot inside the US. Tony had more protections pre-9/11, and he still does. PATRIOT ACT removes rights from anyone in the US suspected of involvement in "terrorism", or anyone who happens to be in the way of a "terror" investigation (think every other patron of a library whose records get searched). "Terror" is defined quite tightly, and seems to exclude most/all home-grown terrorists - so Tony should be safe.
Just imagine how prosecutors will try to get people classified as terrorist.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
The Act should be challenged from a Constitutional standpoint with regard to the suspension of hebeas corpus.
Lincoln explicitly suspended hebeas corpus during the Civil War; to the best of my recollection, Bush has done no such thing and the PATRIOT ACT does not explicitly do so either. Whether or not it implicitly does so, however, is another question.
However, during the civil war (and, arguably, during WWII w.r.t. Japanese internment) Habeas Corpus was suspended outright. Was this a problem? Yes. Was it the end of everything? No.
There's a difference between suspending Habeaus Corpus during a war and doing it during peacetime, which this is. We haven't declared war since 1941.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
There's a strong precedent in US history for the institution of slavery as well. This country has been fallible, and if you go far enough back in history, you can find a preedent for every abuse. That's not a convincing argument.
And when you talk about not being able to afford to give protections to , I disagree. We give protection to everyone. Then the courts decide who the bad guys are, not the DOJ. I've lived in countries where the executive can do as it pleases. I found some of the goings-on there quite disturbing. But maybe you would like it better if the US became more like Saudi Arabia?
And no, you're wrong. Proponents of the PATRIOT Act should justify why these intrusions on our rights are so necessary. The benefit of the doubt has to be on the side of liberty, not more unaccountable state power. Or do you believe that we only have rights that are granted us by our wise and all-knowing leaders?
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
Abusing people may not be happening, but that does not mean that the Patriot Act is not stomping all over our rights. You are not "abused" if your free travel is interfered with; but your rights are being interefered with...
So the government cannot find evidence of the government doing wrong? Hmmm...
The terrorists never really have to do anything else in the US other than use rhetoric...did it not occur to anyone in government that one terrorist act was all they would do? Then just make threats to screw up everything here...
Because no abuses are being found. That is a danger sign.
Exactly.
This is like the FBI's report last week that it had no evidence of al Qaeda sleeper cells operating in the United States currently. Only a fool would believe that this means we have defeated terrorism on our own soil. Much more likely is the possibility that terrorists continue to plot against us in our midst, but the FBI is clueless about who and where they are.
If something sounds to good to be true...
Come on, it's all secret. Your ISP can't talk about Patriot Act actions.
Your local library can't talk about Patriot Act requests.
If you can't fly because you're in a no-fly list, your airline can't talk about the rules.
This proves the law has built-in mechanisms to shield law enforcement not from terrorists, but from accountability.
For all the talk of how the PATRIOT Act is somehow systematically unraveling our freedoms, it's not the only time this sort of thing has been done during a time of war.
How is the second half of this sentence a refutation of the first half? The fact that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the civil war doesn't mean that suspending habeus corpus is not a fundemental attack on your constitutional rights. If your point is that these rights will someday be reinstated because that's what happened in the past, then your argument has no logical force. Given the current context, we're not likely to see any roll-back of the powers granted to law enforcement.
We cannot afford to give more civil protections to Tony Soprano than we do to Osama bin Laden, which was the state of US law before September 11.
Ignoring the fact that Tony Soprano is a fictional character, one would expect that as a US citizen he would have certain rights not extended to OBL. As far as I know the Mafia had no more to do with the attack on the World Trade Center than did, well, Iraq. We've had at least 10 years of declining crime in the US, the notion that withouth the Patriot Act, law enforcement was not able to do it's job is completely unsupported. The balance you seek existed before 9/11, and can be reinstated by allowing the Patriot Act to lapse.
The US Constitution specifies some things that the federal government shall do and specifies particular procedures for doing those. Much of the rest of the Constitution is a list of things the federal government cannot do.
This stands to reason. If there is no limit to what the federal government can do, or no limit to what can be accomplished with a majority vote, why bother to have a constitution? Without the long list of limits, you could have written it on a 18th century Post-It note: "We the people of the United States of America empower the government to do whatever a majority of our elected representatives vote for and the elected president signs. The supreme judiciary shall verify that whatever is done is done according the letter of the laws we pass." This, of course, is a recipe for an elected tyrany.
So, no, it is not possible for something under the Patriot act, or any other law, to make legal a government activity that would otherwise be forbidden by the Constitution. If any offending part of the Patriot act is used to bring someone to court, it will immediately be struck down.
This does not, however, prevent Patriot act powers to be used to pursue someone, then find other offenses under other laws (tax evasion, for example, Mr Capone?) to charge them with, thus shielding the Patriot act powers from court scrutiny. Remember, you have to have standing in order to challenge a law, i.e. you personally must be charged or restrained under the law in order to challenge it.
I think that Congress should review the prosecution history of the Patriot Act powers. If someone has not been successfully prosecuted under a particular section, or the agencies involved cannot positively indicate when they will begin court proceedings under that section of law, then obviously, that power is not valuable for the purpose it was passed, and should be repealed. You don't leave matches in the hands of babies, firearms in the hands of violent felons, sportscar keys in the hands of teenagers, you shouldn't leave unneeded powers in the hands of government.
However, and ironicallly, I think if you polled those people, you'd find relatively low support for USA PATRIOT. In fact, I think if you polled all the citzens of those cities most likely to be affected by a future attack, you'd find much lower support than in the Heartland-WalMart demographic that is extremely unlikely to ever be targeted by foreign terrorism.
Perhaps the administrators of /. could emphasize the purpose of modding more than they do now.
If the administration didn't let Rumsfield resign over Abu Gharib, why should we think it's going to let the Justice Department give it's favorite roll-back of civil liberties a bad mark? It's just not going to happen.
We're producing propaganda pieces and selling them to TV stations as news stories, and we're going to come clean about Patriot Act abuses? Not a chance.
I mean, what do you think the Chinese government is going to conclude if they set up a task force to look into their possible human rights abuses??
Exactly right. I suspect that the FBI et al are pretty decent bunch of guys and gals who are doing their best to keep the free world safe, and so this finding does not surprise me.
But that doesn't change my belief that you should give the state as few powers as you can get away with, because power is dangerous when abused, and people are only human.
I don't really expect that Charles Clarke in the UK would have abused his proposed power of house arrest without involving the courts, but I still don;t think he should have that power. Even now he has to get a judge to sign off on it, I don't believe he needs that power.
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
The reason that the Department of Justice has not found any abuses of rights caused by the USA PATRIOT Act is because of the nature of the Act. It allows the government to detain anyone, anytime, without providing a reason, without allowing a trial, and without ever having to let them go. We don't know about any abuses because the abuse is also in the covering up. There may be thousands of prisoners held somewhere, not knowing why they are held, or how long they will be held for, but we will never know, because they are held, and the USA PATRIOT Act allows this to happen. They can't tell us that they're being abused because they have lost all of their rights. For those of you who are skimming, here it is in one sentence: There are no reported abuses by the USA PATRIOT Act because the Act itself suppresses reports of abuse.
All your
How can we possibly make everyone happy?
In the US, we call them trials. You know, where the government gets some smart people together, and they come up with this totally incredible thing called "proof" and convince this group of people who do nothing but sit all day and stare at the theatrics that they are, in fact, correct.
Or yeah, we could just throw random people into jails and claim they are obviously terrorists because otherwise they wouldn't have been thrown in jail. That works too.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I imagine if you asked a Japanese-American citizen during WWII--or an Arab-American now--you might have a somewhat less lackadaisical attitude.
Being arrested on secret charges and secret evidence and held indefinitely without trial has a way of affecting one's job, social status, and entire life. For some people so arrested, it might well be the end of everything.
As long as you're still free to decry the PATRIOT act, I don't think we have a major problem.
Quite right. As long as the First Amendment is preserved, why worry about spirit of the Fifth or Sixth Amendments? I'm sure that any detained individuals will be pleased to know that the rest of us are free to protest outside their cells--assuming we're told where they're being held. Hm.
~Idarubicin
My personal opinion is in line with that of the ACLU, but I can see how the Act could be considered useful as a government tool. However, as far as I've seen, it has not produced any terrorists for the courts to prosecute. All it has done it create major controversy in this country and made a lot of people really worried about their rights.
And, as many people have said, it doesn't matter if they haven't infringed on your rights yet, because by the time they do, it's too late for you to do anything about it.
All your
"...it's a list of what the GOVERNMENT can do..."
That portion is rather important
"It says ANY PERSON. That means anyone, anywhere, at any time."
"...unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger;..." (my emphasis added)
Folks, this is what happens when contributors to Slashdot blindly copy and paste. What you just read was more than just a trivial typo or grammatical error. That was a self-documented mis-understanding. If left un-challenged, it could (and probably would) lead to further mis-understanding.
I am not a lawyer (then again neither are you, just a hunch), but if you really want to formulate an educated opinion, do some research about the Constitution on your own.
U.S. Constitution (Gutenberg.org - HTML)
U.S. Constitution (Gutenberg.org - plain text)
First, you have been trolled by the parent post.
Second, a world government is bad because it is SO distant from the common man. In the United States, according to the Constitution, I have the right to elect those who rule me, on a state and federal level (lets leave the electoral college out of this one for simplicity's sake). However, my life is impacted by globalization organizations like the WTO, which passes laws or rules or resolutions or judgements which by treaty force my elected federal government to change our laws or enact new laws to stay in compliance and avoid punitive action. What say do I have in the WTO, and how exactly did I agree to be ruled by them. I understand how we got here and I understand how some people see a need for such, but I believe that supernational governments like the WTO or the EU or even the UN, disenfranchises citizens like me who are members of a democracy, who have established the federal laws and system by which we agreed to be ruled, and suddenly have found a new layer of government on top of us which is far far out of our reach. All the anti-globalization protesters who show up at WTO meetings and shout outside may have the right to protest if they live in a nation like the US, but they don't have the right to actually vote against actions on that organization.
Supernational organizations with binding authority disenfranchise the common voter in any nation that allows voting, in my opinion. That's one of the reasons I pity my European cousins now living under the EU. I'm just waiting for the American Union to be created so that my national represented officials will have to share an equal vote with not only Canadian and Mexican officials, but officials from the Dominican Republic can also make decisions and vote to affect my life. Thanks but no thanks.
Why is it that we have to wait until something goes wrong before fixing things? Especially considering the relative youth of the PATRIOT Act.
"Well, there aren't any abuses, yet... So everything's A-OK."
The USA-PATRIOT act was signed in the hysterical, paranoid aftermath (within weeks) of the the 9-11-01 attacks. It received broad bipartisan support, naturally. At the time, though, people in podunk towns all across America were deathly afraid that terrorists might fly planes into the local piggly-wiggly or tastee-freez. When a populace is hysterical and paranoid, they'll agree to anything that purports to increase safety or allow law enforcement greater power to identify and lock up the evildoers. Once you've identified a person or group of people as "Evil", you can do anything to them -- even inhuman, unethical things -- because they're not human.
The act allows library and bookstore records to be searched under secret warrant. If such a warrant is served, it is unlawful for the librarian/bookseller to disclose the event or its parameters -- the secrecy must be maintained because you don't want to tip the terrorists off and you can't compromise national security. What if someone's browsing for books about poisons or explosives? This would mean that they're thinking about poisons or explosives, and if they're thinking about these things, they may be thinking about a crime. So what is the secret search trying to find out? It's trying to find people who may be thinking about things that could be related to crime -- thoughtcrime. The Orwellian quality of it is frightening.
The act permits secret warrants to be issued for unannounced secret searches of any and all premises that are the subject of terror-related investigations. Anything can be confiscated or taken, without any public record, as a part of the search. The owner of the premises need not be informed of who did the search (or even that a search took place) or what was taken as a part of the secret investigation. The act basically allows law enforcement/intelligence/covert/homeland security agencies to conduct burglaries of any property in the US without any evidence or charges being brought beforehand. Speculation is all that is required, in addition to the secret sanction of a judge who (as it turns out) is bound by the law to not reveal that the investigation, warrant or subsequent search and seizure of property ever took place.
No-fly and watch lists -- enough has been posted about these already.
To return to my introductory point, so much of what the act allows is so secret that there is no way to determine if abuse has taken place. What's especially alarming is that in the 18 months following the 9-11-01 attacks, sooooo many things (like drug abuse and insurance fraud) were being implicitly associated with terrorism. What were ordinary instances of bad judgement or lawbreaking pre-09-11-01 suddenly became wrapped in terrorist clothes. After passage of the act, its scope seemed to snowball and since we don't have any way of knowing how the growth in scope has been exploited (since its all secret!), we may have unleased a Stasi-style security apparatus under the aegis of USA-PATRIOT.
The whole thing gives me the willies. It's doubleplusungood.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
If someone told you that you wern't allowed to say 'foo' (and there was no viable reason, other than retaining more than his/her fair share of power) would it matter at all if it wasn't enforced/used? Wouldn't it make you mad that someone had the right to violate your free speech at all?
This is about the principle of the law. It allows governments, at will, to violate your rights. While it may not be immediatly proveable that they are abusing it, the *very fact* that it's there is a threat to americans.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
"You liberal hippy pot smokers"
I was right there with you riding to glory till you threw the "pot smokers" in. The rest of te post was sweet though!!!
Think for a second. Forget whether or not the bill of rights applies to their situation, and ask yourself: Why did we pass the bill of rights? What is the value behind it? When a suspect is so obviously caught red-handed doing a bad thing, just what is the point of giving them due process, instead of lynching them on-the-spot?
Those questions shouldn't be hard to answer. If they are hard, then you're a American poseur, comrade.
But assuming you can answer them, you will see that all the reasons for those principles applying to American citizens, apply to everyone else too. The people at Gitmo should have trials, not because it's the law, but because it's how Americans should want their government to behave. Alas, most of us don't really want it anymore, because we lost the cold war with USSR and they assimilated us into their culture. (Am I joking? Is that tongue-in-cheek? I don't even know anymore.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Qui custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchmen?
If you try and find out about President Bush's arrest and conviction record you have a hard time. The CIA is doing a purge of de-classified information, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=4535175
If you research the Bush Family history back a few generations where Congress had to intervene because of War Profiteering (seeling goods to the other side of a war we were fighting), and some of the original moneys to build some "synthetic fuel" plants in Germany that were later made famous for other reasons. You can see that is is easier although time consuming to cover your tracks and sanitize history.
This presidency has the reputation of being the most closed with regard to sharing information. That is our publicly elected representative does not want us to interfere with his proper running of government. But aren't we suposed to audit his business dealing?
My point is that with the new powers given in the Patriot act, it may be hard to get to the evidence of abuse as that would be classified information and not availble possibly even with the use of the Freedom of Information act powers.
If all else fails, shred the evidence, whoever they are, after all we don't want to look bad on camera do we. Is my collar straight? Smile
The so-called Patriot Act is definitely being abused. I have been placed on the no-fly list. Because it is secret, I can not find out who placed me on it or why and there are no procedures to challenge the listing.
I'm pretty sure I'm there in retaliation for political activities that are covered under the First Amendment, but the Bill of Rights is completely meaningless under the Bush Regime.