ANALYSIS OF THE US PATRIOT ACT

Several subscribers have requested I do an analysis of the US Patriot Act, which would have been more appropriately entitled the US Patriot Surveillance Act. A definitive analysis of the Act has already been ably written by Kelly Patricia O’Meara of Insight Magazine. I will summarize the major issues in brief. You can read her entire article at http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=143236 .

· The Act creates a definition of terrorism so broad that almost any minor criminal offense and even some misdemeanors could be construed as terrorist acts. According to the Act, any “activity that involves acts dangerous to human life that violate the laws of the United States or any state and appear to be intended [vague]: (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping” could be construed as terrorism. Like the government’s expanded use of RICO statutes to impose additional unwarranted penalties on two or more people for acting as a “conspiracy,” so this new definition of terrorism can potentially include almost all non-terrorist criminal acts--as long as they can be made to appear to intimidate or coerce civilian or government entities. What crime doesn’t have some element of intimidation or coercion?

· The Act nearly eliminates any judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by federal law-enforcement authorities. Federal agencies have been conducting illegal surveillance of civilians for years, but the Act makes their authority to do so official.

· It expands the ability of the government to conduct secret “sneak and peak” warrantless searches. Section 213 (Authority for Delaying Notice of the Execution of a Warrant) effectively allows police to avoid giving prior warning for searches of personal property. Before the Act, the government was supposedly required to obtain a warrant and give notice to the person whose property was to be searched. According to the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution, “No warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” This provision is violated all the time by government officials, who either refuse to allow victims to see the warrant, or who use generic warrants that don’t even come close to specifying the specific person to be served nor the things to be searched for or seized. With the passage of the US Patriot Act, such violations will now be even more common.

· Section 215 authorizes the FBI to acquire any business records whatsoever by order of a secret US court without having to show evidence of a crime. The recipient of such a search order is forbidden from telling any person that he has received such a request, which is a violation of First and Fourth Amendment protections of free speech and private property.

· The Act gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to arbitrarily designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations, and to deport any noncitizen who belongs to such designated associations. This will lead to broad based snooping of any American citizens whom Federal agencies view as ‘hostile to government.’ This tactic is already being used in Maricopa County in Arizona, where federal officials included in a published watch list of potential domestic terrorists “defenders of the US Constitution against government and the UN (Super Patriots).” Since when is being a critic of government or the UN a crime?

· The Act allows unverified information gathered in any federal investigation to be shared with intelligence agencies, and put on national databases, without public scrutiny or recourse against such information if false. This constitutes one of the main pillars of a Police State.

· Section 216 gives law enforcement agencies unlimited access to Internet communications.

· Most of the sweeping changes the Act makes have little or nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Drug enforcement powers are widely expanded, as well as the ability of federal agencies to make seizures of private property. This same kind of expansion was instigated by the 1996 antiterrorism legislation, passed in the wake of the OKC bombing incident. Most of the additional surveillance laws were used to prosecute drug trading, gambling, and prostitution