-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/
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Terror Law: A win for fear, a loss for freedom
October 26 @ 12:54am
"Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny," British parliamentarian
Edmund Burke explained in 1800.
Two centuries have passed, but legislatures continue to reinforce the
link between bad law and tyranny. The U.S. Congress did so this week,
with the passage of the ambitiously named Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act.
Rare are the moments in American history when a Congress has
surrendered so many cherished freedoms in a single trip to the altar
of immediate fear.
Crafted in Attorney General John Ashcroft�s little shop of legal
horrors from the remnants of past assaults on the Constitution, the
"USA PATRIOT ACT" is a legislative Frankenstein�s monster.
"This bill goes light years beyond what is necessary to combat
terrorism," argues Laura Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington
National Office. "Included in the bill are provisions that would
allow for the mistreatment of immigrants, the suppression of dissent
and the investigation and surveillance of wholly innocent Americans."
And the bad legislation is now the law of the land. Signed Friday by President Bush,
it was opposed in the Senate only by Russ Feingold, D-Wi. In the House is drew broader
opposition from 62 Democrats -- including the ran
king Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Michigan�s John Conyers, and
Congressional civil liberties watchdogs such as Massachusetts� Barney Frank and
Georgia�s John Lewis -- as well as three Republicans and Vermon
t Independent Bernie Sanders.
What freedoms have Americans lost? Civil libertarians worry most that the new
legislation:
-- Permits the Attorney General to incarcerate or detain non-citizens based on mere
suspicion, and to deny re-admission to the U.S. of non-citizens (including lawful
permanent residents) for engaging in speech protected b
y the First Amendment.
-- Minimizes judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by law
enforcement authorities in anti-terrorism investigations AND in routine criminal
investigations unrelated to terrorism.
-- Expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches, again in
anti-terrorism investigations AND in routine criminal investigations unrelated to
terrorism. This means that law enforcement authorities can en
ter and search an individual�s home without presenting a warrant or in any way
informing the subject of the search.
-- Gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate
domestic groups as terrorist organizations and to block any non-citizen who belongs to
them from entering the country.
-- Makes the payment of membership dues to political organizations a deportable
offense.
-- 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.
-- Will 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.
-- 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 Un
ited States.
-- 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 inv
estigation.
-- Allows student records to be searched based on a very low standard of relevancy to
an investigation.
-- Creates a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" that could target people who
engage in acts of political protest and subject them to wiretapping and enhanced
penalties.
Standing alone in the Senate to oppose the legislation, Feingold recalled past
assaults on basic liberties: "The Alien and Sedition Acts, the suspension of habeas
corpus during the Civil War, the internment of Japanese-Am
ericans, German-Americans, and Italian-Americans during World War II,
the blacklisting of supposed communist sympathizers during the
McCarthy era, and the surveillance and harassment of antiwar
protesters, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., during the Vietnam
War."
He then explained to his fellow senators: "Now some may say, indeed
we may hope, that we have come a long way since the those days of
infringements on civil liberties. But there is ample reason for
concern. And I have been troubled in the past six weeks by the
potential loss of commitment in the Congress and the country to
traditional civil liberties."
In the contemporary legislature where he sits, the Senate of the
United States of America, no member would stand with Russ Feingold.
But he did not stand alone. Surely, a legislator from another era and
another legislature, Edmund Burke, was with him in spirit.
End<{{{
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