ACLU Cites Radical Expansion of FBI Powers July 30, 2003 - Press Release DETROIT The American Civil Liberties Union today filed the first legal challenge to the USA PATRIOT Act, taking aim at a section of the controversial law that vastly expands the power of FBI agents to secretly obtain records and personal belongings of innocent people in the United States, including citizens and permanent residents. Ordinary Americans should not have to worry that the FBI is rifling through their medical records, seizing their personal papers, or forcing charities and advocacy groups to divulge membership lists, said Ann Beeson, Associate Legal Director of the ACLU and the lead attorney in the lawsuit. We know from our clients that the FBI is once again targeting ethnic, religious, and political minority communities disproportionately, she added. Investing the FBI with unchecked authority to monitor the activities of innocent people is an invitation to abuse, a waste of resources, and is certainly not making any of us any safer. As the ACLU described in a report released today, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures as well as the rights to freedom of speech and association. The report, Unpatriotic Acts: The FBIs Power to Rifle Through Your Records and Personal Belongings Without Telling You, describes how the law: Violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing the FBI to search and seize records or personal belongings without a warrant, without showing probable cause -- and without ever notifying even innocent people of the searches; Violates the First Amendment because it allows the FBI to easily obtain information about a persons reading habits, religious affiliations, Internet surfing and other expressive activities that would be chilled by the threat of investigation; Violates the First Amendment by imposing a gag order that prohibits those served with Section 215 orders from telling anyone -- ever -- that the FBI demanded information, even if the information is not tied to a particular suspect and poses no risk to national security. The ACLU filed the lawsuit in federal court here today on behalf of six advocacy and community groups from across the country whose members and clients believe they are currently the targets of investigations because of their ethnicity, religion and political associations. The lawsuit names Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller as the defendants. The groups participating in the lawsuit are: Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor (MCA), which operates a mosque and school in Ann Arbor, MI; American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), a national civil rights organization based in Washington, DC; Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), a human services organization based in Dearborn, MI that operates a medical clinic as well as a center for refugees and torture victims; Bridge Refugee and Sponsorship Services (Bridge), based in Knoxville, TN; Council on American-Islamic Relations, a grassroots membership organization based in Washington, DC; and The Islamic Center of Portland, Masjed As-Saber, which operates a mosque and school, based in Portland, OR. read on.. http://www.aclumich.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=30961 responses total.
This is good to hear...The White House is kicking around the "Patriot Act II" right now. http://www.eff.org/Censorship/Terrorism_militias/patriot-act-II-analysis.ph p Soon if your a "power user" using an "off brand OS" you might be an enemy of the state. What a joke.
Well, what can I say? You are welcome to migrate to India and take up jobs that are outsourced from the US ;-) We are already a billion, a few more million won't hurt :D
Wow that hurt...What kind of jobs????? hehe $>|
Just be glad you folks have a constitution, and it's enforceable. In the UK we folks aren't so lucky. Parliament is sovereign, and can do whatever the hell it likes, limited only by European law. blech.
"Parliament is sovereign" may be true in theory, but that doesn't seem to be getting Mr. Blair (or the BBC) out of political hot water. Nor does it seem to prevent fairly regular changes in which political party 'controls' Parliament. Over here, our "enforcable" Constitution is interpreted by "independent" judges who (in practice) often seem to be anything but, and packing the bench with judges qualified far more by loyalty than professionism seems not to bother most of our indifferently-interested electorate.
Uh, apparently it must come as a surprise to some that there is currently a war on and the combatants not only don't wear uniforms easily identifying them as the enemy but they live among us. Even the draconian _Patriot Act_ which I personally detest has a sunset provision and so I for one am willing to put up with it for awhile. And yes, I know the quotes - I probably know more about the quotes than you do so don't bother. And yes I am fully aware that "temporary powers" granted to a government are rarerly surrendered - witness the 1913 Income tax act which was supposed to be temporary and was only on a small 2% or so of the "super rich". But there is a war on, so lets all sit back and see how this plays out. Right about now is not the time to be screwing with the mechanism of keeping US citizens safe - that is a process that should be reserved for peacetime.
And what if the said *war* continues for decades?? Like in Israel, UK, India and Russia? Terrorism's already won if you put such laws in place.
The war on terrorism will *never* be over; no sooner had we put to an end most of the violence in Northern Ireland than we found ourselves embroiled in a war to combat terrorism in the US which can only put Europe in harm's way. However, i do think that standing together with the US on this is important, because they probably would have moved on to us anyway evn if we had chosen to ignore our responsibilities at this time.
I hope that the ACLU gets traction in the courts with this. Our legislators really screwed up, and the Ashcroft/law-enforcement power grab was all too successful in the "shock and awe" aftermath of 9/11. Congress is showing some spine in refusing to fund any work on TIA (aka Big Brother), but legislation rolling back the mistakes isn't going to happen under Bush. (Another reason to oust Bush and make sure that J. Edgar Ashcroft has to find other employment.)
Yes. And then perhaps the G-d given right of each American to be blown to smithereens can be added to the Bill of Rights.
It's already there. See the 2nd Amendment.
re#11: Cheap shot, mary. One could equally say that if the 2nd amendment had been followed the arabs wouldn't have been able to take over the airplanes with box cutters. Clearly in the ACLU et al zeal to protect the ability of our enemies to function our citzens are at greater risk than if such research programs as the TIA and "dead pool" were allowed to function to see if useful information to prevent future events could be found. The next event that occurs its likely the same liberal crackpots that will then cry about the inability of the goverenment agencies to have prevented it while at the same time continuing to ignore that they are very much the cause of that inability.
I believe any development in the spirit of TIA by the US government is an irreversible mistake. The last thing the FBI or any other agency needs is "more intelligence" and a greater dependency upon wonder tools. In regards to the FBI, they have plenty of tools and have failed to protect one of their own buildings against home grown terrorism. If they had an ounce of intuition, and they were intent on basic security, they'd have junked all those MS Windows boxen and switched to something secure.(Linux,FreeBSD,etc etc) In doing so, and asking or urging other agencies / "citizens" to do the same, they's save us all loads of money and tons of BS defending crappy software. Goes to show you how forward thinking and concerned about security our government really is. (This is only one puny example.) After having flown a great deal all over the US this last year, I haven't seen one security measure in place that isn't laughable. In Vegas a bunch of the "Airport Security" folks were dismissed for having numerous types of felonies. These folks were screened by the government before being employed. One security guy looked at me and said he hated his job and wished he could go back to pushing people in wheel chairs. He had gotten a job as a valet after retiring. By the way, I carried around two 85 pound bags of electronic goods, batteries, wire, tools,computer components, etc etc... In Baltimore, they had mistakingly put both bags on the wrong flight. I rushed to baggage claim and was assured they'd be waiting for me behind the couter. The agent had no record of my bags or their being lost. We finally went on a search of the airport together and found them circling on a carousel. I was never questioned about their contents or my intentions. They did check inside my shoes though.....
This response has been erased.
Check this: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow?msid=110455 The Usual Suspect C UDAY BHASKAR [ MONDAY, AUGUST 04, 2003 12:00:30 AM ] The invitation from the US Air War College was firm. Regulations required that I enter and exit the US only through Atlanta. Having cleared immigration swiftly despite the 9/11 anxiety, I was ready to catch the domestic flight to Montgomery, Alabama, with three hours to kill. Since the airport was a strict no-smoking area, I stepped out with my cigar. Looking around, I saw another cigar smoker. We sized each other up as two middle-aged men would and while he looked at the NDA emblem on my blazer pocket, my gut said the man had been in uniform at some point. Soon we were on first-name basis and George confirmed that he had retired from the US air force where he had worked in intelligence and was now with airport security. It was time to check-in. The line was very long and there appeared to be a security alert. The quip was that bin Laden had been sighted in Atlanta. Passports, tickets and luggage were checked thoroughly and as the lines kept getting longer, patience was wearing thin. It was my turn. A harried Mr Thompson looked up, Yes, Sir. What is your flight number, destination and name? I gave the details. Suddenly he looked up, Uday. I have heard that name. The lady sitting next to him whispered something in his ear. Are you from Iraq? I clarified that I was from India. Step this side, said Mr Thompson and went into an office. Everyone was looking at me and the conversation was about Uday son of Saddam Hussein. After what seemed a very long time, Mr T came out and took me aside. I am sorry Sir, but you cannot get onto this flight. But I have a confirmed ticket all the way from Delhi, was in vain. The computer will not take your name, he said with chilling finality. I was taken inside a windowless room. Please open your bags, Sir. The carry-bag was opened and there were notes in a plastic folder with multi-coloured lecture cards, boldly scribbled with phrases like Terrorism and WMD , Clinton and nuclear weapons , bin Laden and 9/11 . My cigars in a bottle with moist cotton were held up. This is incriminating. I will have to call my boss, said a securityman. The boss walked in, cigar in hand. It was George. So you are the Uday who looks like bin Laden, he exclaimed. I was perplexed. As I was cleared to catch the next flight the puzzle fell into place. A zealous security beaver had linked my name with a computer-generated image that placed a turban on my head and I had inadvertently become bin Laden.
Re #10: Funny, Kerry, the government already had a couple of the 9/11 terrorists on watch lists long before the USA un-PATRIOTic act. What kept them from being nabbed (and the plot foiled) was inter-agency turf battles and failure of management to follow hard leads (like plans found after a terrorist was nabbeed in the Phillipines). The law does next to nothing to fix this. It does, however, allow secret search and seizure of records of all kinds, and prohibits disclosure of what is being searched. You might recall that the typical behavior of the government when it gets such powers isn't to protect the citizens, but to cover the asses of the people in authority (and the patrons who put them there). Do please try to make a case for J. Edgar Hoover's modus operandi as a right and proper state of affairs. I'm sure we will find it most enlightening. (An example of a government using power to cover its own ass at the expense of the citizens is China, during the SARS epidemic. We do not need to import Chinese Communist Party practices any more than we needed to import SARS; they are both diseases best eradicated.)
Call me paranoid but maybe this is where its leading to. The future: -Outsourcing of white collar jobs to India, Russia, Phillipines, Indonesia and of blue collar jobs to China, Korea and Taiwan leads to rising unemployment in the US and EU. -The EU is mostly turned US's stooge, politically and economically. -Civil Rights continue to be trampelled with laws like DMCA, Patriot Act, Homeland Security etc in the US and EU. Well .... take these three and you know what the situation is ripe for.
Emigration to the Far East to find work?
The Phillipines rise to become the dominant world power?
Naaahhh!! Rise of the fourth Reich. ;-)
After which China challenges the US hegemony and both fight to the end with mutual destruction assured. That leaves one superpower on the Earth - India.
This response has been erased.
Ohh!! By that time, most of the kashmiri civilians would've been killed by *freedom* fighters. We can kill the remaining few.
Doesn't sound that terribly far-fetched actually.
This response has been erased.
This response has been erased.
Me vs. Myself vs. I ....
Heh, seriously, who in pre-Nazi germany thought that Germany would give rise to a Hitler?
This response has been erased.
Ok, but how far would you dispute the following: 1. Unemployment is at an all-time high in the US and jobs are leaving the US fast. 2. Recently introduced laws are retrogressive as far as civil rights are concerned. 3. The EU is aligning its policies with the interests of the US, politically and economically. 4. US has its military presence almost across the whole globe.
This response has been erased.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/usapatriot_oakland021217.htm l Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: Freedom of Association Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation. Freedom of Information Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests. Freedom of Speech Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation. Right to Legal Representation Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes. Freedom from Unreasonable Searches Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation. Right to a Speedy and Public Trial Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial. Right to Liberty Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them. ------------------------------------------------------------------ You don't consider this against civil rights?? Just curious.
This response has been erased.
[http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59879,00.html] : Bush Impeached? Wanna Bet? Though there was an outcry over the Pentagon's terrorism futures market, a similar online exchange is in the works to predict what the U.S. government is up to. The American Action Market will offer various Washington "futures" that can be bet upon and traded. Examples include: * Which country will the White House threaten next? * Who will be the next foreign leader to move off the CIA payroll and onto the White House's "most wanted" list? * Which corporation with close ties to the White House will be the next cloaked in scandal? The AAM will begin registering traders in September and plans to open for business Oct. 1 -- the same launch date proposed for the Pentagon's terrorism market, until it was shelved. Like the Pentagon's scrapped Policy Analysis Market, the AAM lets traders "bet" on future events by buying and selling futures as though they were stocks. The higher the price, the more likely the market believes the event will occur. But instead of predicting terrorist strikes, the AAM will predict things like the next White House staffer to quit. [full story at http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59879,00.html]
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Business/story_50157.asp ------------------------------------------ AFP - The number of people in the existing US jobless pool - those claiming unemployment benefits for at least two weeks - has climbed to a 20-year high, the government said. ------------------------------------------ That may not be an all time high but should be worrying. About jobs leaving US, only time will tell whether they are come back or not. About US military, except for China, India and Russia? And they too are within aircraft and missile strikes of the US.
Except that the US is pulling back from those outposts.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2003/0710imperialmap.ht m 156 countries with US troops, 63 countries with US military bases and troops, 7 countries with 13 new bases since 9/11. 46 countries with no US troops. - Source DoD, Base Structure Report 2002 etc.
So what country would you recommend us progressives to emigrate to and how much would it be likely to cost?
This response has been erased.
Re #35: Your historical perspective is rather short. As recently as the late 1970's, US unemployment was in the neighborhood of 10% and inflation hit something like 17%. (The combination of a stagnant economy and inflation got its own name: stagflation.) People were not rioting in the streets. This is not to say that 6% unemployment might not get politicians to do stupid things for political advantage, but politicians don't need a crisis to do that; manufacturing crises or the impression of one is a required Poly Sci course nationwide (or might as well be ;-).
manufacturing crises / manufacturing consent ...?
Re #10: If the goal is to save lives, we'd be better off passing legislation that bans standing on golf courses during thunderstorms than passing anti-terrorism legislation. We're giving up our vital liberties in exchange for a slight increase in protection against a risk that's small to begin with. Re #38: New Zealand might be a good place. The U.S. Navy isn't allowed to dock there. They also treat their gay immigrants better than the U.S. treats its gay citizens, if that matters to you.
Are you suggesting gays should move to New Zealand?
i think you should.
This response has been erased.
Re #43: If the U.S. continues its path towards formally codifying discrimination against gays, they might at least want to think about moving to a friendlier country. I know some people who are planning moves to Canada because they feel the U.S. is getting steadily more conservative and theocratic. Re #45: All I'm saying is that if the goal is to move somewhere where the U.S. doesn't have a lot of influence, going somewhere the Navy can't dock isn't a bad idea. New Zealand won't allow the U.S. Navy to dock there because they're a "nuke free zone", and the U.S. Navy will "neither confirm nor deny" whether any particular ship is carrying nuclear weapons.
This response has been erased.
re44: HAW!
This seems like the appropriate place for this... http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20030914/ap_o n_go_ca_st_pe/anti_terror_laws_2 New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals Sun Sep 14, 1:14 PM ET Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo! By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer PHILADELPHIA - In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes. The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it has used authority given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and drug dealers. Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of "terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in his car. A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings about six months. Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and contains toxic chemicals. Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers. "Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. "They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary citizens." Prosecutors aren't apologizing. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) completed a 16-city tour this week defending the Patriot Act as key to preventing a second catastrophic terrorist attack. Federal prosecutors have brought more than 250 criminal charges under the law, with more than 130 convictions or guilty pleas. The law, passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, erased many restrictions that had barred the government from spying on its citizens, granting agents new powers to use wiretaps, conduct electronic and computer eavesdropping and access private financial data. Stefan Cassella, deputy chief for legal policy for the Justice Department's asset forfeiture and money laundering section, said that while the Patriot Act's primary focus was on terrorism, lawmakers were aware it contained provisions that had been on prosecutors' wish lists for years and would be used in a wide variety of cases. In one case prosecuted this year, investigators used a provision of the Patriot Act to recover $4.5 million from a group of telemarketers accused of tricking elderly U.S. citizens into thinking they had won the Canadian lottery. Prosecutors said the defendants told victims they would receive their prize as soon as they paid thousands of dollars in income tax on their winnings. Before the anti-terrorism act, U.S. officials would have had to use international treaties and appeal for help from foreign governments to retrieve the cash, deposited in banks in Jordan and Israel. Now, they simply seized it from assets held by those banks in the United States. "These are appropriate uses of the statute," Cassella said. "If we can use the statute to get money back for victims, we are going to do it." The complaint that anti-terrorism legislation is being used to go after people who aren't terrorists is just the latest in a string of criticisms. More than 150 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the law as an overly broad threat to constitutional rights. Critics also say the government has gone too far in charging three U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, a power presidents wield during wartime that is not part of the Patriot Act. The government can detain such individuals indefinitely without allowing them access to a lawyer. And Muslim and civil liberties groups have criticized the government's decision to force thousands of mostly Middle Eastern men to risk deportation by registering with immigration authorities. "The record is clear," said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way Foundation. "Ashcroft and the Justice Department have gone too far." Some of the restrictions on government surveillance that were erased by the Patriot Act had been enacted after past abuses — including efforts by the FBI (news - web sites) to spy on civil rights leaders and anti-war demonstrators during the Cold War. Tim Lynch, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, said it isn't far fetched to believe that the government might overstep its bounds again. "I don't think that those are frivolous fears," Lynch said. "We've already heard stories of local police chiefs creating files on people who have protested the (Iraq (news - web sites)) war ... The government is constantly trying to expand its jurisdictions, and it needs to be watched very, very closely." ___ On the Net: Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites): http://www.aclu.org
Can't say I'm surprised, after seeing how RICO has been used in abortion-rights cases.
This response has been erased.
According to the article, the fear is that the government "soon will be" using anti-terrorism laws to prosecute run-of-the-mill cases, not that they currently are. In other words, we're on a slippery slope. So, the US is supposed to take its cue from European law? Is that what you're saying? As for me, I share the concerns voiced by the ACLU and others, including such flaming liberals as William Safire. I've kept my ACLU membership current and sent them additional donations as well.
This response has been erased.
Re: #52 We're not just on a slippery slope - we're skiing! ;-) I couldn't find the article of a few days ago, in the NYT, I believe, where it was reported how the Patriot Act was being used to gather evidence for ordinary (non-terrorist) crime. But here is a quote from an article dated 9/7/03 from the Dallas Morning News. "Though the government has not revealed most of the details of how it has applied the Patriot Act, the Justice Department told Congress in May that it is using the law in criminal cases, not just terrorism investigations. Federal agents have used the new tools to seize a con man's assets; track down computer hackers and a fugitive; identify the hoaxster who made a school bomb threat, and monitor kidnappers' communications, the department advised the House Judiciary Committee. In-house documents show that prosecutors are exploring other ways to use Patriot Act authorities in criminal investigations." The full on-line article is at: http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/6716551.htm
So, "terrorism" was just used an excuse for negating many of the normal protections for civil rights. That was to be expected.
Re #49: > Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which > defines chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance > that is designed or has the capability to cause death or serious > injury" and contains toxic chemicals. So you could get 12 years to life for posessing battery acid? I had a feeling we were all being played for suckers when this law was passed. It was never really about terrorism.
A few months ago, Time did a piece on Mr. Franklin, including his famous statement about sacrificing liberty for security. Congress really should have known better.
Hmmm. Looks like it's probably illegal to be a chemist.
Not just that - many people possess sodium hypochlorite and/or gasoline, both of which can cause death or serious injury, and which are certainly both toxic.
And of course water is a chemical as much as any other and can cause death, Etc., but maybe I caused misinterpretation.
Really. If that is the legal basis for those convictions, then the convicted's counsel was incompetent.
You have several choices: