From Ted Patterson:
Call Rep. Harris’s office to ask him to vote against extension of three Constitution shredding provisions of the USA Patriot Act. This vote will occur this week so please call Rep. Harris at 202-225-5311. At the very least it is inconclusive on all three of these provisions as to how they have actually aided us in apprehending terrorists or stopping terrorist plots. The Patriot Act violates our 4th Amendment rights under the US Constitution by permitting roving wiretap warrants that do not name an individual target. Prior FISA law did not require actual “probable cause” for obtaining warrants for business record orders and the Patriot Act requires even less than FISA. Not having probable cause and issuing a warrant anyhow is another violation of our 4th Amendment protections. Furthermore, the Lone Wolf provision has never been used ever–yet somehow we are still told that government needs this authority? Federal Courts have already found gag provisions of the “National Security Letter” statutes of the Patriot Act to be unconstitutional. The Inspector General of the US Dept. of Justice has said that his office found that FBI misuse of Patriot Act authority is “widespread and serious.” The FBI has been breaking the law and shredding up the Constitution under Patriot Act authority for years and this is well documented in reports published. Please remember Benjamin Franklin’s warning: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Thank you,
Ted Patterson
I wonder if Ted Patterson also opposes the more rigorous airport screening requirements. Sure it’s not friendly, but a guy snuck a bomb onto a plane on Christmas day in his crotch and now people want to tell terrorists that we will check everywhere but their crotch so go ahead and hide your bombs there.
To respond to your question, I do not have a problem with being checked at the airport. I don’t see that as some sort of illegal search or seizure because I am willingly allowing them to check my bags as a condition of my using their service i.e. flying in the airplane. I think that issue is significantly different than the Patriot Act issue.
Wow, my respect level for you just rose immensely. I assumed your objections to the Patriot Act were based upon some knee jerk reaction of government intervention into our lives for no reason, however, I will now look deeper into your criticisms of the decade old terror law. I apologize for making my own stereotype of you. I just get frustrated at civil libertarians criticizing TSA screening procedures when they keep me safe when I fly for work.
The patriot act applies to you, details, whether you choose to fly or not. If you are in your house, you can be served a warrant that was written at your door an not approved by a judge.
You can then be told that if you speak about the search of your home, you will be arrested.
That is scary, even if you think the terrorists are out to get you.
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Ben Franklin – The Patriot Act counts!
“The Patriot Act violates our 4th Amendment rights under the US Constitution by permitting roving wiretap warrants that do not name an individual target.”
Roving wiretaps have been used routinely by domestic law enforcement since the mid-80’s, but national security agents did not have this garden-variety investigative tool until the Patriot Act. This provision allows law enforcement, AFTER approval from the FISA court, to track a suspect as he moves from cell phone to cell phone.
The government must prove there is a probable cause to believe the target is a FOREIGN power or an AGENT of a FOREIGN power. It further requires continuous monitoring by the FISA court and SUBSTANSTIAL reporting requirements to that court by the government.
And this is bad bacause . . . ???
“Prior FISA law did not require actual “probable cause” for obtaining warrants for business record orders and the Patriot Act requires even less than FISA.”
Domestic law enforcement, working with local prosecutors, routinely rely on business records, often through supoenas. National security officials, however, did not have the same authority prior to the Patriot Act. This provision allows law enforcement, with APPROVAL from the FISA court, to require disclosure of business records. Organizations being asked to turn over documents can appeal any order to the FISA court.
Well, this sounds ok to me – it’s already being done by domestic law enforcement.
“the Lone Wolf provision has never been used ever–yet somehow we are still told that government needs this authority?”
This allows law enforcement to track NON-US citizens acting alone to commit acts of terrorism not connected to any organized group.
The fact that this law has never been used is no reason to oppose it. I personally WANT the government to track NON-US citizens acting alone (or together) to commit acts of terrorism (US citizens as well).
“Federal Courts have already found gag provisions of the “National Security Letter” statutes of the Patriot Act to be unconstitutional”
Actually, no single provision of the Patriot Act has been found to be unconstitutional.
All of the provisions above are subject to routine oversight by both the FISA court and Congress.
Keep in mind at least 36 known terrorist plots have been foiled since 9/11.
In case anyone is wondering, I get my information from The Heritage Foundation.
I’d love to know where the author gets his information from.
While abuses of the Patriot are too numerous too mention here is a link for an orientation on the abuse of the “sneek and peek” warrant feature of the act.
It is a video of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSXMW2FMC7A&feature=player_embedded
Here are some explanations for the abbreviations used in the clip:
NSL – National Security Letter
IG – Inspector General
FISA – Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
“Abuses of the Patriot Act are too numerous to mention”.
Ok, so it’s being “abused” – that is wrong. But is the law a good law ? The whole reason for it was in response to sleeping on the job that led to 9/11.
If you can come up with perfect people to implement laws, perfect judges, etc., let me know.
I want the government to be very aggressive in rooting out terrorism, foreign and domestic. They should have the right tools to fight an amorphous enemy.
Please take a look at this 2007 article about a lawyer who was wrongfully accused in Oregon of being involved with a terrorist act in Spain by the FBI. Take a look at what the FBI did to him. He took them to Court and the federal judge in the case found that certain parts of the Patriot Act were unconstitutional.
http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-26/us/patriot.act_1_brandon-mayfield-fourth-amendment-patriot-act?_s=PM:US
In a March 11th 2007 editorial entitled “Abuse of Authority, (The FBI’s gross misuse of a counterterrorism device)”, the Washington Post stated the following:
“THE EXPANSION of law enforcement powers approved by Congress after Sept. 11 and contained in the USA Patriot Act was conditioned on the notion that these new authorities would be carefully used and closely monitored. An infuriating report released Friday by the Justice Department’s inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, demonstrates that the Federal Bureau of Investigation treated its new powers with anything but that kind of restraint. The report depicts an FBI cavalierly using its expanded power to issue “national security letters” without adequate oversight or justification”
Later in the article: “Having obtained these far-reaching new powers, according to the report, the FBI proceeded to “seriously misuse” them. It didn’t establish clear guidelines for using national security letters, didn’t institute an adequate system for approving requests and didn’t put in place procedures to purge information if the investigation fizzled.”
The article continued: “Beyond that — and perhaps the most disturbing revelation in a disturbing document — the FBI came up with a category of demands called exigent letters, in which agents got around even the minimal requirements of national security letters. These exigent letters — signed by FBI counterterrorism personnel not authorized to sign national security letters — assured telephone companies on the receiving end that investigators faced an emergency situation and that subpoenas or national security letters would follow.
These exigent letters were federal agents signing their own search warrants.
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution did not fall from the sky but came from the colonists direct experiences with British authority. The colonists hated the “Writs of Assistance Act” which gave British troops and agents the ability to write their own search warrants. Fast forward 240 years. Today the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution is being seriously challenged by the Federal government in the form of the Patriot Act, with Federal agents writing and carrying out their own search warrants without having to make the case for such warrant before a neutral third party, a judge. Seems to me we have come 360 degrees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/10/AR2007031000983.html
“For over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law”, [said the judge]
I think that comment is up for debate . . .
“Named to the bench in 1997 by President Clinton, Aiken is considered one of the more liberal judges on the federal bench in Oregon”
Well, that’s disconcerting – SURELY there’s no legislating from the bench, right ?
If the standard is “the FBI made a mistake”, then we may as well shut down the FBI to prevent future mistakes, no ?
Since CNN and the liberal judge love to smack down Republican / conservative principles, I still take with a grain of salt.
What was the reason for the mistake ? Were they out to “get” this guy ? Motivation is always key to understanding a crime.
Bill, your contention seems to be that the patriot act as a law is not bad, but the implementation is experiencing mistakes by imperfect people.
In fact, we have been continually lied too about reforms of those implementing the Patriot Act, with abuses escalating each year. Remember the March 11, 2007 article in the Washington Post I cited on the use of exigent letters. The article stated: “This lawless practice was so egregious it was stopped last May, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III announced”. But the use of exigent letters didn’t stop and the abuse level rose with agents obtaining records from phone companies with no official paperwork at all, but by simply face to face meetings asking for them.
I would ask you reference The Office of the Inspector General’s report in 2009 entitled “A review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Use of Exigent Letters and Other Forms of Informal Requests for Telephone Records”
It states on pages #288 and #289:
“In sum, in this review we found widespread use by the FBI of exigent letters and other informal requests for telephone records. These other requests were made by e-mail, face-to-face, on post-it notes, and by telephone, without first providing legal process or even exigent letters. The FBI also obtained telephone records through improper “sneak peeks”, community of interest (blacked out), and hot number (blacked out). Many of these practices violated FBI guidelines, Department policy, and the ECRA statute. In addition, we found that the FBI also made inaccurate statements to the FISA court related to its use of exigent letters. Some of the most troubling improper requests for telephone records occurred in the media leak cases, where the FBI sought and acquired reporters’ telephone billing records and calling activity information without following federal regulation or obtaining the required Attorney General approval.”
“Our review also found the FBI’s initial attempts at corrective action were seriously deficient, ill-conceived, and poorly executed. “
The summary then went on to call for the FBI to “implement the recommendations of this report and ensure that similar abuses of exigent letters or other requests for telephone records do not occur in the future”.
But once again the Department of Justice was ignored and the Inspector General’s report of 2010 called for removal of agents from their posts at the FBI, and a further review if prosecutions of agents were in order.
Here is a link to the Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General’s 2009 report:
http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/s1001r.pdf
In a September 17th, 2010 statement on his website Andy Harris promised the following:
“In recent years our Constitution has been treated as irrelevant. As a member of Congress, I will consider every proposal for its constitutional legitimacy and return appropriate powers to the states and to the people. I pledge to make legislative decisions ensuring all our constitutional rights are fully protected.”
Twice now, within the last week Congressman Harris has voted in favor of renewing provisions of the Patriot Act. When calling his office I was told the Congressman had received many phone calls on this issue, and had been made aware of numerous problems with this piece of legislation. I was told the Congressman would support hearings and a full review of the Patriot Act prior to its complete renewal next December. I guess when he stated the “I pledge to make legislative decisions ensuring all our constitutional rights are fully protected” part he forgot to say “not now, but at a latter date.”
Congressman Harris may talk the talk, but in this case he clearly did not walk the walk in terms of protecting our liberties as citizens of the United States.