Dear Brigade,

"What does Ron Paul believe the nation's Founding Fathers would think 
of this law? "Our forefathers would think it's time for a revolution. This is 
why they revolted in the first place." Says Paul with a laugh, "They 
revolted against much more mild oppression...."

Brigade, see article below from Insight Magazine.

Also read: Is anti-terrorism anti-Constitution?
by Jon Dougherty at: 
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25229

The "Patriot Act"; roll call vote; Bill status; etc., can be found at: 
http://thomas.loc.gov
The Bill# is: H.R.2975

FTC-Linda

------

Nov. 9, 2001 - Insight Magazine
http://www.insightmag.com

Police State
By Kelly Patricia O’Meara - komeara@InsightMag.com

If the United States is at war against terrorism to preserve freedom, a 
new coalition of conservatives and liberals is asking, why is it doing so 
by wholesale abrogation of civil liberties? They cite the Halloween-week 
passage of the antiterrorism bill — a new law that carries the almost 
preposterously gimmicky title: "Uniting and Strengthening America by 
Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism 
Act" (USA PATRIOT Act). Critics both left and right are saying it not only 
strips Americans of fundamental rights but does little or nothing to 
secure the nation from terrorist attacks.

Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, one of only three Republican lawmakers to 
buck the House leadership and the Bush administration to vote against 
this legislation, is outraged not only by what is contained in the 
antiterrorism bill but also by the effort to stigmatize opponents. Paul tells 
Insight, "The insult is to call this a 'patriot bill' and suggest I'm not 
patriotic because I insisted upon finding out what is in it and voting no. I 
thought it was undermining the Constitution, so I didn't vote for it — and 
therefore I'm somehow not a patriot. That's insulting."

Paul confirms rumors circulating in Washington that this sweeping new 
law, with serious implications for each and every American, was not 
made available to members of Congress for review before the vote. "It's 
my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote — at least I 
couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games, kept the House in 
session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of 
staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to 
members before the vote."

And why would that be? "This is a very bad bill," explains Paul, "and I 
think the people who voted for it knew it and that's why they said, 'Well, 
we know it's bad, but we need it under these conditions.'" Meanwhile, 
efforts to obtain copies of the new law were stonewalled even by the 
committee that wrote it.

What is so bad about the new law? "Generally," says Paul, "the worst 
part of this so-called antiterrorism bill is the increased ability of the 
federal government to commit surveillance on all of us without proper 
search warrants." He is referring to Section 213 (Authority for Delaying 
Notice of the Execution of a Warrant), also known as the "sneak-and-
peek" provision, which effectively allows police to avoid giving prior 
warning when searches of personal property are conducted. Before the 
USA PATRIOT Act, the government had to obtain a warrant and give 
notice to the person whose property was to be searched. With one vote 
by Congress and the sweep of the president's pen, say critics, the right 
of every American fully to be protected under the Fourth Amendment 
against unreasonable searches and seizures was abrogated.

The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in 
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable 
searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall 
issue, 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." 

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is joining 
with conservatives as critics of the legislation, the rationale for the Fourth 
Amendment protection always has been to provide the person targeted 
for search with the opportunity to "point out irregularities in the warrant, 
such as the fact that the police may be at the wrong address or that the 
warrant is limited to a search of a stolen car, so the police have no 
authority to be looking into dresser drawers." Likely bad scenarios 
involving the midnight knock at the door are not hard to imagine.

Paul, a strict constructionist (see Picture Profile, Sept. 3), has a pretty 
good idea of what Americans may anticipate. "I don't like the sneak-and-
peek provision because you have to ask yourself what happens if the 
person is home, doesn't know that law enforcement is coming to search 
his home, hasn't a clue as to who's coming in unannounced … and he 
shoots them. This law clearly authorizes illegal search and seizure, and 
anyone who thinks of this as antiterrorism needs to consider its 
application to every American citizen."

The only independent in the House, Rep. Bernie Sanders from Vermont, 
couldn't support the bill for similar reasons: "I took an oath to support 
and defend the Constitution of the United States, and I'm concerned that 
voting for this legislation fundamentally violates that oath. And the 
contents of the legislation have not been subjected to serious hearings or 
searching examination." 

Nadine Strossen, president of the ACLU and professor of law at New 
York University, tells Insight, "The sneak-and-peek provision is just one 
that will be challenged in the courts. We're not only talking about the 
sanctity of the home, but this includes searches of offices and other 
places. It is a violation of the Fourth Amendment and poses tremendous 
problems with due process. By not notifying someone about a search, 
they don't have the opportunity to raise a constitutional challenge to the 
search." 

Even before the ink on the president's signature had dried, the FBI began 
to take advantage of the new search-and-seizure provisions. A handful of 
companies have reported visits from federal agents demanding private 
business records. C.L. "Butch" Otter (R-Idaho), another of the three GOP 
lawmakers who found the legislation unconstitutional, says he knew this 
provision would be a problem. "Section 215 authorizes the FBI to acquire 
any business records whatsoever by order of a secret U.S. court. The 
recipient of such a search order is forbidden from telling any person that 
he has received such a request. This is a violation of the First 
Amendment right to free speech and the Fourth Amendment protection 
of private property." 

Otter added that "some of these provisions place more power in the 
hands of law enforcement than our Founding Fathers could have dreamt 
and severely compromises the civil liberties of law-abiding Americans. 
This bill, while crafted with good intentions, is rife with constitutional 
infringements I could not support." 

Like most who actually have read and analyzed the new law, Strossen 
disagrees with several provisions not only because they appear to her to 
be unconstitutional but also because the sweeping changes it codifies 
have little or nothing to do with fighting terrorism. "There is no 
connection," insists Strossen, "between the Sept. 11 attacks and what 
is in this legislation. Most of the provisions relate not just to terrorist 
crimes but to criminal activity generally. This happened, too, with the 
1996 antiterrorism legislation where most of the surveillance laws have 
been used for drug enforcement, gambling and prostitution."

"I like to refer to this legislation," continues Strossen, "as the 'so-called 
antiterrorism law,' because on its face the provisions are written to deal 
with any crime, and the definition of terrorism under the new law is so 
severely broad that it applies far beyond what most people think of as 
terrorism." A similar propensity of governments to slide down the slippery 
slope recently was reported in England by The Guardian newspaper. 
Under a law passed last year by the British Parliament, investigators can 
get information from Internet-service providers about their subscribers 
without a warrant. Supposedly an antiterrorist measure, the British law 
will be applied to minor crimes, tax collection and public-health purposes.

Under the USA PATRIOT Act in this country, Section 802 defines 
domestic terrorism as engaging in "activity that involves acts dangerous 
to human life that violate the laws of the United States or any state and 
appear to be intended: (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." 

The ACLU has posted on its Website, www.aclu.org, a comprehensive 
list of the provisions and summarizes the increased powers for federal 
spying. The following are a sample of some of the changes as a result of 
the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. The legislation:

*minimizes judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet 
surveillance by law-enforcement authorities.

*expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches.

*gives the attorney general and the secretary of state the power to 
designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any 
noncitizen who belongs to them.

*grants the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about 
individuals without having to show evidence of a crime.

*leads to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" 
purposes.

More specifically, Section 203 (Authority to Share Criminal Investigative 
Information) allows information gathered in criminal proceedings to be 
shared with intelligence agencies, including but not limited to the CIA — 
in effect, say critics, creating a political secret police. No court order is 
necessary for law enforcement to provide untested information gleaned 
from otherwise secret grand-jury proceedings, and the information is not 
limited to the person being investigated.

Furthermore, this section allows law enforcement to share intercepted 
telephone and Internet conversations with intelligence agencies. No court 
order is necessary to authorize the sharing of this information, and the 
CIA is not prohibited from giving this information to foreign-intelligence 
operations — in effect, say critics, creating an international political 
secret police. 

According to Strossen, "The concern here is about the third branch of 
government. One of the overarching problems that pervades so many of 
these provisions is reduction of the role of judicial oversight. The 
executive branch is running roughshod over both of the other branches of 
government. I find it very bothersome that the government is going to 
have more widespread access to e-mail and Websites and that 
information can be shared with other law-enforcement and even 
intelligence agencies. So, again, we're going to have the CIA in the 
business of spying on Americans — something that certainly hasn't 
gone on since the 1970s."

Strossen is referring to the illegal investigations of thousands of 
Americans under Operation CHAOS, spying carried out by the CIA and 
National Security Agency against U.S. activists and opponents of the 
war in Southeast Asia.

Nor do the invasion-of-privacy provisions of the new law end with law 
enforcement illegally searching homes and offices, say critics. Under 
Section 216 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Modification of Authorities 
Relating to Use of Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices), 
investigators freely can obtain access to "dialing, routing and signaling 
information." While the bill provides no definition of "dialing, routing and 
signaling information," the ACLU says this means they even would 
"apply law-enforcement efforts to determine what Websites a person 
visits." The police need only certify the information they are in search of 
is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."

This does not meet probable-cause standards — that a crime has 
occurred, is occurring or will occur. Furthermore, regardless of whether a 
judge believes the request is without merit, the order must be given to 
the requesting law-enforcement agency, a veritable rubber stamp and 
potential carte blanche for fishing exhibitions.

Additionally, under Section 216, law enforcement now will have unbridled 
access to Internet communications. The contents of e-mail messages 
are supposed to be separated from the e-mail addresses, which 
presumably is what interests law enforcement. To conduct this process 
of separation, however, Congress is relying on the FBI to separate the 
content from the addresses and disregard the communications.

In other words, the presumption is that law enforcement is only 
interested in who is being communicated with and not what is said, 
which critics say is unlikely. Citing political implications they note this is 
the same FBI that during the Clinton administration could not adequately 
explain how hundreds of personal FBI files of Clinton political opponents 
found their way from the FBI to the Clinton White House.

And these are just a few of the provisions and problems. While critics 
doubt it will help in the tracking of would-be terrorists, the certainty is 
that homes and places of business will be searched without prior notice. 
And telephone and Internet communications will be recorded and shared 
among law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, all in the name of 
making America safe from terrorism. 

Strossen understands the desire of lawmakers to respond forcefully to 
the Sept. 11 attacks but complains that this is more of the same old 
same old. "Government has the tendency," she explains, "to want to 
proliferate during times of crisis, and that's why we have to constantly 
fight against it. It's a natural impulse and, in many ways, I don't fault it. In 
some ways they're just doing their job by aggressively seeking as much 
law-enforcement power as possible, but that's why we have checks and 
balances in our system of government, and that's why I'm upset that 
Congress just rolled and played dead on this one."

Paul agrees: "This legislation wouldn't have made any difference in 
stopping the Sept. 11 attacks," he says. "Therefore, giving up our 
freedoms to get more security when they can't prove it will do so makes 
no sense. I seriously believe this is a violation of our liberties. After all, a 
lot of this stuff in the bill has to do with finances, search warrants and 
arrests."

For the most part, continues Paul, "our rights have been eroded as much 
by our courts as they have been by Congress. Whether it's Congress 
being willing to give up its prerogatives on just about everything to deliver 
them to an administration that develops new and bigger agencies, or 
whether it's the courts, there's not enough wariness of the slippery slope 
and insufficient respect and love of liberty."

What does Paul believe the nation's Founding Fathers would think of this 
law? "Our forefathers would think it's time for a revolution. This is why 
they revolted in the first place." Says Paul with a laugh, "They revolted 
against much more mild oppression."

Kelly Patricia O'Meara is an investigative reporter for Insight. 

http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=143236

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