Congress Prepares To Extend Patriot Act

[rafaeltoral]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/01/congress-quietly-prepares-renew-patriot-act/

Congress quietly prepares to renew Patriot Act

By David Edwards and Stephen Webster


Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has introduced a little-noticed bill that intends to once again renew controversial provisions of the Bush administration's USA Patriot Act that are due to expire this year.

When the act was first signed into law, Congress put in some "sunset" provisions to quiet the concerns of civil libertarians, but they were ignored by successive extensions. Unfortunately, those concerns proved to be well founded, and a 2008 Justice Department report confirmed that the FBI regularly abused their ability to obtain personal records of Americans without a warrant.

The only real sign of strong opposition to the act was in 2005, when a Democratic threat to filibuster its first renewal was overcome by Senate Republicans.

Since the bill introduced by Rogers on Jan. 5 was virtually identical to the extension passed last year, its passage was seen as likely.

"Given the very limited number of days Congress has in session before the current deadline, and the fact that the bill’s Republican sponsor is only seeking another year, I think it’s safe to read this as signaling an agreement across the aisle to put the issue off yet again," the libertarian Cato Institute's Julian Sanchez wrote.



"In the absence of a major scandal, though, it’s hard to see why we should expect the incentives facing legislators to be vastly different a year from now," he added. "I’d love to be proven wrong, but I suspect this is how reining in the growth of the surveillance state becomes an item perpetually on next year’s agenda."

As senator, Obama promised to support reforming the Patriot Act, but voted in favor of extending it in 2005 and 2008. Similarly, he signed last year's extension into law with little fanfare. FBI and Department of Justice officials had consistently argued that restricting their blanket authority to conduct warrantless searches would harm national security.

Candidate Obama said in 2007 that if he were elected president there would be "no more National Security Letters [NSL's] to spy on citizens who are not suspected of a crime" because "that is not who we are, and it is not what is necessary to defeat the terrorists."

Much like Obama's vow to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison, the use of NSL's has also continued. Most recently, Obama's Department of Justice sent a secret court order to micro-blogging site Twitter, seeking information on all 635,561 users who followed secrets outlet WikiLeaks -- a list that included Raw Story. Twitter appealed the secrecy and was granted the right to reveal the government's request.

The New York Times noted the case as placing the spotlight back on the government's use of NSL's.

Obama's campaign website insisted that he has consistently said he would support a Patriot Act extension that strengthens civil liberties.

Action on his campaign pledge had yet to emerge by the start of 2011, and no significant reforms were reflected in Rep. Rogers' proposed extension.

Former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), perhaps the Senate's strongest opponent of the Patriot Act, was defeated by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in the 2010 mid-term elections.

A prior version of this article identified the Cato Institute as "conservative-leaning." In an email to Raw Story, they asked to instead be described instead as "libertarian."

[knottwhole]

Remember, if you smoke marijuana, you're a terrorist.

[rafaeltoral]

How Congress Has Assaulted Our Freedoms in the Patriot Act

 

by Andrew P. Napolitano

 

The compromise version of the Patriot Act to which House and Senate conferees agreed last week and for which the House voted yesterday is an unforgivable assault on basic American values and core constitutional liberties. Unless amended in response to the courageous efforts of a few dozen senators from both parties, the new Patriot Act will continue to give federal agents the power to write their own search warrants – the statute’s newspeak terminology calls them "national security letters" – and serve them on a host of persons and entities that regularly gather and store sensitive, private information on virtually every American.

 

Congress once respected the Fourth Amendment until it began cutting holes in it. Before Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) in 1977, Americans and even non-citizens physically present here enjoyed the right to privacy guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment. That Amendment, which was written out of a revulsion to warrants that let British soldiers look for any tangible thing anywhere they chose, specifically requires that the government demonstrate to a judge and the judge specifically find the existence of probable cause of criminal activity on the part of the person whose property the government wishes to search. The Fourth Amendment commands that only a judge can authorize a search warrant.

 

FISA unconstitutionally changed the probable cause of criminality requirement to probable cause of employment by a foreign government, hostile or friendly. Under FISA, if the government can demonstrate the foreign agency or employment status of the person whose things it wishes to search, the secret FISA court will issue the search warrant.

 

But even FISA respects constitutional liberty, since it prohibits prosecutions based on evidence obtained from these warrants. Thus, if a FISA warrant reveals that the embassy janitor is really a spy who beats his wife, he would not and could not be prosecuted for either crime because the evidence of his crimes was obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of a judicial finding of probable cause of criminal activity. Instead of being prosecuted, he would be deported.

 

A year later in 1978, cutting yet another hole in the Fourth Amendment, Congress revealed its distaste for fidelity to the Constitution and its ignorance of the British government’s abuse of the colonists by enacting the Orwellian–named, Right to Financial Privacy Act. This statute, for the first time in American history, let federal agents write their own search warrants, but limited the subjects of those warrants to financial institutions. Just like FISA, it recognized the unconstitutional nature of evidence obtained by a self-written search warrant, and banned the use of such evidence in criminal prosecutions.

 

In 1986, Congress continued to cut. It disregarded yet again the Fourth Amendment’s protection of privacy when it enacted the Electronic Communications Privacy Act which allowed federal agents to serve self-written search warrants on collectors of digital financial data, but continued to recognize that evidence thus obtained was constitutionally incompetent for criminal prosecution purposes.

 

The deepest cut came on October 15, 2001 when Congress enacted the Patriot Act. With minimal floor debate in the Senate and no floor debate in the House (House members were given only 30 minutes to read the 315 page bill), Congress enacted this most unpatriotic rejection of privacy and constitutional guarantees. Together with its offspring the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal 2004 and the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, the Patriot Act not only permits the execution of self-written search warrants on a host of new subjects, it rejects the no-criminal-prosecution protections of its predecessors by requiring evidence obtained contrary to the Fourth Amendment to be turned over to prosecutors and mandating that such evidence is constitutionally competent in criminal prosecutions.

 

The new version of the Patriot Act which the Senate will debate this weekend purports to make all of this congressional rejection of our history, our values, and our Constitution the law of the land.

 

So, if your representative in the House has voted, or your Senators do vote, for the House/Senate conference approved version, they will be authorizing federal agents on their own, in violation of the Constitution, and without you knowing it, to obtain records about you from your accountant, bank, boat dealer, bodega, book store, car dealer, casino, computer server, credit union, dentist, HMO, hospital, hotel manager, insurance company, jewelry store, lawyer, library, pawn broker, pharmacist, physician, postman, real estate agent, supermarket, tax collectors, telephone company, travel agency, and trust company, and use the evidence thus obtained in any criminal prosecution against you.

 

Why would Congress, whose members swore to uphold the Constitution, authorize such a massive evasion of it by the federal agents we have come to rely upon to protect our freedoms? Why would Congress nullify the Fourth Amendment–guaranteed right to privacy for which we and our forbearers have fought and paid dearly? How could the men and women we elect to fortify our freedoms and write our laws so naïvely embrace the less-freedom-equals-more-security canard? Why have we fought for 230 years to keep foreign governments from eviscerating our freedoms if we will voluntarily let our own government do so?

 

The unfortunate answer to these questions is the inescapable historical truth that those in government – from both parties and with a few courageous exceptions – do not feel constrained by the Constitution. They think they can do whatever they want. They have hired vast teams of government lawyers to twist and torture the plain meaning of the Fourth Amendment to justify their aggrandizement of power to themselves. They vote for legislation they have not read and do not understand. Their only fear is being overruled by judges. In the case of the Patriot Act, they should be afraid. The federal judges who have published opinions on the challenges to it have all found it constitutionally flawed.

 

The Fourth Amendment worked for 200 years to facilitate law enforcement and protect constitutional freedoms before Congress began to cut holes in it. Judges sit in every state in the Union 24/7 to hear probable cause applications for search warrants. There is simply no real demonstrable evidence that our American-value-driven-constitutional-privacy-protection-system is in need of such a radical change.

 

A self-written search warrant, even one called a national security letter, is the ultimate constitutional farce. What federal agents would not authorize themselves to seize whatever they wished? Why even bother with such a meaningless requirement? We might as well let the feds rummage through any office, basement, computer, or bedroom they choose. Who would trust government agents with this unfettered unreviewable power? The Framers did not. Why would government agents bother going to a judge with probable cause seeking a search warrant if they can simply write their own? Big Brother must have caught on because federal agents have written and executed self-written search warrants on over 120,000 unsuspecting Americans since October 2001.

 

Is this the society we want? Have we ultimately elected a government to spy on all of us? The Fourth Amendment is the lynchpin of our personal privacy and individual dignity. Without the Fourth Amendment’s protections, we will become another East Germany. The Congress must recognize this before it is too late.

 

December 16, 2005

[thanks2]

Ok, lets see if the Dems meant what they said when they all preached the Patriot Act is the worst thing in the world. They rallied the people against the patriot act, but the repubs pushed it through. Do we have a one party system with big time wrestling theatrics, or will the dems block the renewal, which is well within their power. The dems control two branches of the government.

[+420Atheist]

Ok, lets see if the Dems meant what they said when they all preached the Patriot Act is the worst thing in the world. They rallied the people against the patriot act, but the repubs pushed it through. Do we have a one party system with big time wrestling theatrics, or will the dems block the renewal, which is well within their power. The dems control two branches of the government.

 

I don't see how Dems control two branches. They may control Executive but not congress. Reps have a huge majority in the House and many southern Senate Dems are more conservative than northern Reps. But you are right that we almost have to talk about political ideologies and not parties since the difference is really very little.

 

However I do find it funny that the Conservatives in this country give lip service to a small central government and they mean it when it helps the bottom line for wealthy and corporations but don't stand on the same principals when it comes to individual liberties. Does any Conservative currently in office oppose the patriot act?

 

The only thing that is within the Dems power to block it would be if Obama vetoed it and that will not happen. But this is nothing new as Andrew Jackson did the same type of thing by campaigning on needing to reduce the power of the federal government then running the country like he was king.

[greenbuddha]

Unfortunately, once a huge government agency gets itself mandated by law and the money starts to flow, and the administrators start getting their cut of the action, that agency is NEVER changed.

 

And it will all be done in the name of preserving our 'LIBERTIES'.

 

And it's true, when the Dems had complete control of BOTH the House AND Senate... THEY DID NOTHING!

 

But! I will continue to vote even if my vote is wasted. And you can bet it WON'T be for either of the major parties.

[lawyercaregiver]

What does the Patriot Act (a misnomer if I ever heard one!) have to do with medical marijuana? Even if med-mar users and/or organizers were targeted using the Patriot Act the federal courts have made it very, very clear that such information cannot be used in a criminal prosecution and I assume it is all "fruit of the poisonous tree" so it can't be used to begin an investigation either.

 

And what part of the Patriot Act could possibly be used to go after med-mar? I assume not many Caregivers are talking with their compatriot medical marijuana growers in Afghanistan!

[+420Atheist]

What does the Patriot Act (a misnomer if I ever heard one!) have to do with medical marijuana? Even if med-mar users and/or organizers were targeted using the Patriot Act the federal courts have made it very, very clear that such information cannot be used in a criminal prosecution and I assume it is all "fruit of the poisonous tree" so it can't be used to begin an investigation either.

 

And what part of the Patriot Act could possibly be used to go after med-mar? I assume not many Caregivers are talking with their compatriot medical marijuana growers in Afghanistan!

 

And as a lawyer you would have no problems proving the source of that information was from "the fruit of the poisonous tree?" My belief is if information was passed from Homeland Security to the DEA or local LEO that information would never come out in court and the evidence used to secure the search warrant would be less than verifiable. Probably something like the LEO went to the house for a routine reason and smelled the marijuana.

[thanks2]

Unfortunately, once a huge government agency gets itself mandated by law and the money starts to flow, and the administrators start getting their cut of th action, that agency is NEVER changed.

 

And it will all be done in the name of preserving our 'LIBERTIES'.

 

And it's true, when the Dems had complete control of BOTH the House AND Senate... THEY DID NOTHING!

 

But! I will continue to vote even if my vote is wasted. And you can bet it WON'T be for either of the major parties.

 

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. – Milton Friedman

[thanks2]

What does the Patriot Act (a misnomer if I ever heard one!) have to do with medical marijuana? Even if med-mar users and/or organizers were targeted using the Patriot Act the federal courts have made it very, very clear that such information cannot be used in a criminal prosecution and I assume it is all "fruit of the poisonous tree" so it can't be used to begin an investigation either.

 

And what part of the Patriot Act could possibly be used to go after med-mar? I assume not many Caregivers are talking with their compatriot medical marijuana growers in Afghanistan!

hmmm, here is a list of articles you may find interesting.....they seems to dispute what you say..

 

See site for links to each article.

 

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/october2004/091004patriotact.htm

 

The Patriot Act: Targeting American Citizens

 

The party line often heard from Neo-Cons in their attempts to defend the Patriot Act either circulate around the contention that the use of the Patriot Act has never been abused or that it isn't being used against American citizens.

 

Here is an archive of articles that disproves both of these fallacies.

 

---------------------

 

Homeland Security Agents Visit Toy Store

 

So far as she knows, Pufferbelly Toys owner Stephanie Cox hasn't been passing any state secrets to sinister foreign governments, or violating obscure clauses in the Patriot Act.

 

In Terror War, 2nd Track for Suspects

 

The Bush administration is developing a parallel legal system in which terrorism suspects -- U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike -- may be investigated, jailed, interrogated, tried and punished without legal protections guaranteed by the ordinary system, lawyers inside and outside the government say.

 

Court: U.S. Can Hold Citizens as Enemy Combatants

 

A federal appeals court today ruled that the government has properly detained an American-born man captured with Taliban forces in Afghanistan without an attorney and has legally declared him an enemy combatant.

 

Patriot Act Being Used to Harrass BlackBoxVoting.org website

 

It appears that they may be using the Patriot Act to circumvent some of the civil rights protections laid down in the 60s. You see, it is illegal for a government agency to go in and demand the list of all the members of a group. And you can't investigate leaks to journalists by going in and grabbing the reporter's computer.

 

Terrorism panic goes too far at Area 51

 

Chuck Clark wasn't even home when law enforcement personnel assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force roared up to his rented trailer in tiny Rachel, Nev., the other day. He didn't know about the still-sealed search warrant until he returned from a road trip and found that his files, photos and computer had been seized.

 

Secret Service Questions Students

 

Some teachers in Oakland are rallying behind two students who were interrogated by the Secret Service. That followed remarks the teenagers made about the President during a class discussion. The incident has many people angry. It's good to see the real terrorists are being hunted down.

 

Boy investigated by FBI for researching paper on Chesapeake Bay Bridge

 

A 12-year-old kid at Boys' Latin researches a paper on the Bay Bridge, and suddenly the Joint Terrorist Task Force shows up in the headmaster's office.

 

Photographer Arrested "Under Patriot Act"

 

A Denver photographer was arrested while taking pictures in Denver, during Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to the city. Denver resident Mike Maginnis reports being physically assaulted by Denver police.

 

FBI says Patriot Act used in Vegas strip club corruption probe

 

The FBI used the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial information about key figures in a political corruption probe centered on striptease club owner Michael Galardi, an agent said.

 

Webmaster Sherman Austin, Jailed under PATRIOT Act

 

Political prisoner Sherman Austin, who made headlines last year after being targeted as one of the first casualties of the infamous USA PATRIOT Act, was released from the Federal Corrections Institute in Tucson and left Arizona July 12 to return to Los Angeles.

 

Patriot Act increasingly used against common criminals

 

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.

 

Patriot Act available against many types of criminals

 

Virtually unmentioned, however, is the fact that the Patriot Act extended the government's powers well beyond the terrorism arena.

 

Patriot Act of 2001 casts wide net

 

Overall, the policy now allows evidence to be used for prosecuting common criminals even when obtained under extraordinary anti-terrorism powers and information-sharing between intelligence agencies and the FBI.

 

Patriot Act's reach has gone beyond terrorism

 

The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

 

Using The Patriot Act To Target Patriots

 

The Patriot Act has been used to obtain search warrants against doctors and scientists who had been warning about the threat of bioterrorism in the U.S.

 

Shopkeeper deported from South Carolina under PATRIOT Act killed in Pakistan

 

After marrying a naturalized U.S. citizen, having two U.S.-born children and running a Rock Hill convenience store for years, Khan was rounded up in post-Sept. 11, 2001, sweeps that targeted Muslim immigrants.

 

Art becomes the next suspect in America's 9/11 paranoia

 

On May 10 Steven Kurtz went to bed a married art professor. On May 11 he woke up a widower. By the afternoon he was under federal investigation for bioterrorism.

 

ARTISTS SUBPOENAED IN USA PATRIOT ACT CASE

 

Three Four artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury that will consider bioterrorism charges against a university professor whose art involves the use of simple biology equipment.

 

Patriot Act used to prosecute U.S. civilian

 

The CIA contract employee accused of abusing a prisoner in Afghanistan is being prosecuted under the Patriot Act in what legal experts are calling a surprising and to some, troubling application of the new anti-terrorism law.

 

Patriot Act abuses plain

 

Where were you these past three years while, amid considerable publicity, our government was imprisoning people without making charges against them, holding them without trials, and not allowing them to talk to attorneys?

 

British Journalist Detained, Harrassed On Trip To LA

 

When writer Elena Lappin flew to LA, she dreamed of a sunkissed, laid-back city. But that was before airport officials decided to detain her as a threat to security.

[thanks2]

I don't see how Dems control two branches.

Just because there are blue dog democrats does not take away their control. They have the majority in the Senate, which gives them control. Many blue dogs still vote party line. Plus it gives them the position of majority leader. The majority leader delineates which issues will be discussed and which bills will come to the floor for a vote.

 

If they do not want it to pass, they do not have to allow it to be voted on.

 

http://www.ehow.com/about_6561640_senate-majority-leader-job-description.html

[rafaeltoral]

What does the Patriot Act (a misnomer if I ever heard one!) have to do with medical marijuana? Even if med-mar users and/or organizers were targeted using the Patriot Act the federal courts have made it very, very clear that such information cannot be used in a criminal prosecution and I assume it is all "fruit of the poisonous tree" so it can't be used to begin an investigation either.

 

And what part of the Patriot Act could possibly be used to go after med-mar? I assume not many Caregivers are talking with their compatriot medical marijuana growers in Afghanistan!

 

 

Really?

 

My house is on fire, better cut the lawn.

 

It has to do with the continuance, and progression, of a Police State. This is the very same Police State apparatus that is being used to repress the rights of Medical Marijuana Patients and Caregivers all over the country. How much funding does the Oakland County Sheriff get from The Department of Homeland Security?

 

 

"The deepest cut came on October 15, 2001 when Congress enacted the Patriot Act. With minimal floor debate in the Senate and no floor debate in the House (House members were given only 30 minutes to read the 315 page bill), Congress enacted this most unpatriotic rejection of privacy and constitutional guarantees. Together with its offspring the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal 2004 and the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, the Patriot Act not only permits the execution of self-written search warrants on a host of new subjects, it rejects the no-criminal-prosecution protections of its predecessors by requiring evidence obtained contrary to the Fourth Amendment to be turned over to prosecutors and mandating that such evidence is constitutionally competent in criminal prosecutions."

 

If you care this is an interesting read:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/investigations/homeland_security/articles/entry/1901/

[rafaeltoral]

Ok, lets see if the Dems meant what they said when they all preached the Patriot Act is the worst thing in the world. They rallied the people against the patriot act, but the repubs pushed it through. Do we have a one party system with big time wrestling theatrics, or will the dems block the renewal, which is well within their power. The dems control two branches of the government.

 

Both parties are a bunch of rich folk playing good cop, bad cop. Just a dog and pony show.

[+420Atheist]

Just because there are blue dog democrats does not take away their control. They have the majority in the Senate, which gives them control. Many blue dogs still vote party line. Plus it gives them the position of majority leader. The majority leader delineates which issues will be discussed and which bills will come to the floor for a vote.

 

If they do not want it to pass, they do not have to allow it to be voted on.

 

http://www.ehow.com/about_6561640_senate-majority-leader-job-description.html

 

They don't have a super majority to filibuster even if all dems stick together. In 2006 the dems voted no 5 times but were over ridden. At that time they tried a filibuster and lost. All I can say is a lot more dems are no votes that reps. I don't know a single rep that is against it.

[thanks2]

They don't have a super majority to filibuster even if all dems stick together.

 

A minority party can filibuster, as was seen with the bush judge appointees. You need a super majority to stop a filibuster.

[+420Atheist]

A minority party can filibuster, as was seen with the bush judge appointees. You need a super majority to stop a filibuster.

 

So how many reps are no votes? You seem unfairly critical of dems when they are historically the side who has been opposed to the act.

[thanks2]

So how many reps are no votes? You seem unfairly critical of dems when they are historically the side who has been opposed to the act.

 

Sorry 420. You have miss interpreted me. My snide point was neither party are as they seem. When the patriot act was past the dems were yelling from the roof tops. Now, I bet they allow this renewal to pass. Both parties are %100 guilty of these practices. Bush, a pro-lifer, who said we must do everything within our power to stop abortion, did not even try to stop the 325 million federal dollars going to fund abortion. I have many examples from both sides. Do we have balanced budget and a pay you go spending? Are we still at war? At best they are all completely full of it. At worst it is a one party system w/ a right left paradigm to keep the people divided and distracted.

[greenbuddha]

ANY government agency that 'can' be manipulated WILL be manipulated.

 

IF the anti-MMJ government groups want to use the 'Patriot Act' to bust people they have the ability to do it.

 

The DEA is already being assigned to Afganistan to help irradicate 'drugs' in that country, and 'not' just heroin either.

 

It may not be very far in the future when we see the day when 'users' of MMJ and cannibis are labeled as 'worse' than mere law breakers.

 

Desperation can cause even a 'government agency' to do the wrong thing.

 

Our only hope may be that our prisons can only hold just 'so many' people.