[Dryerase] Alarm!--USA PATRIOT Act

[The Alarm!Newswire]

One year under the USA PATRIOT Act, little sign of effects

By Halie Johnson
The Alarm! Newspaper Collective

USA PATRIOT Act—So Much for Checks and Balances
The Justice Department is giving Congress the brush-off in regards to 
how it has used its new anti-terrorist powers in the past year. 
Congress requested answers to fifty questions about new “rover” 
surveillance, phone call tracking and interrogation of libraries, 
bookstores and newspaper records. According to The New York Times, some 
of the simpler questions regarding  immigration on the Canadian border 
were answered; the Justice Department dodged the rest.

On August 15, Adam Clymer of the New York Times reported:

Probably the most complaints concern the Justice Department, with 
Republicans, including Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana and Sen. Charles 
Grassley of Iowa among its severest critics.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has sent twenty-seven unanswered letters 
to the Justice Department seeking information on topics including the 
PATRIOT Act civil rights and corporate fraud. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, 
who is chairman of the panel, said in an interview, “Since I’ve been 
here, I have never known an administration that is more difficult to 
get information from that the oversight committees are entitled to.”

The Act makes changes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and 
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, altering 
over fifteen statutes in all. There is little to no information 
currently available explaining how and to what extent the powers 
extended to law enforcement, the FBI, the CIA and several other 
branches of government have been used.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation there is no public 
information granted regarding use of the USA PATRIOT Act to make 
requests for surveillance, nor regarding what surveillance actually 
occurs, except for a raw annual report of number of requests made and 
number granted. In the past, certification was needed from the Attorney 
General that “the purpose” of an order is the suspicion that the target 
is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. According to he 
Electronic Frontier Foundation, now the Attorney General is not 
required to report anything to the court about what it does.

What exactly is the USA PATRIOT Act?
September 24, 2001—The Bush administration submitted anti-terrorism 
legislation to Congress. Just over one month later; anti-terrorism 
legislation was written into law.

October 26, 2001—Bush signed the “Uniting and Strengthening America by 
Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct 
Terrorism (USA PATRIOT) Act of 2001 into law. The bill was passed by a 
ninety-eight to one vote, with Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) as the only 
dissenting member.

The ACLU criticized the PATRIOT Act and said, “Among the Act’s most 
troubling provisions are measures that:
•	Allow for indefinite detention of non-citizens who are not terrorists 
on minor visa violations if they cannot be deported because they are 
stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them or because 
they would face torture in their country of origin.
•	Minimize judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet 
surveillance by law enforcement authorities.
•	Expand the ability of the government to conduct secret searches.
•	Give the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to 
designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any 
non-citizen who belongs to them.
•	Grant the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about 
individuals without having to show evidence of a crime.
•	Lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for 
“intelligence” purposes.”

Due to the suspension of standard procedural processes, the Act was 
passed only five weeks after it was introduced to Congress. It did not 
go through the standard inter-agency review, the normal committee and 
hearing processes or the thorough voting that is normally employed.

Among the provisions that the Act allows, the FBI and CIA may now go 
from phone to phone, computer to computer without demonstrating that a 
suspect is using either. In addition, the bill grants authority for 
enforcement agencies to retrieve voicemail messages with only a search 
warrant. The PATRIOT Act also amends US Codes defining terrorism, 
raising concerns among groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation 
about “legitimate protest activity resulting in conviction on terrorism 
charges, especially if violence erupts.”

Another significant change is an increase in information-sharing 
between domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Where, in the past, wiretaps were granted only in cases where an agent 
could provide proof of “probable cause,” the new laws do not call for 
“probable cause,” but only suspicion that a person is an agent of a 
foreign government. The new law also adds samples of DNA to a database 
not only for convicted terrorists, but also for people convicted of 
“any crime of violence.”

Many officials have defended the new bill saying that it includes a 
sunshine provision so many of the changes will expire on December 31, 
2005 unless renewed by Congress. However, the Electronic Frontier 
Federation notes that there is no way for Congress to review how 
several of the provisions have been implemented because there is no 
reporting required to Congress. The Electronic Frontier Federation 
stated that, “Without the necessary information about how these new 
powers have been useD, Congress will be unable to evaluate whether they 
have been needed about how they have been used” The Electronic Frontier 
Federation added that Congress cannot make an informed decision about 
whether the changes should continue or whether they should be allowed 
to expire without renewal.

To find out more on the Patriot Act see the ACLU’s analysis from last 
November at www.aclu.org/congress/l110101a.html or AlterNet’s story at 
www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11854 or the Center for 
Constitutional Rights commentary at 
http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp. The Electronic 
Frontier Foundation did a thorough analysis of the bill, which can be 
found at www.eff.org. The actual text of the bill can be found at 
http://thomas.loc.gov.

Sidebar:
A. The provisions that expire on December 31, 2005 (unless renewed by 
Congress include:
•	Sec. 201. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic 
communications relating to terrorism.
•	Sec. 202. Authority to intercept wire, oral, and electronic 
communications relating to computer fraud and abuse offenses.
•	Sec. 203(b), (d). Authority to share criminal investigative 
information.
•	Sec. 206. Roving surveillance authority under the foreign 
intelligence surveillance act of 1978.
•	Sec. 207. Duration of FISA surveillance of non-United States persons 
who are agents of a foreign power.
•	Sec. 209. Seizure of voice-mail messages pursuant to warrants.
•	Sec. 212. Emergency disclosure of electronic communications to 
protect life and limb.
•	Sec. 214. Pen register and trap and trace authority under FISA.
•	Sec. 215. Access to records and other items under the foreign 
Intelligence Surveillance Act.
•	Sec. 217. Interception of computer trespasser communications.
•	Sec. 218. Foreign intelligence information.
•	Sec. 220. Nationwide service of search warrants for electronic 
evidence.
•	Sec. 223. Civil liability for certain unauthorized disclosures.

B. The following provision do not expire:
•	Sec. 203(a), (c): Grand jury sharing of information.
•	Sec. 208. Designation of Judges: increases number of FISA judges.
•	Sec. 210: ECPA scope of subpoenas for records of electronic 
communications--clearly allowing e-mails routing information.
•	Sec. 211: ECPA Clarification of scope: privacy provisions of Cable 
Act overridden for communication services offered by cable providers 
(but not for records relating to cable viewing) .
•	Sec. 213: Sneak & Peek: delay notification of execution of a warrant
•	Sec. 216: Modification of pen/trap authorities: (in original PATRIOT, 
would have sunsetted).
•	Sec. 219: Single jurisdiction search warrants for terrorism.
•	Sec. 222 Assistance to law enforcement.
•	Sec. 225. Immunity for compliance with FISA wiretap. Can continue all 
investigations active at the time of expiration.org. The actual text of 
the bill can be found sat http://thomas.loc.gov.

Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Analysis of the USA Patriot Act

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