[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [ALACOUN:11896] President on the "Patriot" Act

[Al Kagan]

>Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 02:03:08 -0400
>To: ALA Council List <alacoun at ala1.ala.org>
>From: Mark Rosenzweig <iskra at earthlink.net>
>Subject: [ALACOUN:11896] President on the "Patriot" Act
>Cc: plgnet-l at listproc.sjsu.edu, srrtac-l at ala.org
>X-MailScanner: Found to be clean, Found to be clean
>Reply-To: iskra at earthlink.net
>Sender: owner-alacoun at ala1.ala.org
>X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information
>
>
>URL: http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=15525&c=206
>
>ACLU Says White House Is Engaged in Patriot Act Misinformation Campaign;
>Releases Point-By-Point Response to Bush Falsehoods
>April 22, 2004
>
>WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today released an
>item-by-item rebuttal to a slew of false claims that President Bush made in
>Buffalo this week about the controversial USA Patriot Act.
>
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>Contact: Media at dcaclu.org
>
>WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today released an
>item-by-item rebuttal to a slew of false claims that President Bush made in
>Buffalo this week about the controversial USA Patriot Act.
>
>"The president's speech was misinformation, pure and simple," said Anthony
>D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "The administration is making a series
>of deliberate misstatements to deceive the American public."
>
>In response to the president's new campaign to remove the Patriot Act's
>sunsets, the ACLU said it would prepare and release periodic detailed
>rebuttals on White House misinformation. Romero noted that the ACLU has
>taken similar issue with information presented by Attorney General John
>Ashcroft and produced a report, "Seeking Truth From Justice: The Justice
>Department's Campaign to Mislead The Public About the USA PATRIOT Act."
>
>Point-by-Point Rebuttal
>
>The President:
>
>"By the way, the reason I bring up the Patriot Act, it's set to expire next
>year. I'm starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress that
>it shouldn't expire. It shouldn't expire for the security of our country."
>
>The Truth:
>
>Less that 10 percent of the Patriot Act expires; most of the law is
>permanent and those portions that do sunset will not do so until December
>31, 2005.
>
>The President:
>
>"And that changed, the law changed on- roving wiretaps were available for
>chasing down drug lords. They weren't available for chasing down terrorists,
>see?"
>
>The Truth:
>
>Roving wiretaps were available prior to 9/11 against drug lords and
>terrorists. Prior to the law, the FBI could get a roving wiretap against
>both when it had probable cause of crime for a wiretap eligible offense.
>What the Patriot Act did is make roving wiretaps available in intelligence
>investigations supervised by the secret intelligence court without the
>judicial safeguards of the criminal wiretap statute.
>
>The President:
>
>". see, I'm not a lawyer, so it's kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged
>down in the law. (Applause). I'm not going to play like one, either.
>(Laughter.) The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is
>that one part of the FBI couldn't tell the other part of the FBI vital
>information because of the law. And the CIA and the FBI couldn't talk."
>
>The Truth:
>
>The CIA and the FBI could talk and did. As Janet Reno wrote in prepared
>testimony before the 9/11 commission, "There are simply no walls or
>restrictions on sharing the vast majority of counterterrorism information.
>There are no legal restrictions at all on the ability of the members of the
>intelligence community to share intelligence information with each other.
>
>"With respect to sharing between intelligence investigators and criminal
>investigators, information learned as a result of a physical surveillance or
>from a confidential informant can be legally shared without restriction.
>
>"While there were restrictions placed on information gathered by criminal
>investigators as a result of grand jury investigations or Title III wire
>taps, in practice they did not prove to be a serious impediment since there
>was very little significant information that could not be shared."
>
>The President:
>
>"Thirdly, to give you an example of what we're talking about, there's
>something called delayed-notification search warrants. . We couldn't use
>these against terrorists [before the Patriot Act], but we could use against
>gangs."
>
>The Truth:
>
>Delayed-notification - or so-called sneak-and-peek search warrants - were
>never limited to gangs. The circuit courts that had authorized them in
>limited circumstances prior to the Patriot Act did not limit the warrants to
>the investigation of gangs. In fact, terrorism or espionage investigators
>did not necessarily have to go through the criminal courts for a covert
>search - they could do so with even fewer safeguards against abuse by going
>to a top secret foreign intelligence court in Washington.
>
>For criminal sneak-and-peek warrants, the Patriot Act added a catch-all
>argument for prosecutors - if notice would delay prosecution or jeopardize
>an investigation - which makes these secret search warrants much easier to
>obtain.
>
>The president's sneak-and-peek misstatement clearly demonstrates that the
>Patriot Act is not limited to terrorism. In fact, many of the law's expanded
>authorities can clearly be used outside the war on terrorism.
>
>The President:
>
>"Judges need greater authority to deny bail to terrorists."
>
>The Truth:
>
>The new presumptive detention that the president is proposing takes judicial
>authority away from the bail process. The presumption would take away the
>prosecution's burden of showing that the accused is a danger or flight risk
>and instead puts it on the accused.
>
>"Presidential recklessness with the facts is deeply troubling," Romero said.
>"We'll be watching the president and his statements very closely during this
>campaign. He is clearly fighting a losing, defensive battle for the Patriot
>Act."
>
>"President Bush clearly is attempting to silence his critics within the
>Republican Party, who believe that the Patriot Act went too far, too fast,"
>Romero added.
>
>For more on the ACLU's campaign to Keep America Safe and Free, go to:
>http://www.aclu.org/safeandfree
>
>© American Civil Liberties Union
>125 Broad Street, 18th Floor, New York, NY 10004


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu