Politics: Patriot Act to be Expanded

[Bammx2]

Just naming it the "Patriot Act" is so Orwellian as to to be self-parody. It concerns me.

"Patriot Act".....:shrug:

The Patriot Act is to patriotism
what MTV is to music and
what KFC is to chicken!

 

[Tgace]

We've established that:
- The cops don't know all the laws, and can't possibly.

Did you know thats it illegal to sell a turtle under 4" in length? Agriculture and Market Law...

Thats why the stuff is written down in books. Who here actually thought that cops knew "every" law? To add to it, every year NYS adds/alters to the existing laws. To think that this is something new is erroneous. Its the nature of law. What do you think paralegals do for a living? They research law and legal precedent for attorneys because even lawyers dont know the intricacies of every law. Divorce attorneys know a lot about divorce law but probably little on criminal defense law. Cops know a lot about the laws that they deal with on a daily basis, but when they find something new that they never dealt with before its time to hit the books. Most of the time on the street you know when something is illegal but you still have to consult the law book to get the exact section and sub-section to charge for the offense. My former partner and I were in plainclothes in a local flea-market and saw a guy with bins full of obviously pirated music CD's for sale. Now its obvious that thats illegal, but do you think we knew the exact law and persons we had to contact to sign paperwork? Nope.

Heres just the consolidated laws of NY.

The point being that law has been this complex for a long, long time. And in regards to the PA, most of this stuff is just codifying federally what has been going on in law enforcement for a long time; delayed notification of warrants (not new), subpoenas for business records, federal guidelines for pen registers (that they have to go through more process than your local LEO's do to get), making cable communication companies subject to the law the same way telephone and internet companies have been etc. And all of this stuff sunsets in a fairly short time to allow tweaking of the act in a timely manner. The other terrorism related specifics, such as asset forfeiture and detention, dont seem to be too draconian to me.

Whats amusing is all the people who screamed about the lack of intelligence on the 9/11 suspects, the compartmentalization of intelligence, and wondered why our intel/LEO agencies failed to alert on these people. But at the same time dont want any alteration of law to fix those problems and improve/streamline investigative procedure.

On the other hand there are probably some people in the same crowd (nobody in this discussion that I know of) who would have NO problem rewriting the 2nd amendment of our constitution to their liking....

 

[Tgace]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-02-25-patriot-main_x.htm

The passionate — and often misleading — debate over the Patriot Act is a big reason there is so much confusion about it.

The administration's chief spokesman for the act, Attorney General John Ashcroft, occasionally has blurred fact and fiction in giving the law credit for preventing another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. He also has belittled anyone who has questioned the law and played down how it has expanded the power of federal law enforcement agencies to gather evidence in terrorism and intelligence probes.

Critics of the act, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, have contributed to the misperceptions by glossing over how secret surveillance has long been allowed under other laws. Civil libertarians have lumped the Patriot Act with other anti-terrorism policies, such as the plans for military tribunals.

Both sides have played on the public's fears. Ashcroft says repealing any part of the act would "disarm" America and provide an open door to terrorists. The ACLU says the act allows "innocent people" to be targeted by the FBI, although the group has not found any example of abuse of the law.

Meanwhile, misleading descriptions of the Patriot Act are seeping into popular culture, further perpetuating the myths about it.

TV scriptwriters are taking literary license with the act by casting it as the latest interrogation-room weapon for fictional cops.

On shows such as CBS' Navy NCIS and NBC's Las Vegas, bad guys have been coerced into cooperating by threats that they would be held under the Patriot Act as "enemy combatants" at the U.S. military base in Cuba, without access to a lawyer. In real life, the U.S. government is holding 650 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives at the base at Guantanamo Bay.

Such misinformation does not serve the public, says former House majority leader Dick Armey, a Texas Republican who expresses concern about the act's impact on privacy. "Unfortunately," he says, "political discourse was never designed to elevate intellect."

Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a defender of the act, says Justice officials gave the ACLU an opening to attack the law by initially being secretive about how they were using it.

It wasn't until last fall that Ashcroft revealed that the "libraries" provision hadn't been used. It allows the FBI to get secret court orders for records it says it needs in terrorism or intelligence probes.

Besides targeting Ashcroft, the ACLU's strategy is aimed at revisiting battles it lost when Congress authorized covert wiretaps in criminal cases in 1968, and when it created a secret court in 1978 to oversee domestic spy probes.

On its Web site, the ACLU glosses over legal standards for subpoenas, warrants and wiretaps that were set decades ago and makes it seem that the Patriot Act created them. It also says judicial oversight of the act is "non-existent" because it requires that FBI requests for records "shall" be granted.

Judges' roles in overseeing agents' activities were reduced by some parts of the Patriot Act. But the word "shall" appears similarly throughout the U.S. criminal code. It doesn't mean that judges can't question agents before granting warrants or other court orders.

The biggest expansion of federal powers I have found is probably the "nationwide" warrant and subpoena powers. Instead of having to jump local federal district court hurdles, the feds can execute the warrants nationwide..

Section 219. Single-jurisdiction search warrants for terrorism.


That and this one..

Section 223. Civil liability for certain unauthorized disclosures.

are the biggest "new" things I can find. Some of the other stuff like asset forfeiture and "material support of terrorism" are so limited in scope that they dont worry me much.

As a matter of fact Bob, maybe you can use the PA yourself...

Section 217. Interception of computer trespasser communications.

Section 217 made the law technology-neutral, placing cyber-intruders on the same footing as physical intruders. Now, hacking victims can seek law-enforcement assistance to combat hackers, just as burglary victims have been able to invite officers into their homes to catch burglars.

• Prior to the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act, the law prohibited computer service providers from sharing with law enforcement that hackers had broken into their systems.

Computer operators are not required to involve law enforcement if they detect trespassers on their systems. Section 217 simply gives them the option of doing so.

Section 217 preserves the privacy of law-abiding computer users. Officers cannot agree to help a computer owner unless (1) they are engaged in a lawful investigation; (2) there is reason to believe that the communications will be relevant to that investigation; and (3) their activities will not acquire the communications of non-hackers.

This provision has played a key role in a number of terrorism investigations, national-security cases, and investigations of other serious crimes.

Section 217 is extremely helpful when computer hackers launch massive "denial of service" attacks - which are designed to shut down individual web sites, computer networks, or even the entire Internet.

The definition of "computer trespasser" does not include an individual who has a contractual relationship with the service provider. Thus, for example, America Online could not ask law enforcement to help monitor a hacking attack on its system that was initiated by one of its own subscribers.

This provision will sunset on December 31, 2005.

 

[sgtmac_46]

And yet, the usa patriot act is a completely unreadable document. As is the supplemental bill to eliminate the sunset provision. As I have pointed out elsewhere in this thread. Plainly, there is no context in the usa patriot act.

The document references many, many other documents; striking words and phrases from those documents, adding words and phrases to those documents, without defining the meaning, of the intention of the change.

The government simply asks us to trust them that these changes are important to the 'war on terror' (a mythical beast to feed the military industrial complex), and for national security (despite, at best, only 39 people have been convicted of terrorism or national security violations since the usa patriot acts inception).

39 people have been convicted of terrorism or national security violations since the USA Patriot Act inception? It only took 19 to hijack Airliners and kill thousands of Americans.

It might help if you actually read it before pronouncing it "unreadable". I'm looking at the document right now, it might be confusing for those not used to reading statutory writting, but it's by no means the most obtuse government statutory document i've ever read. Again, the government does NOT ask us to just 'trust' them, this isn't a secret document. Read it for yourself, and give me the specific chapters and verse you disagree with. I've yet to hear one of you guys actually attempt this, preferring as you apparently do, to operate in one line slogans and hyperbole. As I told you in another post, stop spinning and get specific. The reality is, I believe you HAVE read the document, and are hard press to quote anything in it that you can get folks worked up about, so you don't actually want to discuss, specifically the document, but merely wish to talk ABOUT the document in vague, ominous terms. Until someone quotes me some direct material that is concerning (and it's all there in black and white for anyone to do), this is a false issue.