The result is unchecked government power to rifle through individuals' financial records, medical histories, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, travel patterns, or any other activity that leaves a record. Making matters worse:

...the government no longer has to show evidence that the subjects of search orders are an "agent of a foreign power," a requirement that previously protected Americans against abuse of this authority.

...the FBI does not even have to show a reasonable suspicion that the records are related to criminal activity, much less the requirement for "probable cause" that is listed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. All the government needs to do is make the broad assertion that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.

...judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. The government must only certify to a judge - with no need for evidence or proof - that such a search meets the statute's broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.

...surveillance orders can be based in part on a person's First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written.

...a person or organization forced to turn over records is prohibited from disclosing the search to anyone. As a result of this gag order, the subjects of surveillance never even find out that their personal records have been examined by the government. That undercuts an important check and balance on this power: the ability of individuals to challenge illegitimate searches.

Acting under immense pressure at a hectic time, Congress hastily passed the USA PATRIOT Act only 45 days after the tragic terrorist attacks of September 11; both chambers approved the comprehensive measure with scant study and limited debate. Many legislators were unable to reach their offices to review the 159-page legislation. The measure came amid one of the most troubled and frenetic periods in our nation’s history – weeks after the terrorist attacks and in the middle of the anthrax scare, when a Senate office building, a major postal facility in Washington and the U.S. Supreme Court were closed as teams covered in chemical protective suits searched for spores of the deadly chemical. Amid all this came legislation that its sponsors cleverly named to make opposition seem almost treasonous. Most legislators had not read—let alone digested—the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act) and its dangerous provisions that threaten our constitutional protections.

Just six weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a jittery Congress -- exiled from its anthrax-contaminated offices and confronted with warnings that more terrorist assaults were soon to come -- capitulated to the Bush Administration's demands for a new arsenal of anti-terrorism weapons. Over vigorous objections from civil liberties organizations on both ends of the political spectrum, Congress overwhelmingly approved the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, better known by its acronym, the USA PATRIOT Act. The House vote was 356-to-66, and the Senate vote was 98-to-1. Along the way, the Republican House leadership, in a raw display of force, jettisoned an anti-terrorism bill that the House Judiciary Committee had unanimously approved and that would have addressed a number of civil liberties concerns. The hastily-drafted, complex, and far-reaching legislation spans 342 pages. Yet it was passed with virtually no public hearing or debate, and it was accompanied by neither a conference nor a committee report. On October 26, the Act was signed into law by a triumphant President George W. Bush.

The Text of the Law: here Or here
Source Websites:

http://www.aclu.org/Files/OpenFile.cfm?id=17159

http://www.aaiusa.org/PDF/healing_the_nation.pdf

http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/DOJ_guidance.pdf

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/USAPAanalyze.html

http://www.bordc.org/Repeal.pdf

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=tVCXBEDEoI&Content=320

Section 218 permits the FBI to conduct a secret search or to secretly record telephone conversations for the purpose of investigating crime even though the FBI does not have probable cause of crime. The section authorizes unconstitutional activity -- searches and wiretaps in non-emergency circumstances -- for criminal activity with no showing of probable cause of crime.

In a letter sent to key Senators while Congress was considering this legislation, Assistant Attorney General Daniel J. Bryant, of DOJ's Office of Legislative Affairs, openly advocated for a suspension of the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in the government's investigation of foreign national security threats. The Bryant letter brazenly declares:

“As Commander-in-Chief, the President must be able to use whatever means necessary to prevent attacks upon the United States … The courts have observed that even the use of deadly force is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment if used in self-defense or to protect others. . . Here, for Fourth Amendment purposes, the right to self-defense is not that of an individual, but that of the nation and its citizens. . . If the government's heightened interest in self-defense justifies the use of deadly force, then it certainly would also justify warrantless searches."

The Patriot Act allows the government to conduct searches without notifying the subjects, at least until long after the search has been executed. This means that the government can enter a house, apartment or office with a search warrant when the occupants are away, search through their property, take photographs, and in some cases even seize property - and not tell them until later.

For centuries, common law has required that the government can't go into your property without telling you, and must therefore give you notice before it executes a search. That "knock and announce" principle has long been recognized as a part of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

Section 213 of the Act authorizes federal agents to conduct "sneak and peek searches," or covert searches of a person's home or office that are conducted without notifying the person of the execution of the search warrant until after the search has been completed. Section 213 authorizes delayed notice of the execution of a search warrant upon a showing of "reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification... may have an adverse result." Section 213 also authorizes the delay of notice of the execution of a warrant to conduct a seizure of items where the court finds a "reasonable necessity" for the seizure.

Notice is a crucial check on the government's power because it forces the authorities to operate in the open, and allows the subject of searches to protect their Fourth Amendment rights. For example, it allows them to point out irregularities in a warrant, such as the fact that the police are at the wrong address, or that the scope of the warrant is being exceeded (for example, by rifling through dresser drawers in a search for a stolen car). Search warrants often contain limits on what may be searched, but when the searching officers have complete and unsupervised discretion over a search, a property owner cannot defend his or her rights.

Under Section 213, notice may be delayed for a "reasonable period." Already, DOJ has staked out its position that a "reasonable period" can be considerably longer than the seven days authorized by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Villegas, and by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Freitas. DOJ states in its Field Guidance on New Authorities (Redacted) Enacted in the 2001 Anti-Terrorism Legislation that "[a]nalogy to other statutes suggest [sic] that the period of delay could be substantial if circumstances warrant," and cites in support of this proposition a case that found a 90-day delay in providing notice of a wiretap warrant to constitute "a reasonable time." Notably, Section 213 is not limited to terrorism investigations, but extends to all criminal investigations, and is not scheduled to expire.

Finally, this new "sneak and peek" power can be applied as part of normal criminal investigations; it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism or collecting foreign intelligence.

Wiretaps limited to transactional or addressing information are known as "Pen register/trap and trace" searches (for the devices that were used on telephones to collect telephone numbers). What was once applied to telephones is now applied to emails and internet surfing.

The Patriot Act applies the distinction between transactional and content-oriented wiretaps to the Internet. The problem is that it takes the weak standards for access to transactional data and applies them to communications that are far more than addresses. On an e-mail message, for example, law enforcement has interpreted the "header" of a message to be transactional information accessible with a PR/TT warrant. But in addition to routing information, e-mail headers include the subject line, which is part of the substance of a communication - on a letter, for example, it would clearly be inside the envelope.

The government also argues that the transactional data for Web surfing is a list of the URLs or Web site addresses that a person visits. For example, it might record the fact that they visited "www.aclu.org" at 1:15 in the afternoon, and then skipped over to "www.fbi.gov" at 1:30. This claim that URLs are just addressing data breaks down in two different ways: Web addresses are rich and revealing content. The URLs or "addresses" of the Web pages we read are not really addresses, they are the titles of documents that we download from the Internet. When we "visit" a Web page what we are really doing is downloading that page from the Internet onto our computer, where it is displayed. Therefore, the list of URLs that we visit during a Web session is really a list of the documents we have downloaded - no different from a list of electronic books we might have purchased online. That is much richer information than a simple list of the people we have communicated with; it is intimate information that reveals who we are and what we are thinking about - much more like the content of a phone call than the number dialed. After all, it is often said that reading is a "conversation" with the author. Web addresses contain communications sent by a surfer. URLs themselves often have content embedded within them. A search on the Google search engine, for example, creates a page with a custom-generated URL that contains material that is clearly private content, such as: http://www.google.com/search? hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=sexual+orientation. Similarly, if I fill out an online form - to purchase goods or register my preferences, for example - those products and preferences will often be identified in the resulting URL.

Under the Patriot Act PR/TT orders issued by a judge are no longer valid only in that judge's jurisdiction, but can be made valid anywhere in the United States. This "nationwide service" further marginalizes the role of the judiciary, because a judge cannot meaningfully monitor the extent to which his or her order is being used. In addition, this provision authorizes the equivalent of a blank warrant: the court issues the order, and the law enforcement agent fills in the places to be searched. That is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment's explicit requirement that warrants be written "particularly describing the place to be searched."

One of the most significant provisions of the Patriot Act makes it far easier for the authorities to gain access to records of citizens' activities being held by a third party. At a time when computerization is leading to the creation of more and more such records, Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FBI to force anyone at all - including doctors, libraries, bookstores, universities, and Internet service providers - to turn over records on their clients or customers.

Section 215 permits the FBI director to seek records from bookstores and libraries of books that a person suspected of terrorism has purchased or read, or of his or her activities on a library's computer. It also places a gag order to prevent anyone from disclosing that they have been ordered to produce such documents. Puts people at risk for exercising their free speech rights to read, recommend, or discuss a book or to write an email. It also denies booksellers and library personnel the free speech right to inform anyone, including an attorney, that the FBI has asked for someone's reading list. (Section 215)

Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can secretly conduct a physical search or wiretap on American citizens to obtain evidence of crime without proving probable cause, as the Fourth Amendment explicitly requires. A 1978 law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement for probable cause when the purpose of a wiretap or search was to gather foreign intelligence. The rationale was that since the search was not conducted for the purpose of gathering evidence to put someone on trial, the standards could be loosened. In a stark demonstration of why it can be dangerous to create exceptions to fundamental rights, however, the Patriot Act expanded this once-narrow exception to cover wiretaps and searches that DO collect evidence for regular domestic criminal cases. FISA previously allowed searches only if the primary purpose was to gather foreign intelligence. But the Patriot Act changes the law to allow searches when "a significant purpose" is intelligence. That lets the government circumvent the Constitution's probable cause requirement even when its main goal is ordinary law enforcement.

The eagerness of many in law enforcement to dispense with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment was revealed in August 2002 by the secret court that oversees domestic intelligence spying (the "FISA Court"). Making public one of its opinions for the first time in history, the court revealed that it had rejected an attempt by the Bush Administration to allow criminal prosecutors to use intelligence warrants to evade the Fourth Amendment entirely. The court also noted that agents applying for warrants had regularly filed false and misleading information. That opinion is now on appeal.

Section 215 is one of several provisions in the USA PATRIOT Act that relaxes the requirements, and extends the reach, of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). Under Section 215, the Director of the FBI or a designee as low in rank as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge may apply for a court order requiring the production of "any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)" upon his written statement that these items are being sought for an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." A judge presented with an application under Section 215 is required to enter an order if he "finds that the application meets the requirements of this section."

Notably absent from Section 215 is the restriction in the FISA provision it amends that had required the government to specify in its application for a court order that "there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the records pertain is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power." Now, under Section 215, the FBI may obtain sensitive personal records by simply certifying that they are sought for an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." The FBI need not suspect the person whose records are being sought of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, the class of persons whose records are obtainable under Section 215 is no longer limited to foreign powers and their agents, but may include United States citizens and lawful permanent residents, or "United States persons" in the parlance of the FISA. While Section 215 bars investigations of United States persons "solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution," it does nothing to bar investigations based on other activities that tie them, no matter how loosely, to an international terrorism investigation.

Section 411 of the Act poses an ideological test for entry into the United States that takes into consideration core political speech. Representatives of a political or social group "whose public endorsement of acts of terrorist activity the Secretary of State has determined undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities" can no longer gain entry into the United States. Entry is also barred to non-citizens who have used their "position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity," if the Secretary of State determines that their speech "undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities."

Allows for the indefinite detention of non-citizens. The Patriot Act gives the attorney general unprecedented new power to determine the fate of immigrants. The attorney general can order detention based on a certification that he or she has "reasonable grounds to believe" a non-citizen endangers national security. Worse, if the foreigner does not have a country that will accept them, they can be detained indefinitely without trial.

Section 501, "Expatriation of Terrorists": This provision, the drafters say, would establish that an American citizen could be expatriated "if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a 'terrorist organization'." But whereas a citizen formerly had to state his intent to relinquish his citizenship, the new law affirms that his intent can be "inferred from conduct." Thus, engaging in the lawful activities of a group designated as a "terrorist organization" by the Attorney General could be presumptive grounds for expatriation.

Section 411 vastly expands the class of immigrants that can be removed on terrorism grounds. The term "terrorist activity" is commonly understood to be limited to pre-meditated and politically-motivated violence targeted against a civilian population. Section 411, however, stretches the term beyond recognition to encompass any crime that involves the use of a "weapon or dangerous device (other than for mere personal monetary gain)." Under this broad definition, an immigrant who grabs a knife or makeshift weapon in the midst of a heat-of-the-moment altercation or in committing a crime of passion may be subject to removal as a "terrorist."

The term "engage in terrorist activity" has also been expanded to include soliciting funds for, soliciting membership for, and providing material support to, a "terrorist organization," even when that organization has legitimate political and humanitarian ends and the non-citizen seeks only to support these lawful ends. In such situations, Section 411 would permit guilt to be imposed solely on the basis of political associations protected by the First Amendment.

To complicate matters further, the term "terrorist organization" is no longer limited to organizations that have been officially designated as terrorist and that therefore have had their designations published in the Federal Register for all to see. Instead, Section 411 now includes as "terrorist organizations" groups that have never been designated as terrorist if they fall under the loose criterion of "two or more individuals, whether organized or not," which engage in specified terrorist activities. In situations where a non-citizen has solicited funds for, solicited membership for, or provided material support to, an undesignated "terrorist organization," Section 411 saddles him with the difficult, if not impossible, burden of "demonstrat[ing] that he did not know, and should not reasonably have known, that the act would further the organization's terrorist activity." Furthermore, while Section 411 prohibits the removal of a non-citizen on the grounds that he solicited funds for, solicited membership for, or provided material support to, a designated "terrorist organization" at a time when the organization was not designated as a "terrorist organization," Section 411 does not prohibit the removal of a non-citizen on the grounds that he solicited funds for, solicited membership for, or provided material support to, an undesignated "terrorist organization" prior to the enactment of the Act.

If the non-citizen is charged with an immigration violation, he is subject to mandatory detention and is ineligible for release until he is removed, or until the Attorney General determines that he should no longer be certified as a terrorist. While the immigration proceedings are pending, the Attorney General is required to review his certification once every six months. However, Section 412 does not direct the Attorney General either to inform the non-citizen of the evidence on which the certification is based, or to provide the non-citizen with an opportunity to contest that evidence at an Immigration Judge hearing or other administrative review procedure. Instead, Section 412 limits the non-citizen's ability to seek review of the certification to a habeas corpus proceeding filed in federal district court, appeals from which must be filed in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Since habeas proceedings are civil rather than criminal in nature, the government has no obligation under the Sixth Amendment to provide non-citizens with free counsel in such proceedings.

In short, immigrants who engage in political activities in connection with any organization that has ever violated the law risk being certified as terrorists, placed in mandatory detention, and removed, whether on a technical immigration violation or on terrorism grounds. Immigrants cannot protect themselves from such risks by simply avoiding association with organizations that have been designated as "terrorist organizations" because the Act broadens that term to include undesignated groups. Nor can immigrants protect themselves from such risks by limiting themselves to activities that are protected by the First Amendment, such as soliciting membership for, soliciting funds for, and providing material support to, a "terrorist organization" towards the goal of furthering the organization's lawful ends, because the Act broadens the term "engage in terrorist activity" to include these activities. Ironically, in the post-USA PATRIOT Act world, immigrants who are intent on avoiding such risks should refrain from any associations with organizations that could potentially be deemed terrorist, even if their association is strictly confined to activities that further the humanitarian and peace-oriented goals of the organization, such as training members of such a organization on how to present international human rights claims to the United Nations, representing such an organization in peace negotiations, and donating humanitarian aid to such an organization.

Under this Act and other legislation, noncitizens are being deported or detained indefinitely without judicial appeal.

Section 312, “Appropriate Remedies with Respect to Law Enforcement Surveillance Activities”: This section would terminate all state law enforcement consent decrees before Sept. 11, 2001, not related to racial profiling or other civil rights violations, that limit such agencies from gathering information about individuals and organizations. The authors of this statute claim that these consent orders, which were passed as a result of police spying abuses, could impede current terrorism investigations. It would also place substantial restrictions on future court injunctions.

Muslims are not a fringe group that can be summarily dismissed. Islam is the second-largest religion in the United States and the fastest-growing religion in North America and the world. African Americans make up one-quarter of the country’s Muslim population, according to the American Muslim Council. About 2.5 million African Americans—including followers of both W. Deen Muhammad and Louis Farrakhan—belong to the Islamic faith. Like followers of other faiths, all but a handful of Muslims are law-abiding citizens. Tainting Arabs,Muslims or any other group with the stain of terrorism is not just wrong, but it also undermines law enforcement’s mission to stop crime – and not profile because of race, color or creed.

AbiNader reported that 32 Fulbright scholars were not able to get visas to come to the U.S. in the past year. There has been a 30 percent decline in the enrollment of Arab students in U.S. higher education-the number of Saudi students has fallen from 1,500 two years ago to 50 last year.

After 9/11, the U.S. government detained roughly twelve hundred people, most of them male and from the Middle East or South Asian countries. Later the department implemented a mandatory registration policy for certain non-immigrant aliens from twenty-five countries, again mostly from Arab or Muslim countries.

The voluntary registration program resulted in something like seventy thousand immigrants being questioned and a few hundred individuals being deported for technical visa violations. Out of those seventy thousand, the Department of Justice reported that eleven were determined to have some link with terrorism. Eleven. And when you ask them what the link is, they say they can't divulge that. Based on earlier claims made by the DoJ, but disproven by the Inspector General and GAO reports, I'm not sure I believe that. For example, when the DoJ claimed that sixty-two people had been detained in New Jersey as a result of links to terrorism, it turns out that fifty-eight of them had cheated on an English exam.

despite the best efforts of the terrorists, it appears that law enforcement had a lot more intelligence available to them and could have connected the dots if there had been some interdepartmental cooperation. So do we need to recalibrate? No. What we need to do is refine the way we do our intelligence work and develop better cooperation among the various intelligence agencies.

That same day, I met with the FBI agent. He was courteous and professional. He came by himself and said he would take only a few minutes of my time. The crux of the complaints, he explained, related to my help in raising funds for a charity and to the fact that I was seen in a picture with Yasser Arafat.

The agent asked me about my previous job of 20 years ago when I was editor-in-chief of a Jerusalem-based newspaper. He then inquired if I was a Christian, to which I replied in the affirmative. He informed me that he was with the anti-terror squad at the local FBI office.

The criticism came at a daylong special meeting held at the Census Bureau's headquarters in this Washington suburb to discuss the disclosure this summer that on two occasions after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the agency provided comprehensive reports to Homeland Security listing Arab-American populations by city and ZIP code. The data, from the 2000 census, had already been made public on the agency's Internet site and did not include any individual names or addresses, information the agency is prohibited from disclosing. Further, Homeland Security officials have said the data were requested simply to help them decide at which airports they needed to post Arabic language signs, not for law enforcement purposes.

The government measures have created a fear that gripped the Muslims and Arabs following federal sweeps, round-ups, detentions of innocent Muslims and Arabs, who had neither terrorist intentions nor any connection to terrorist organizations. In the latest wave of interviews of Muslims and Arabs thousands of people are being questioned in a questionable manner. Worshippers in mosques are being asked some questions which are not related to terrorism.

Already, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has admitted to detaining more than 1,100 immigrants, not one of whom has been charged with committing a terrorist act and only a handful of whom are being held as material witnesses to the September 11 hijackings. [5] Many in this group appear to have been held for extended time periods under an extraordinary interim regulation announced by Attorney General John Ashcroft on September 17 and published in Federal Register on September 20. [6] This regulation sets aside the strictures of due process by permitting the INS to detain aliens without charge for 48 hours or an uncapped "additional reasonable period of time" in the event of an "emergency or other extraordinary circumstance." Also, many in this group are being held without bond under the pretext of unrelated criminal charges or minor immigration violations, in a modern-day form of preventive detention. Chillingly, the Attorney General's response to the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act was not a pledge to use his new powers responsibly and guard against their abuse, but instead was a vow to step up his detention efforts. Conflating immigrant status with terrorist status, he declared: "Let the terrorists among us be warned, if you overstay your visas even by one day, we will arrest you."

8,000 Arab and South Asian immigrants have been interrogated because of their religion or ethnic background, not because of actual wrongdoing.

Thousands of men, mostly of Arab and South Asian origin, have been held in secretive federal custody for weeks and months, sometimes without any charges filed against them. The government has refused to publish their names and whereabouts, even when ordered to do so by the courts.

Although the albatross of racial profiling shifted from African Americans to Arabs and Arab Americans after 9/11, history has taught black Americans that the Constitution stands as the strongest bulwark against abuses, and potential abuses, of government power. So when the immediate post 9/11 anxieties eased, African Americans had good reason to be alarmed by provisions of the PATRIOT Act, the Homeland Security Act and other new federal policies that threaten civil rights and civil liberties. “We’re in a tremendous state of danger. An extreme right wing has seized the reins of power,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson said during a panel discussion at the State of the Black World Conference, which took place a month after the USA PATRIOT Act was adopted.

After the emotions settled, it was clear that the new laws brought a disturbing array of new invasive federal police authority, including Ashcroft’s quietly empowering himself to order the monitoring of prisoners’ conversations with lawyers. The Justice Department now has sweeping authority to wiretap phones, read private emails and gain access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health and student records. FBI agents can launch criminal investigations against American citizens without probable cause, if they say it is for “intelligence purposes.” Jesse Jackson said that with measures like these, the United States has entered an era where telephone taps, eavesdropping and an inability to talk to a lawyer privately are now legal. Sharpton added that the anti-terrorism bill would be used “to justify locking us up, and those that speak up will be attacked as terrorists.”

Puts CIA back in business of spying on Americans. The Patriot Act gives the Director of Central Intelligence the power to identify domestic intelligence requirements. That opens the door to the same abuses that took place in the 1970s and before, when the CIA engaged in widespread spying on protest groups and other Americans.

Rescinds anti-COINTELPRO regulations and authorizes the FBI to monitor and surveil religious groups and political groups without evidence of wrongdoing. Opens the door to COINTELPRO operations, which were used in the past to harass and to intimidate people who disagreed with the government on issues such as civil rights and the Vietnam War. (Attorney General's Edict for Increased Surveillance of Religious and Political Organizations)

Section 218 allows law enforcement agencies conducting a criminal investigation to circumvent the Fourth Amendment whenever they are able to claim that the gathering of foreign intelligence constitutes "a significant purpose." In doing so, Section 218 gives the FBI a green light to resume domestic spying on government "enemies" -- a program that reached an ugly apex under J. Edgar Hoover's directorship.

Section 301-306, “Terrorist Identification Database”: These sections would authorize creation of a DNA database on “suspected terrorists,” expansively defined to include association with suspected terrorist groups, and noncitizens suspected of certain crimes or of having supported any group designated as terrorist.

Attorney General's TIPS program sets up a system for up to 2 million Americans, more than were involved in the heyday of East Germany's Stasi, to secretly provide information to the government about any persons whom they consider suspicious, and for the government to set up a file on these persons. May potentially damage someone's record due to innocent activities that are misunderstood or are invented or enhanced by the caller because of a personal vendetta. How the "tips" would be used has been neither reported nor approved, nor have there been assurances that anyone who is reported as "suspicious" will be confronted with the evidence against him/her and given an opportunity to correct it.

Replaced Attorney General Janet Reno's previous guidelines to agencies for fulfilling FOIA requests, which were to make allowable discretionary disclosures except where there was "demonstrable harm." Ashcroft assures agencies that "decide to withhold records, in whole or in part," that they "can be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies to protect other important records.” Enables federal agencies to ignore many FOIA requests for unclassified information. For example, the administration has used this edict to keep secret the names of detainees detained for long periods, and to close their hearings. (Attorney General's edict subverting Freedom of Information Act Requests)

Allows government to operate in secret by authorizing secret arrests (sec. 201)

Section 201, “Prohibition of Disclosure of Terrorism Investigation Detainee Information”: Safeguarding the dissemination of information related to national security has been a hallmark of Ashcroft’s first two years in office, and the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 follows in the footsteps of his October 2001 directive to carefully consider such interest when granting Freedom of Information Act requests. While the October memo simply encouraged FOIA officers to take national security, “protecting sensitive business information and, not least, preserving personal privacy” into account while deciding on requests, the proposed legislation would enhance the department’s ability to deny releasing material on suspected terrorists in government custody through FOIA.

Section 202, “Distribution of ‘Worst Case Scenario’ Information”: This would introduce new FOIA restrictions with regard to the Environmental Protection Agency. As provided for in the Clean Air Act, the EPA requires private companies that use potentially dangerous chemicals must produce a “worst case scenario” report detailing the effect that the release of these controlled substances would have on the surrounding community. Section 202 of this Act would, however, restrict FOIA requests to these reports, which the bill’s drafters refer to as “a roadmap for terrorists.” By reducing public access to “read-only” methods for only those persons “who live and work in the geographical area likely to be affected by a worst-case scenario,” this subtitle would obfuscate an established level of transparency between private industry and the public.

Chairman Sensenbrenner Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. “House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Wisconsin Republican, made it clear that the Republican House is not about to roll over for President Bush on the Patriot Act... Mr. Sensenbrenner, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said ‘over my dead body’ will the act be reauthorized without undergoing thorough re-examination in hearings held by the House.” [Washington Times, 1/23/04; H.R. 3162, Roll Call #398, 10/24/01]

Sen. Specter Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. “Sen. Arlen Specter blasted part of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act as none of the government’s business Friday, and said he wants to step up congressional oversight of the U.S. Justice Department… ‘I don’t think that’s any of the government’s business,’ Specter said. ‘I don’t think what people read is subject to inquiry. What difference does that make? It has a chilling effect on fundamental freedom of activity.’” [AP, 8/ 1/03; H.R. 3162, Vote #313, 10/25/01]

Sen. Craig Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID): “It’s time we adjusted this law to assure civil liberties are not being trampled.” [Washington Times, 10/16/03; H.R. 3162, Vote #313, 10/25/01]

Rep. Leach Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. Rep. Jim Leach (R-IA): “There are very few acts of Congress that deserve more careful oversight than the Patriot Act.” [CQ, 9/11/03; H.R. 3162, Roll Call #398, 10/24/01]

Rep. Armey Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. Former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey: “I told the President I thought his Justice Department was out of control… Are we going to save ourselves from international terrorism in order to deny the fundamental liberties we protect to ourselves?… It doesn’t make sense to me.” [USA Today, 10/16/02; H.R. 3162, Roll Call #398, 10/24/01]

Sen. Crapo Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID): “I concluded the authority was so broad it could be dangerous.” [Idaho Falls Post Register, 10/9/03; H.R. 3162, Vote #313, 10/25/01]

Rep. Barr Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. Bob Barr, a former Georgia congressman who voted for the Patriot Act, told the Senate he did so “with the understanding the Justice Department would use it as a limited, if extraordinary power, needed to meet a specific, extraordinary threat. ‘Little did I, or many of my colleagues, know it would shortly be used in contexts other than terrorism, ’ said Barr, a former federal prosecutor who now is an official with the American Conservative Union. ” [Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/19/03; H.R. 3162, Roll Call #398, 10/24/01]

Sen. Grassley Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. “With protests set to greet U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft when he arrives in Utah on Monday to speak to local law enforcement about the USA Patriot Act, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, is professing concern about Ashcroft’s announced position that the already controversial act should be dramatically expanded… Grassley says he and others had ‘doubts about the infringement upon the Constitutional rights of Americans’ from the getgo.” [Newsmax.com, 8/25/03; H.R. 3162, Vote #313, 10/25/01]

Rep. Nethercutt Voted For the Patriot Act, Then Criticized It. On his congressional website, Rep. George Nethercutt (R-WA) informed his constituents that he became a cosponsor of a bill that sought to reform the Patriot Act. “This week I became a cosponsor of H.R. 3352, Security and Freedoms Ensured (SAFE) Act, introduced by Rep. Otter of Idaho. This bill amends the USA PATRIOT Act to curtail its most controversial provisions, including: ‘Sneak and Peek’ warrants…John Doe roving wiretaps…Library searches…” [http://www.house.gov/nethercutt/, “Inside Congress Weekly Update,” 12/5/03; H.R. 3162, Roll Call #398, 10/24/01]

“Communication is big in inner-city neighborhoods and the underpinning of that is trust. If a victim thinks they’re going to be a suspect (in an immigration violation), they’re not going to call us, and that’s just going to separate us even further.” (“Immigration Bill Has Police Uneasy,” Denver Post, 4/22/02)

“[I]t is the strong opinion of the California Police Chiefs Association leadership that in order for local and state law enforcement organizations to continue to be effective partners with their communities, it is imperative that they not be placed in the role of detaining and arresting individuals based solely on a change in their immigration status.” (Letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft, 4/10/02)

“The nature of the police role is to establish the trust and confidence of people living in a community. That is a vital link for police for information on criminal activity…Where does this fit in the context of priorities? Would it go ahead of robbery, homicide, drug offenses, any of those things?” (“U.S. Weighs Local Role on Immigration,” Chicago Tribune, 4/14/02)

Bush Campaign Chairman Said Patriot Act Needed to Be Reformed. Marc Racicot, Chairman, Bush-Cheney ‘04: “And it’s my belief, based upon the comments of members of Congress, who presently have legislation pending to provide refinements to that act, to bring that balance even truer than it has been, so that it does not end up invading the civil rights of any American, to be a cause that will be undertaken, and ultimately finished by Congress. . . . I do sense that most Americans realize that this is going to be an ongoing dialogue and process of refinement.” [Marc Racicot, remarks news conference at Arab American Institute National Leadership Conference, Dearborn, Michigan 17 Oct 2003]

Ohio GOP Chairman Said There Are Legitimate Concerns Regarding Patriot Act. “I think they (Muslims) have some legitimate concerns with regard to the Patriot Act,” Ohio GOP Chair man Robert T. Bennett told The Dispatch. “It's very similar to what happened to the Japanese-Americans in World War II, absent the movement and the concentration. There's no question that we have some profiling in place, and that disturbs people.” [Columbus Dispatch, 10/10/04]

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Decries Bush Administration’s Secrecy. Chairman of House Judiciary Committee James Sensenbrenner (R-WI): “The Justice Department has classified as top-secret most of what it ’s doing under the Patriot Act. The burden will be on the Justice Department and whomever is attorney general at that time to convince Congress and the president to extend the Patriot Act or modify it.” [AP, 4/16/03]

Lawmakers Complain of Justice Department Resistance to Oversight. Congressional Quarterly reported that delays in hearing back from the Justice Department were infuriating Chairman Sensenbrenner in his efforts to oversee the implementation of the Patriot Act. “The Department of Justice’s answers to his first set of written questions in 2002 were so incomplete that he threatened to subpoena Attorney General John Ashcroft to get better ones. Since then, Sensenbrenner aides say, Justice has improved its response time, and its answers have gotten better. The initial problems, however, have left lingering doubts about the department’s responsiveness. ‘We gave the Justice Department a huge increase in power,’ [former Republican Majority Leader Dick] Armey said. Congress made a point of designing key provisions to expire, he said, ‘on the theory that would make them more responsive to oversight.’” [CQ Weekly, 5/21/04]

Norquist Says Administration Secrecy Is Insulting. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform: “It’s been two years since 9-11, and for the administration to still answer the public’s questions about how these powers are being used with ‘Just trust us’ is insulting.” [Salt Lake Tribune, 9/15/03]

Senior Justice Department Official Admits Patriot Act Is Unpopular. A staff member of Attorney General John Ashcroft’s office admitted that the support for the Patriot Act is waning as more and more cities formally criticize the controversial action taken by Congress to grant law enforcement agencies more power. Chuck Rosenberg, chief of staff to Deputy Attorne y General James B. Comey, said “We’re losing this fight.” Approximately 300 cities and counties, as well as 4 states, have passed resolutions condemning the Patriot Act. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3/22/04; ACLU]

Former Speaker Urges Congress to Rein in Patriot Act. Former GOP Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich: “I strongly believe Congress must act now to rein in the Patriot Act, limit its use to national security concerns and prevent it from developing ‘mission creep’ into areas outside of national security… If prosecutors lack the necessary legislation to combat other serious domestic crimes, crimes not connected to terrorism, then lawmakers should seek to give prosecutors separate legislation to provide them the tools they need, but again not at the expense of civil rights. But in no case should prosecutors of domestic crimes seek to use tools intended for national security purposes.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/11/03]

Lifelong Republican Bookstore Owner Says Bush Is Wrong Not To Support Reform of Patriot Act. “Phillip Bevis, a lifelong Republican who owns bookstores in Seattle and Los Angeles, said the Patriot Act is not, on the whole, a bad thing. Some of the provisions are ‘incredibly well-crafted,’ he said. ‘But other sections look like they were scribbled out on the back of a matchbook in a bar,’ he said. ‘They’re just half- finished and half-baked.’… ‘It’s a problem right now,’ he said. ‘It’s causing Bush to lose points in the polls, it’s threatening his re-election and it’s bad for the party -- federal, state and local. ’ Other more prominent Republicans share Bevis’ concern and have crafted amendments to fix some of what they say
are obvious flaws.” [Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6/4/04]

371 Communities and 4 States Have Condemned the Patriot Act. 371 cities and counties, and the states of Maine, Vermont, Alaska, and Hawaii have passed resolutions, ordinances, and ballot initiatives urging Congress to scale back the Patriot Act. The communities represent nearly 56.2 million people in 43 states. [ACLU, http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/]

Federal Judge Struck Down Portion of Patriot Act, Ruling It Violated Personal Freedoms. A New York federal district court judge curtailed the government's power in terrorism investigations under the USA Patriot Act, ruling that a widely- used subpoena to obtain private online records from communications firms violated the Constitution by permitting “coercive searches” without any judicial review. The subpoena, known as a national security letter, could be used in terrorism investigations to require Internet service companies to provide personal information about subscribers and would bar them from disclosing to anyone that they had received a subpoena. Judge Victor Marrero declared, “Democracy abhors undue secrecy.” [LAT, 9/30/04; NYT, 9/30/04; Boston Globe, 9/30/04]]

The American Civil Liberties Union sued the FBI on Thursday (10/21/2004), trying to get more information about the agency's questioning of Muslims and Arabs as it investigates the possibility of pre-election terror attacks. The ACLU, which describes the unannounced interviews at homes, workplaces and mosques "interrogations," is seeking internal documents under the Freedom of Information Act about whether the government is protecting the constitutional rights of those interviewed.

"We are trying to get much greater sunshine over these activities," said ACLU attorney John Crew. Among other things, the group wants to know how the agency chooses who it will interview. "These random interviews or interrogations raise the concern that the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Forces operating in Northern California are infringing upon the civil rights and civil liberties of immigrants, U.S. citizens and organizations by interrogating them without any valid basis, rationale, or individualized suspicion for doing so," the ACLU's FOIA request says. The FBI has done more than 13,000 interviews this year as part of its '04 Threat Task Force effort to detect and disrupt a potential election-year terror attack. Officials say these people were identified through ongoing terrorism investigations, through intelligence information and because of indicators such as recent travel to countries with links to terrorism, according to senior law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The interviews are voluntary and are not meant to indicate that the person is a suspected terrorist. Still, Muslim groups have expressed concern that they are being singled out for unfair scrutiny. Joe Parris, an FBI spokesman in Washington, D.C., said the agency had no comment because of "pending litigation." The ACLU's suit comes a month after the FBI refused the group's request to immediately respond to its Freedom of Information Act claim. In a letter to the ACLU, the FBI said it would process the request in a "first-in-first-out" basis, a process that would take more than a year.