Andrew McCarthy has a very good piece in NRO cutting through the FUD that surrounds the PATRIOT Act. Almost everyone who criticizes the PATRIOT Act as somehow being against basic Constitutional rights have never A:) been able to explicate exactly what rights are being infringed and B:) have never actually read the text of the Act or even be able to remotely point to what statutes specifically harm anyone’s freedom.
The fact is that there’s very little in the PATRIOT Act that is actually new. Most of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act simply extend pre-existing powers for law enforcement under statutes like RICO to terrorism investigation. Even the much maligned Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act that supposedly lets John Ashcroft know what book you’re checking out of the library only extends an ability that already existed for years under previous statutes. As McCarthy points out:
Of all the argumentum ad hominem aimed at Ashcroft, this is the most inane. The bookshelves of thoughtful people run the gamut from Dickens to Disney and most anything in between; seeing their library checkouts would tell us precious little about their propensity, if any, toward crime. After two decades in law enforcement, I can now break the secret: The government doesn’t care what you read (a fact that would be palpable to anyone who’d slogged through a Justice Department press release). Consequently, it should shock no one that, as the beleaguered Ashcroft recently reported, the government has not yet sought library records a single time under the Patriot Act.
The furor over the PATRIOT Acts is almost entirely based on misinformation and arguments that have little bearing to the actual text of the act. Almost none of its most vocal critics have bothered to actually read or understand it, it’s simply accepted on a prima facie basis that it’s bad and tyrannical without that assumption ever once being tested.
The fact remains that you have a far greater chance of being oppressed by the government based on the measures passed by Bill Clinton and Janet Reno in the “war on drugs” than Bush and Ashcroft’s “war on terror.” Yet few of today’s PATRIOT critics bothered to decry the tactics like no-knock warrants and stunning abuses of federal power such as the Elian Gonzales raid and Ruby Ridge that were the hallmark of the Clinton Administration. It is clear that the arguments of against the PATRIOT Act, with some notable exceptions, are arguments from partisan vitriol rather than substantive law.
Most of the provisions of the PATRIOT Act simply extend pre-existing powers for law enforcement under statutes like RICO to terrorism investigation.
That’s the problem. It’s not just being used for terrorism. The fact that the government is using PATRIOT to prosecute drug offenders and raid strip clubs is considerable evidence that there’s more to PATRIOT than a simple extension of existing powers.
Use it for terrorism. That’s only moderately objectionable. But using the bill in another context is dangerous and stupid. It’s a travesty that must not be allowed.
The problem with the USA PATRIOT Act is, as you yourself have commented on several times, the ease with which it can be misused. It’s a few good ideas and a few bad ideas in an extremely bad piece of legislation. It leaves gaping holes where “checks and balances” once lived, and it can be used for just about anything (though I don’t actually know of any convictions on terrorism charges that resulted from the government having the PATRIOT act).
Bring back some parts of it later if you must, but that rag’s gotta go.
On this I agree.
This is a far comment as well, although I think PATRIOT has far more checks and balances then most of its critics give it credit for.
So, Jay, what do you suggest we do with legislation that too easily lends itself to misuse?
The misuse is more semantic than concrete. I believe that if the PATRIOT Act is to be applied to non-terrorist situations it should be a new bill not tied to terrorism.
Furthermore, just because a prosecution is made using rules from the PATRIOT Act, it doesn’t mean that all of the PATRIOT Act’s new powers are being used. In the case of the strip club owner, they used some rules regarding expansions of wiretap procedings. (One of the PATRIOT Act statutes allows the government to monitor cable internet in the same way they can with dial-up Internet, as when the original statute was written cable internet service didn’t exist.)
Is this a misuse of the PATRIOT Act. Legally, not really, as there’s nothing special about the power being used. It’s rather ridiculous to suggest that a criminal should be able to dodge an electronic trace installed on a court order because they use broadband rather than dialup. Furthermore, only that statute is being used. The club owner isn’t going to be tried by a special terrorism court.
My argumemt against that is it makes for bad press. The PATRIOT Act should be for terrorism and terrorism only. While some of the PATRIOT Act’s statutes are indeed needed for other investigations, I’d recommend that the DoJ separate them from the PATRIOT Act and fold them back into RICO and other statutes. The difference is subjective rather than substantive, but it would help the PR image of the Act.
The PATRIOT Act should be for terrorism and terrorism only.
Duh. The DMCA should be for the prosecution of massive piracy rings, as well. Not prosecuting you for comparing after-Thanksgiving prices at Best Buy.
The problem is, like the DMCA, PATRIOT contains no language to prevent use outside those reasonable areas. Adding a new law won’t matter. We need to amend or rescind these laws and define new ones more narrowly.
I thought Republicans believed (as Democrats do) that we should be protecting the people from potential abuses by the government. Well, the USA PATRIOT Act has one hell of a lot of potential for abuse. If the government really doesn’t care what we read, for example, then why is that information specifically included in the Act?
We don’t need more domestic intelligence to stop terrorism. We’ve got the necessary intelligence already–we just need to analyze it better and not gloss over obvious items, like when some of the 9/11 hijackers bought plane tickets under their real, FBI watchlisted names.