Patriot
2
Marchers
Protest and the Federal Government Makes Plans to Control US
The
Patriot Act II
-The
The American Civil Libertites Union
provides a Section-by-Section Analysis of Justice Department draft Domestic
Security Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as Patriot Act II
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URL:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=11835&c=206
Interested Persons Memo:
Section-by-Section Analysis of Justice Department draft Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as PATRIOT Act II
To: Interested Persons
From: Timothy H. Edgar, Legislative Counsel
Date:
Re: Section-by-Section Analysis of Justice
Department draft Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, also known as
Patriot Act II
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has
been drafting comprehensive anti-terrorism legislation for the past several
months. The draft legislation, dated
Among its most severe problems, the
bill
Diminishes personal privacy by
removing checks on government power, specifically by
* Making it easier for the government to
initiate surveillance and wiretapping of
* Permitting the government, under certain
circumstances, to bypass the
* Sheltering federal agents engaged in
illegal surveillance without a court
order from criminal prosecution if they are following orders of high Executive
Branch officials. (Section 106)
* Creating a new category of domestic
security surveillance that permits electronic eavesdropping of entirely
domestic activity under looser standards than are provided for ordinary
criminal surveillance under Title III.
(Section 122)
* Using an overbroad definition of terrorism
that could cover some protest tactics such as those used by Operation Rescue or
protesters at
* Providing for general surveillance orders
covering multiple functions of high tech devices, and by further expanding pen
register and trap and trace authority for intelligence surveillance of
* Creating a new, separate crime of using
encryption technology that could add five years to any sentence for crimes
committed with a computer. (Section 404)
* Expanding nationwide search warrants so
they do not have to meet even the broad definition of terrorism in the USA
PATRIOT Act. (Section 125)
* Giving the government secret access to
credit reports without consent and without judicial process. (Section 126)
* Enhancing the governments ability to
obtain sensitive information without prior judicial approval by creating
administrative subpoenas and providing new penalties for failure to comply with
written demands for records. (Sections
128 and 129)
* Allowing for the sampling and cataloguing
of innocent Americans genetic information without court order and without consent.
(Sections 301-306)
* Permitting, without any connection to
anti-terrorism efforts, sensitive personal information about
* Terminating court-approved limits on
police spying, which were initially put
in place to prevent McCarthy-style law enforcement persecution based on
political or religious affiliation. (Section
312)
* Permitting searches, wiretaps and
surveillance of
Diminishes public accountability by
increasing government secrecy; specifically, by
* Authorizing secret arrests in immigration
and other cases, such as material
witness warrants, where the detained person is not criminally charged. (Section 201)
* Threatening public health by severely
restricting access to crucial information about environmental health risks
posed by facilities that use dangerous
chemicals. (Section 202)
* Harming fair trial rights for American
citizens and other defendants by limiting defense attorneys from challenging
the use of secret evidence in criminal cases. (Section 204)
* Gagging grand jury witnesses in terrorism
cases to bar them from discussing their testimony with the media or the general
public, thus preventing them from
defending themselves against rumor-mongering and denying the public information
it has a right to receive under the First Amendment. (Section 206)
Diminishes corporate accountability
under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically, by
* Granting immunity to businesses that
provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if
their actions are taken with disregard for their customers privacy or other
rights and show reckless disregard for the truth. Such immunity could provide an incentive for
neighbor to spy on neighbor and pose problems similar to those inherent in
Attorney General Ashcrofts Operation TIPS.
(Section 313)
Undermines fundamental
constitutional rights of Americans under overbroad definitions of terrorism and
terrorist organization or under a terrorism pretext; specifically by
* Stripping even native-born Americans of
all of the rights of
indefinitely imprisoned in their own
country as undocumented aliens. (Section 501)
* Creating 15 new death penalties, including
a new death penalty for terrorism under
a definition which could cover acts of protest such as those used by Operation
Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island,
Puerto Rico, if death results.
(Section 411)
* Further criminalizing association without any intent to commit specific
terrorism crimes by broadening the crime
of providing material support to terrorism, even if support is not given to
any organization listed as a terrorist
organization by the government. (Section
402)
* Permitting arrests and extraditions of
Americans to any foreign country
including those whose governments do not respect the rule of law or
human rights in the absence of a
Senate-approved treaty and without
allowing an American judge to consider the extraditing countrys legal system or human rights
record. (Section 322)
Unfairly targets immigrants under
the pretext of fighting terrorism;specifically by
* Undercutting trust between police
departments and immigrant communities by opening sensitive visa files to local
police for the enforcement of complex
immigration laws. (Section 311)
* Targeting undocumented workers with
extended jail terms for common
immigration offenses. (Section
502)
* Providing for summary deportations without
evidence of crime, criminal intent or terrorism, even of lawful permanent
residents, whom the Attorney General says are a threat to national
security. (Section 503)
* Completely abolishing fair hearings for
lawful permanent residents convicted of even minor criminal offenses through a
retroactive expedited removal procedure, and preventing any court from questioning the governments unlawful actions
by explicitly exempting
these cases from habeas corpus
review. Congress has not exempted
any person from habeas corpus - a
protection guaranteed by the
Constitution - since the Civil War. (Section 504)
* Allowing the Attorney General to deport an
immigrant to any country in the world, even if there is no effective government
in such a country. (Section 506)