Term Paper on "USA Patriot Act"

Term Paper 10 pages (4099 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

S.A. Patriot Act) It is clear that the support from a party which was involved with passing the law in the first place. If there is a complaint about a robbery, is the thief expected to be the main witness in the court when the case comes up? Earlier the process needed the minimum of a warrant and a probable cause for the agencies to seek private record of the individual being accused of theft.

Under Fourth amendment, Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, and relevant case laws show that if a state wanted to search an organization, the agency had to show the reasons for believing that a crime had been committed and also to get a warrant from a neutral judge. When the new law of FISA came up in 1978, there was the chance for the agencies to get surveillance done without an warrant for the purpose of obtaining information about foreign intelligence, but the agencies were still tied down to going through a judge. The laws also clearly stated that FISA could be used for the purposes of conducting foreign intelligence; the person being targeted was likely to be linked to foreign espionage as also an agent of a foreign power. (A Guide to the Patriot Act, Part 1)

The new act needs only a certification from a FISA judge, but there is no need for any evidence or probable cause. The only statement has to be that the search is required for protection against terrorism. This is the new definition of "seeking a court order" by the Department of Justice. The government authorities repeatedly state that the agencies require an order from a FISA court, and have to convince the court that they require the information. (Statement of Barbara Comstock, Director of Public Affairs regarding Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act) The question here is of convincing the judge, but they do not have to give the judge evidence or probable cause for their requirement. Then how can there be a logical method of convincing the judge? The judge has to permit the collection of information by the agency, as long as the agency says that it is required to fight terrorism. The status of the judge has been reduced to a doll for issuing orders. Why not use a machine instead?

The policies are also clear and the search can be conducted under any pretext whatsoever, and the person for whom the search is being conducted need not be suspected of terror. What that means is that if one wants to get any information about the members, including the simple finding out whether a particular person is a member or not, the library can be asked to provide the information, by an order under Patriot Act. The agency just has to name a person. The agency does not have to accuse the person of being a suspected terrorist. The department has also said that U.S. citizens may not be subjected to search, but there is no such statement in the act. It is not possible to distinguish between citizens of United States and others, when all the information that will be turned up is a list of names -- some of them may be citizens of United States while others may not. The department also says that "an investigation conducted under this section shall 'not be conducted of a United States person solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.'"(Statement of Barbara Comstock, Director of Public Affairs regarding Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act)

This logic is rather difficult to understand as in many cases the situation may be as simple as writing an article against the act. The author may be now a citizen of United States, but the law applicable to him will be different if the person has come in from some other country. The operating word here is 'solely'. (A Guide to the Patriot Act, Part 1) The icing on the cake is the supervision of the operation of the act. This is to be done by the Attorney General and he has to inform Congress every six months on the number of times, the agents have asked for court orders under Section 215. The information is to be classified, but the procedure has been followed by the authorities. (Statement of Barbara Comstock, Director of Public Affairs regarding Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act)

The question here is that the Act has been passed by the Congress and they are being informed about usage of the act only in terms of the number of times. Are they to be told the details of information that is being turned up through these requests? Again, the information has to be supplied by the Attorney General and he is a part of the government and he is unlikely to act against the wishes of the government. The problem here is that one fundamental principle of dividing the rulers of the country in three sections of administration, legislature and judiciary is not being followed. Only that policy when strictly enforced can keep a balance between the wings. Otherwise, the administrative wing will tend to dominate the other organs. This is what is happening now.

Objections to the logic stated:

When we look at the large amount of discussions of the Act that has already been gone through, one really needs to examine whether the information sought for was required? The other point is whether Americans are really concerned to a large extent about invasion of their privacy? Unless those points are clarified, there is no point in arguing so much about a law which will expire by the end of 2005. The first point is that the law made quite a few changes that were not required, or even through the changes in government policies and new regulations that accompanied the law. One such change was the setting up of investigative guidelines for the Attorney General. The second point is that powers which were collected for fighting terrorists were finally used for fighting ordinary criminals, though the fear of terrorists stopped any debate from taking place. After all, the terrorists are a 'sacred cow' in USA today. When questions about the law came up from the Congress, the Department of Justice failed to answer some of the relevant queries. The Department of Justice also did not say clearly the powers that it had been granted. (Interested Persons Memo on Congressional oversight of the U.S.A. Patriot Act and Department of Justice anti-terrorism policies -- DOJ's dismissive response on civil liberties)

Going further into the argument, the department has not taken seriously the way immigrants were detained during the course of the investigation into 9/11 attacks and the description of these persons was given as terrorists. At the same time, under Patriot Act, they were never classified as suspects. Even the Director General of the Department stated that the serious abuses took place as it had taken "indiscriminate and haphazard" tactics regarding the entire matter. These procedures led to long detentions without charge or access to attorneys combined with the confinement of immigrants in very harsh conditions. The detentions are also taking place for very long periods, and it seems that persons who are being held are being presumed to be guilty. There have been also many new guidelines that have been issued without rhyme or reason.

On May 14, 2002 there was an issue of fresh guidelines to investigate normal crimes and domestic security. The new laws provide agents from FBI right to attend any public event, including political and religious meetings. The agents do not have to disclose their identity, and the fact that they did not disclose identity would be considered relevant in any future trial. This has led FBI agents to enter mosques which did not have any suspicion of criminal activity. The number of mosques that have been visited is put at ten from 9/11. Nine of these visits were classified as being for the purpose of "open preliminary inquiries or full investigations." (Interested Persons Memo on Congressional oversight of the U.S.A. Patriot Act and Department of Justice anti-terrorism policies -- DOJ's dismissive response on civil liberties) Even under the earlier conditions, such visits by FBI agents were taking place, and authorized. Even the one visit to a mosque that was classified as "pursuant to the Guidelines provision authorizing agents to visit public places and attend public events" did not yield any results. There have been reviews of some 4,500 intelligence files, and the aim was to find out whether they had any relevant information regarding criminal activity.

The only case that came out was of Sami Al-Arian, who is an Arab-American in Tampa, Florida. The case of this person is well-known as his brother in law had been imprisoned for years, and this person was accused of raising funds… READ MORE

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