palerider1 wrote:
I think the patriot act is a good thing,
Why do you think that? Have you read it?
We need to track down and destroy all those who wish to do our country harm.
Are we to believe that the fedgov before passage of the PATRIOT Act was a helpless giant with scant means to of thwart violent criminal conspiracies - despite scores of thousands of federal law enforcement and intelligence agents and a statute book that criminalized almost everything except breaking wind in public?
For those of you that are opposed to the Patriot act please list your beef,
You're the one pushing for it. You explain why it's needed.
My "beef" is that I tend to agree with Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in 1799: "Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidance... In questions of powers, let no more be heard of confidance in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
The FBI has been tapping the mafia for years
With no need for a PATRIOT Act. It's called having probable casue, getting a warrant, obeying the Constitution...that kinda thing.
longhorngunman wrote:
Good! I need to communicate with my senators and congressmen that the Patriot Act needs to be made permanent.
Why does it need to be made permanent? (And spare us the simple answer of "9-11! 9-11!")
The PATRIOT Act authorizes seizures of travellers' money (in violation of a Supreme Court ruling), the use of new surveillance software that could vacuum up millions of people's email without a search warrant, and nationwide "roving wiretaps." 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 based solely on FBI adminsitrative subpoenas issued by FBI field offices on the flimsiest of pretexts.
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.
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.
The Patriot Act unconstitutionally amends the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to allow 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.
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.
The Act greatly increases the power of the Foreign Intelligence Suveillance Court - a kangaroo court that meets in secret, never permits any defense attorney to apepar to challenge the government, and rubberstamps 99.9% of all the wiretaps that executive branch requests. This is the same FISA court that Bush decided to ignore in his recent NSA wiretap program.
After the PATRIOT Act was passed, there was a hundred-fold increase in the number of emergency spying warrants issued solely on the Attorney General's command - and leter rubberstamped by the FISA court.
The PATRIOT Act puts CIA back in business of spying on Americans.
Bush's powergrabs have been far less controversial than Clinton's - in part because most of the conservative media continue to be totally entralled by their man.
The FBI has been tapping the mafia for years and so far no law abiding citizen has complained about that sort of stuff anyways.
You might want to brush up on history here. The
FISA court itself complained in 2002 about the FBI's making false statements in affidavits filed with the court. The presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, detailed how the FBI had made an "alarming number" of errors in seeking and using national security warrants in terrorism investigations in the years 2000 - 2002.
