Wire taps, busting into your home with no warrant, and keeping "secret" files on citizens, is all legal now. BUT, the statutes that allow this, that were enacted after 911; were implemented to allow the government to "investigate terrorists" when they have probable cause to believe a Citizen is connected to terrorist groups.
Among the worst seven provisions of the bill are the following.
1. The FBI can secretly enter someone's home or office, search the premises, and leave without notifying the owner. In theory, this would be supervised by a court. However, the notification of the secret search "may be delayed" indefinitely (Section 213). This is, of course, a complete violation of the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits "fishing expeditions" and guarantees the right of the people to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." All the federal government must do to suspend your Fourth Amendment rights is accuse you of terrorism.
2. Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. As reported before, this system records all e-mail correspondence and the addresses of Web pages visited by a specific target. Previously, there were legal restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance techniques (Section 216). Even more troubling, Fox News has reported that the FBI plans to go beyond the authorization of the new bill and change the very architecture of the Internet. The FBI wants to route all net traffic through central servers for monitoring. While this will require the voluntary compliance of the major ISPs, most experts agree that they will quickly cave into these demands for fear of appearing uncooperative or unpatriotic.
3. An accused terrorist who is a foreign citizen can be held for an unspecified series of "periods of up to six months" with the attorney general's approval. He doesn't have to be charged and he may be denied access to an attorney (Section 412). In effect, this provision suspends any due process provisions of the Constitution, especially the Fifth Amendment which states that "no person [shall] be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law." While the provision of this bill only applies to foreigners, it sets a dangerous precedent and could easily be used in the future against U.S. citizens accused of domestic terrorism.
4. Foreigners who enter the U.S. on a visa will be subjected to biometric technology, such as fingerprint readers or iris scanners. This will become part of an "integrated entry and exit data system" (Section 414). My fear is that eventually all Americans will be forced to submit to this technology. This bill will put the infrastructure in place. In will then be a simple step to require all citizens to participate in this system. Failure to do so may result in the inability to travel or even to buy and sell merchandise or property.
5. Without a court order, the FBI can require telephone companies and Internet service providers to turn over customer records. All they have to do is claim that the "records sought are relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism." Worse, the company contacted may not "disclose to any person" that the FBI is doing an investigation (Section 505). The bill of rights was written to protect citizens from exactly this kind of abuse. This provision of the new law completely throws out the presumption of innocence doctrine that is central to our system of justice. Now anyone can be treated as a criminal if they are merely accused of a crime.
6. Without a court order, credit reporting agencies must disclose to the FBI any information that agents request in connection with a terrorist investigation. The agencies may not disclose to the subject that the FBI is snooping in their file (Section 505). Again, there is no presumption of innocence and the suspect is denied his due process rights. This gives government agents the authority to spy on anyone's financial activities. All they have to do is make the accusation of terrorism and the door swings wide open.
7. The current definition of terrorism is expanded to include biochemical attacks and computer hacking. Some current computer crimes such as hacking a U.S. government system or breaking into and damaging any Internet-connected computer are also covered (Section 808). While these are no doubt crimes and should be prosecuted, by classifying them as "terrorist activities," suspects are subject to having their rights radically curtailed, as I have outlined above. If convicted, they are subjected to extremely stiff penalties. Prison terms range between five and 20 years (Section 814).
More specifically, Section 203 (Authority to Share Criminal Investigative Information) allows information gathered in criminal proceedings to be shared with intelligence agencies, including but not limited to the CIA in effect, say critics, creating a political secret police. No court order is necessary for law enforcement to provide untested information gleaned from otherwise secret grand-jury proceedings, and the information is not limited to the person being investigated.
Furthermore, this section allows law enforcement to share intercepted telephone and Internet conversations with intelligence agencies. No court order is necessary to authorize the sharing of this information, and the CIA is not prohibited from giving this information to foreign-intelligence operations in effect, say critics, creating an international political secret police.
The concern here is about the third branch of government. One of the overarching problems that pervades so many of these provisions is reduction of the role of judicial oversight. The executive branch is running roughshod over both of the other branches of government. I find it very bothersome that the government is going to have more widespread access to e-mail and Websites and that information can be shared with other law-enforcement and even intelligence agencies. So, again, we're going to have the CIA in the business of spying on Americans something that certainly hasn't gone on since the 1970s when the illegal investigations of thousands of Americans under Operation CHAOS, and the spying carried out by the CIA and National Security Agency against U.S. activists and opponents of the war in Southeast Asia.
Nor do the invasion-of-privacy provisions of the new law end with law enforcement illegally searching homes and offices. Under Section 216 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Modification of Authorities Relating to Use of Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices), investigators freely can obtain access to "dialing, routing and signaling information."
While the bill provides no definition of "dialing, routing and signaling information," the ACLU says this means they even would "apply law-enforcement efforts to determine what Websites a person visits." The police need only certify the information they are in search of is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."
This does not meet probable-cause standards that a crime has occurred, is occurring or will occur. Furthermore, regardless of whether a judge believes the request is without merit, the order must be given to the requesting law-enforcement agency, a veritable rubber stamp and potential carte blanche for fishing exhibitions.
Additionally, under Section 216, law enforcement now will have unbridled access to Internet communications. The contents of e-mail messages are supposed to be separated from the e-mail addresses, which presumably is what interests law enforcement. To conduct this process of separation, however, Congress is relying on the FBI to separate the content from the addresses and disregard the communications.
In other words, the presumption is that law enforcement is only interested in who is being communicated with and not what is said, which critics say is unlikely. Citing political implications they note this is the same FBI that during the Clinton administration could not adequately explain how hundreds of personal FBI files of Clinton political opponents found their way from the FBI to the Clinton White House.
And these are just a few of the provisions and problems. While critics doubt it will help in the tracking of would-be terrorists, the certainty is that homes and places of business will be searched without prior notice. And telephone and Internet communications will be recorded and shared among law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, all in the name of making America safe from terrorism.
