“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
—Benjamin Franklin
Think the USA Patriot Act was the wet-dream of every spook in the American government? Well, duct-tape and cover because the Justice Boys are back with a sequel and the spew is going to be messy. Formally known within the Bush administration as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, you can call it Patriot II. A 9 January 2003 draft of this blood-clot legislation was leaked to the public early last month. Congress didn’t draft this legislation, although Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois) and Vice President Dick Cheney reviewed it. This legislation, like its illegitimate parent, was created out of whole cloth by unelected members of the Justice Department.
University of Washington law professor Anita Ramasastry has written a spine-tingling analysis of the Son of Patriot legislation that is being floated around Capitol Hill. Ramasastry predicts that the trajectory of Patriot II will be similar to that of is progeny. Patriot I, remember, was signed into law in a matter of weeks with no opposition testimony.
When John Poindexter proposed the Total Information Awareness (TIA) program to construct profiles of all American citizens, it was met with vocal resistance from the citizenry and a warning from Congress. Nevertheless, Patriot II would codify TIA as the law of the land. Federal agents would be able to access credit reports and other sensitive data without a subpoena, instead needing only to “certify” that the information would be used only in “connection with their duties to enforce federal law.” Ramasastry points out the target of any investigation need not be a criminal or even a suspect and would not be informed that their records were accessed.
But wait, that’s not all. If you call within the next ten minutes, we’ll add genetic data to this very special offer. That’s right, Patriot II would allow federal agents to access the DNA of American citizens, again without a subpoena. Not just citizens who are terrorists; citizens the government thinks might be terrorists. Or citizens that support organizations the government designates as “terrorist.” As a member of the Green party and steadfastly opposed to pre-emptive war in Iraq, you can bet I’d be so designated.
You probably would too. Oh, you don’t think so? As Ramasastry notes, “the original USA Patriot Act defined the new crime of ‘domestic terrorism’ broadly, to encompass ‘any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.” Bungee-jumping off a bridge, for instance. In fact, anyone convicted of any crime would see their DNA added to the Terrorist Identification Database.
Under Patriot II the powers of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) would be expanded to include jurisdiction over U.S. citizens. When combined with the broad definition of “domestic terrorism,” the expanded powers of the FISA Courts could easily lead to situations where demonstrators are tried, in secret, under provisions of Patriot II.
Most disturbing of all, Patriot II provides a virtually blanket immunity for law enforcement activities related to unauthorized surveillance.
If you’re old enough, all of this may be starting to sound vaguely familiar. It should. As it turns out, most of the provisions of Patriot II have a direct correlation to a piece of German legislation from almost exactly 70 years ago. As Nick Garafola and Leif Utne report in “A Reich and a Wrong Way to Protect the U.S.,” tomorrow’s lead story on Utne.com, the name of the German bill was the Enabling Act. It accomplished nothing less than “the end of democracy in Germany and establish[ed] the legal dictatorship of Adolf Hitler.”
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