[Stoner]

LINK


WITH A WHISPER, NOT A BANG


By David Martin 12/24/2003

Bush signs parts of Patriot Act II into law — stealthily


O n December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team, but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the President signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shuttng down the federal government the following Monday.


By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote. Consequently, while most Americans watched as Hussein was probed for head lice, few were aware that the FBI had just obtained the power to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism.



By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere footnote.

The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies tucked away these new executive powers in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, a legislative behemoth that funds all the intelligence activities of the federal government. The Act included a simple, yet insidious, redefinition of "financial institution," which previously referred to banks, but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships, casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, jewelers, airlines, the U.S. Post Office, and any other business "whose cash transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or regulatory matters."


Congress passed the legislation around Thanksgiving. Except for U.S. Representative Charlie Gonzalez, all San Antonio's House members voted for the act. The Senate passed it with a voice vote to avoid individual accountability. While broadening the definition of "financial institution," the Bush administration is ramping up provisions within the 2001 USA Patriot Act, which granted the FBI the authority to obtain client records from banks by merely requesting the records in a "National Security Letter." To get the records, the FBI doesn't have to appear before a judge, nor demonstrate "probable cause" - reason to believe that the targeted client is involved in criminal or terrorist activity. Moreover, the National Security Letters are attached with a gag order, preventing any financial institution from informing its clients that their records have been surrendered to the FBI. If a financial institution breaches the gag order, it faces criminal penalties. And finally, the FBI will no longer be required to report to Congress how often they have used the National Security Letters.


Supporters of expanding the Patriot Act claim that the new law is necessary to prevent future terrorist attacks on the U.S. The FBI needs these new powers to be "expeditious and efficient" in its response to these new threats. Robert Summers, professor of international law and director of the new Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary's University, explains, "We don't go to war with the terrorists as we went to war with the Germans or the North Vietnamese. If we apply old methods of following the money, we will not be successful. We need to meet them on an even playing field to avoid another disaster."


Opponents of the PATRIOT Act and its expansion claim that safeguards like judicial oversight and the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, are essential to prevent abuses of power. "There's a reason these protections were put into place," says Chip Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research Associates, and a historian of U.S. political repression. "It has been shown that if you give [these agencies] this power they will abuse it. For any investigative agency, once you tell them that they must make sure that they protect the country from subversives, it inevitably gets translated into a program to silence dissent."


Opponents claim the FBI already has all the tools to stop crime and terrorism. Moreover, explains Patrick Filyk, an attorney and vice president of the local chapter of the ACLU, "The only thing the act accomplishes is the removal of judicial oversight and the transfer of more power to law enforcements agents."


This broadening of the Patriot Act represents a political victory for the Bush Administration's stealth legislative strategy to increase executive power. Last February, shortly before Bush launched the war on Iraq, the Center for Public Integrity obtained a draft of a comprehensive expansion of the Patriot Act, nicknamed Patriot Act II, written by Attorney General John Ashcroft's staff. Again, the timing was suspicious; it appeared that the Bush Administration was waiting for the start of the Iraq war to introduce Patriot Act II, and then exploit the crisis to ram it through Congress with little public debate.


The leak and ensuing public backlash frustrated the Bush administration's strategy, so Ashcroft and Co. disassembled Patriot Act II, then reassembled its parts into other legislation. By attaching the redefinition of "financial institution" to an Intelligence Authorization Act, the Bush Administration and its Congressional allies avoided public hearings and floor debates for the expansion of the Patriot Act.


Even proponents of this expansion have expressed concern about these legislative tactics. "It's a problem that some of these riders that are added on may not receive the scrutiny that we would like to see," says St. Mary's Professor Robert Summers.


The Bush Administration has yet to answer pivotal questions about its latest constitutional coup: If these new executive powers are necessary to protect United States citizens, then why would the legislation not withstand the test of public debate? If the new act's provisions are in the public interest, why use stealth in ramming them through the legislative process? •

[Stoner]

LINK

Setting the Record Straight: An Analysis of the Justice Department's PATRIOT Act Website
October 27, 2003

The Department of Justice has launched a website, http://www.lifeandliberty.gov to defend the PATRIOT Act. As more and more people are raising concerns about the broad powers granted to the Justice Department - powers it does not need and is not using to fight terrorism - the Department is spending time and money on a public relations campaign, including a website and a tour of the country by the Attorney General to talk to law enforcement officers. But just as Attorney General Ashcroft has done in his speeches around the country, the website fails to engage on the substantive criticisms of the PATRIOT Act, instead touting provisions that no one objected to at the time the legislation was enacted and that no one has been objecting to since. Where the website does address controversial aspects of the law, it provides misleading, incomplete and, in some cases, incorrect information. Following is CDT's analysis of the claims made on that website.

DOJ CLAIM: Congress enacted the Patriot Act by overwhelming, bipartisan margins.
Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass the PATRIOT Act in October 2001. But Congress acted under intense time pressure and without serious debate and deliberation. The PATRIOT Act was signed into law a mere 5 weeks after the Administration's draft was first circulated - lightning speed for legislation. And on the House side, the version approved by the Judiciary Committee with some changes prompted by civil liberties concerns was replaced by a different version in the middle of the night, and a vote was taken just hours later - leaving members and their staff with literally not enough time to read what was in the lengthy bill. Any legislation adopted under these circumstances is likely to contain provisions that deserve to be revisited and corrected if appropriate.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act merely extended to terrorism cases authorities already provided in organized crime and drug trafficking cases, yet unavailable in terrorism cases. DOJ quotes Senator Biden as stating that the FBI could get a wiretap to investigate the mafia, but they could not get one to investigate terrorists.
That simply isn't true. The Justice Department had the ability to use wiretaps, including roving taps, in criminal investigations of terrorism, just as in other criminal investigations, long before the PATRIOT Act. Then what are they talking about? A special wiretap technique, the roving tap, was available in criminal investigations of terrorists and drug dealers but was not available under the government's separate authority to investigate terrorism as a foreign counterintelligence matter under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). No civil liberties groups objected to adding roving tap authority to FISA. We did object to the fact that an important procedural safeguard applicable to roving taps in criminal cases was not applied to roving taps in intelligence cases. (See further discussion below.)

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement to use surveillance against more crimes of terror.
As with many of the provisions touted on the DOJ website, this was not a controversial or contested provision of the PATRIOT Act. Section 201 of the PATRIOT Act added a list of seven new predicate offenses that could trigger a criminal wiretap order - with no objections from the civil liberties community. Furthermore, even prior to the PATRIOT Act, the FBI could have gotten an order under FISA to wiretap any suspected member of an international terrorist group.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows federal agents to follow sophisticated terrorists trained to evade detection with roving wiretap authority.
As noted above, the FBI already had roving tap authority in criminal investigations of terrorism. The FBI did not have roving tap authority in intelligence investigations under FISA, but civil libertarians did not object to the PATRIOT Act's adding roving tap authority to FISA. The only dispute was about the standard that the FBI should be required to meet to use this authority - and in the end, the PATRIOT Act made it easier for the FBI to use roving taps under FISA than under the criminal procedures. First, under the PATRIOT Act the FBI does not have to ascertain that the target of the roving FISA wiretap is using the phone being tapped - an omission that could lead to innocent users having their conversations monitored. Second, the combined effect of the PATRIOT Act and the intelligence authorization bill that passed a few months later is that the FBI can now get a warrant to wiretap a phone or computer without specifying either the suspect under surveillance or the phones or computers to be tapped.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement to conduct investigations without tipping off terrorists by delaying notification that their homes or offices have been searched.
The FBI already had authority under FISA to conduct secret searches in international terrorism investigations. The PATRIOT Act permits the FBI to conduct so-called sneak and peek searches - where the FBI can search someone's home or office without notifying them until weeks or even months later - in criminal cases, including cases having nothing to do with terrorism. While courts had previously held that this delay in notification is permissible in limited circumstances, the PATRIOT Act provided statutory authority with entirely inadequate standards. The PATRIOT Act allows these extraordinary searches to be used in all criminal cases, not just terrorism cases, and the standard is so loose that it could arguably be used in almost every criminal case. The presumption has long been that law enforcement officers have to knock and announce themselves when they execute a search warrant, and an exception to that rule should be made only in limited circumstances with strict guidelines - which the PATRIOT Act does not contain.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows federal agents to ask a court for an order to obtain business records in national security cases.
The FISA court order for business records has no meaningful standard. Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act permits the FBI to obtain a wide range of business records - including library, bookstore, medical, travel and other records - in any intelligence investigation, under a legal standard so low that it essentially results in a judicial rubber stamp. The FBI doesn't even have to name the person whose records it is seeking, but rather can sweep up entire databases indiscriminately. Given the vast array of records available to the FBI under this section, it should be subject to tougher standards. The FBI should have to name an individual whose records it is seeking and offer some factual basis for believing that the person is a spy or linked to terrorism in some way.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act facilitated information sharing and cooperation among government agencies so that they can better 'connect the dots.'
The outcry over the PATRIOT Act has little to do with the increased ability of federal agencies to share relevant intelligence or increase their coordination. In fact, there was never a legal bar to intelligence agencies sharing information with prosecutors. Intelligence and law enforcement officials weren't effectively sharing information and using their existing powers not because of legal barriers, but because of their overly strict interpretation of then-existing law, cultural problems, and turf wars among agencies.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows law enforcement officials to obtain a search warrant anywhere a terrorist-related activity occurred.
It is certainly harder for an individual to challenge a warrant if the issuing court is thousands of miles away, but the proposal to authorize multi-jurisdiction search warrants was not a significant concern at the time the PATRIOT Act was passed, and has not been a major focus of the concerns raised about the PATRIOT Act in recent months.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act allows victims of computer hacking to request law enforcement assistance in monitoring the 'trespassers' on their computers' and places electronic trespassers on the same footing as physical trespassers.
Section 217 of the PATRIOT Act allows Internet Service Providers, universities and network administrators to authorize government surveillance of computer trespassers without a judicial order, without notice to the person being monitored, without reporting to a judge after the fact, without a suppression remedy, without congressional reporting, and without a liability remedy for the person being monitored. That is a far cry from burglary victims being able to invite [police] officers into their homes to catch burglars, as DOJ argues. Under those circumstances, the burglar is well aware that the victim thinks the burglar is trespassing and that the police are investigating - and has the full panoply of protections available in the criminal system. Anyone designated a computer trespasser has no such rights or knowledge.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act increased the penalties for those who commit terrorist crimes.
Yet again, the Justice Department is defending a section of the PATRIOT Act that has not been challenged. The civil liberties community has not objected to the increased criminal penalties in the PATRIOT Act.

The following claims appear at http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/subs/u_myths.htm.
DOJ CLAIM: Peaceful political organizations engaging in political advocacy cannot be considered terrorists under the PATRIOT Act's new definition of domestic terrorism.
Under the PATRIOT Act, a violation of some criminal law involving risk of serious injury must occur before a person can be labeled a domestic terrorist. But it is easy to see how if an anti-abortion activist blocks traffic as part of a protest, or swings a sign and hits someone on the head, he could be labeled a terrorist. Such activities should be illegal, but they should not be subject to the threat of being labeled terrorism, triggering application of draconian law enforcement powers, such as the power to seize property - including cars, boats and homes.

DOJ CLAIM: The PATRIOT Act specifically protects Americans' First Amendment rights.
Section 215 provides that an investigation in which business records are sought shall not be conducted of a United States person [U.S. citizen or green card holder] solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment. That caveat has little practical effect because few if any investigations would be conducted solely based on First Amendment activities. Indeed, the caveat makes it clear that information about First Amendment activities can be collected.

DOJ CLAIM: In defending sneak and peek searches, DOJ states that the Supreme Court has already concluded that delayed notification is constitutionally permissible.
Contrary to the Justice Department's assertion, the Supreme Court has never ruled that delayed notification is permissible for execution of a warrant to physically search someone's home or office. The case cited by the Justice Department, Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238 (1979), held that a covert entry was permitted to install a bug because there was no other way to effectively execute the order authorizing the bug. In the context of wiretaps and bugs, it would be nonsensical to notify someone that you are planning to monitor their communications. That rationale simply does not apply in the context of physical searches. The Supreme Court has never ruled on the constitutionality of sneak and peek searches.

[bassetman]

Stoner, you have a slight error in your URL. Here is the correct one:
http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/

[Stoner]

Originally posted by bassetman:
Stoner, you have a slight error in your URL. Here is the correct one:
http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/

Thanks

Corrected it, dang comma where it shouldn't be
Probably a bug placed there by A$$croft, himself

[bassetman]

Hehe, right before he headed to the hospital!

[Stoner]

http://dossiers.genfoods.net/bcivil.html

Civil Liberties

The blade of the Bush Administration's attack against civil liberties is not the President, but his appointee, John Ashcroft. Nevertheless, as a part of the so-called war on terror, Bush has had his infidelities.

Illegal detentions and military tribunals
Immediately following 9/11, the President announced plans for detaining suspected terrorists. They would not be subject to the protections of the constitution, and Bush reserved the right to try these suspects in secret military tribunals.

"On 13 November 2001, President George Bush issued the Military Order on the "Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism." In it, he authorized the establishment of military commissions to try non-US citizens who are members of al Qaida, are involved in acts of international terrorism against the United States, or harbor such terrorists." | link | and | link |

More recently, Bush revoked a Clinton order to make it easier for the government to keep documents secret.

"Bush administration plans to make it easier for government agencies to keep information secret by revoking order issued by Pres Bill Clinton that provided that documents should not be classified if there was 'significant doubt' as to whether their release would damage national security; other classification provisions of draft proposal noted (M) Making it easier for government agencies to keep documents secret, the Bush administration plans to revoke an order issued by President Bill Clinton that among other provisions said information should not be classified if there was ''significant doubt'' as to whether its release would damage national security.

"The new policy is outlined in a draft executive order being circulated among federal agencies. A final version is expected to be adopted before April 17, when the last elements of the Clinton order would take effect, requiring automatic declassification of most documents 25 or more years old. Under the draft, such automatic declassification would be postponed until Dec. 31, 2006.

"The new policy would also permit reclassification of documents that have already been made public, and give the Central Intelligence Agency special authority to resist decisions by an interagency panel that considers classification appeals, typically from researchers."

[bassetman]

Here's @sscroft's latest movie!
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0335/fiore.php

[Stoner]

Screw congress and the men who write the laws?
Our rights in unelected committies that 'legislate' thru secrecy>>


C|Net News


Shhh! The FBI's listening to your keystrokes


The FBI is trying to convince the government to mandate that providers of broadband, Internet telephony, and instant-messaging services build in backdoors for easy wiretapping.
That would constitute a sweeping expansion of police surveillance powers. Instead of asking Congress to approve the request, the FBI (along with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration) are pressing the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with minimal public input.

The three agencies argue that the 1994 Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) permits the FCC to rewire the Internet to suit the eavesdropping establishment. The bureau's not talking, but it seems to be all about ease of eavesdropping.
"The importance and the urgency of this task cannot be overstated," their proposal says. "The ability of federal, state and local law enforcement to carry out critical electronic surveillance is being compromised today."

Unfortunately for the three agencies, CALEA, as it's written, would not grant the request.

When Congress was debating CALEA, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh reassured nervous senators that the law would be limited to telephone calls. (CALEA was intended to let police wiretap conversations flowing through then-novel services like cellular phones and three-way calling.)

"So what we are looking for is strictly telephone--what is said over a telephone?" Sen. Larry Pressler, R-S.D., asked.

Freeh replied: "That is the way I understand it. Yes, sir."

A House of Representatives commitee report prepared in October 1994 is emphatic, saying CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data (Central); or to Internet service providers."

Freeh, who has a sincere appreciation for wiretaps, had included Internet services in an earlier version of CALEA--but Congress didn't buy it. "Unlike the bills previously proposed by the FBI, this bill is limited to local and long-distance telephone companies, cellular and PCS providers, and other common carriers," Jerry Berman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Congress during a September 1994 hearing.

But now that more conversations are taking place through audio-based instant-messaging and voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, the FBI and its allies are hoping that official Washington won't remember inconvenient details. Louis Freeh reassured nervous senators that CALEA would be limited to telephone calls.
"These (wiretapping) problems are real, not hypothetical, and their impact on the ability of federal, state and local law enforcement to protect the public is growing with each passing day," the police agencies say in their proposal to the FCC.

It's true that the FBI has a difficult job to do, especially after Sept. 11, 2001, but is this proposal necessary, let alone wise?

Police have long been able to intercept Internet traffic. In 1996, then-Attorney General Janet Reno announced that investigators were successfully tapping the Internet without any problems. Even earlier, the Secret Service's "datataps" of Masters of Deception members helped bust that hacking group in 1992. Efficient Internet wiretapping is exactly what the FBI's Carnivore system, also called DCS1000, is designed to accomplish.

Then why is the FBI so emphatic? The bureau's not talking, but it seems to be all about ease of eavesdropping. Sorting through an intercepted stream of data is difficult and means that Carnivore must be updated to unpack the Session Initiation Protocol used to set up VoIP and instant-messaging conversations. Ordering those companies to include a backdoor for police is a lot easier.

It's worth noting that the FBI is hardly alone. The National Sheriffs' Association, the Police Executive Research Forum, the Illinois State Police and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation have petitioned the FCC to grant the FBI's request.

They're even sharing talking points: Each of the groups included an identical paragraph in its letter to the FCC. "State and local law enforcement do not have the financial or personnel resources to develop costly ad hoc surveillance solutions for each new communications service," their letters said.

Maybe they're right. New technologies do present police with new headaches, and perhaps that justifies additional wiretapping powers. But the question will be: Who gets to make that call--elected representatives in Congress or well-meaning but unelected bureaucrats at the FCC?

[Fidelista]

I have an 80 yr Aunt {web user} who is scared to death to voice an opinion in a E-MAIL---thinks Bush will have someone "listening". The feeling is there among many, so.....its working....fear. The best tool to remove freedom is fear, and they know it.
I hate to say it but.....I am afraid it will work in the end, with 'Patriots' cheering!.

[rextilleon]

She is probably senile.

[Stoner]

Originally Posted by rextilleon

She is probably senile.

rextilleon,


Why would you say that about someone you don't know?
I speak my mind freely at this site, but I suspect some govt office has
my peronal background on file, and I'm loyal to the Constitution.

I do know others on line that prefer not to post just because of the intrusion
that 'might' exist.

I don't believe them senile. More a combination of hassle factor and fear in differing proportions.

If Fidelista's 80 year old Aunt knows how to use a computer, I doubt she's senile

Jack

[GoneForNow]

Originally Posted by rextilleon

She is probably senile.

Hell, I'm probable senile as well. Scared to death of Stoner.

[Stoner]

Well________I've finally left an impression on someone

[Fidelista]

"She is probably senile"...actually not. A former college teacher in California with a sound mind. Old doesn't mean stupid. Maybe she is mistaken...but until now she was never worried about such things.There is a REASON for the fear. Anybody who is unaware of the fear---must not be paying attention....I think I put that nicely!

[rextilleon]

Sorry Stoner, I have enough to worry about. I dont spend my time worrying about government interference or spying. Rest assured that if Fidelista's aunt is arrested for expressing herself, then I will be there fighting the authorities to gain her freedom. Remember those guys at Ruby Ridge----the extreme left-wing paranoia sounds so similar.