On May 26, 2011, Congress voted to reauthorize three provisions of the USA PATRIOT ACT that were set to expire. The most contentious of these provisions is Section 215, which allows the government to more easily gain access to various personal records without clear evidence that the individual in question poses a threat to national security. This provision also places a gag order on anyone whose records have been seized so they can't talk about what happened.
If the thought of the government accessing your business or medical records, telephone calls, books, diaries, and even your genetic information (go to page 87) isn't scary enough, the most frightening aspect of this provision is that we don't know how the government actually interprets and applies it. In part, this is because the Justice Department has refused to reveal the government's interpretation of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act.
Prior to Congress's vote on the reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT, Senators Ron Wyden and Mark Udall proposed an amendment that would require the US Attorney General to publicly reveal the government's official interpretation of the PATRIOT ACT. Wyden claims,
T]he government is relying on secret interpretations of what the law says without telling the public what those interpretations are... and the reliance on secret interpretations of the law is growing.Unfortunately, the proposed amendment failed and the law was reauthorized until 2015.
The government's refusal to explain, much less meaningfully reform, this provision of the PATRIOT Act is hardly the first time that this piece of legislation has been used to infringe on the rights of people in the United States. The increasing use of national security letters (NSLs) to demand personal records without court approval has resulted in an estimated 6,400 intelligence violations. Some of these violations took the form of exigent letters, which do not exist anywhere in the law, but according to the Inspector General's investigation, "contained inaccurate statements, circumvented the requirements of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act NSL statute, and violated Attorney General Guidelines and internal FBI policy."
Despite widespread and well-documented abuses, Congress reauthorized the PATRIOT Act for another four years without any protections for civil liberties. Congress has failed to check and balance the Executive Branch on civil liberties issues, allowing executive secrecy to become entrenched -- and this failure has implications far beyond surveillance. With the Obama administration prosecuting more whistleblowers than all other administrations combined (including some who risked prosecution by exposing important facts about surveillance), Congress's abandonment of its oversight responsibilities on the PATRIOT Act bodes poorly for the future.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has already stated that it will ask the courts to disclose information that Congress wouldn't. On May 31, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request demanding that the government reveal its interpretation of Section 215. Keep checking this blog and the ACLU for updates on that case and other news about the PATRIOT Act and civil liberties.
This post originally appeared on People's Blog for the Constitution.
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our government has taken away our rights and given them to the rich and powerful.
the corporations can spend as much money on elections as they they want.
the truth is dead and we are now fed a slew of lies and propaganda from our news media
if they come for me you will say nothing, when they come for you, no one will be left.
"The effectiveness of this database depends on collecting proofiles of people WHO ARE NOT KNOWN CRIMINALS OR TERRORISTS (emphasis added)....and compiling profiles of them." Suspicious Activity Report, page 3.
Soon our own government will have everyone in this database - does this remind you of any governments in the past?
Pres. Obama reauthorized the Patriot Act, a clear violation of our civil liberities.
Obama has increased the number of drone attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere. Indeed, most people who have looked at the numbers believe that Obama has killed many more civilians with drone attacks than Bush did using the same method.
The Brookings Institution noted in 2009:
Critics correctly find many problems with this program, most of all the number of civilian casualties the strikes have incurred. Sourcing on civilian deaths is weak and the numbers are often exaggerated, but more than 600 civilians are likely to have died from the attacks. That number suggests that for every militant killed, 10 or so civilians also died.
And drone strikes are often based on scant evidence in the first place. And killing innocent civilians with drones is one of the main things which increases terrorism
Pres. Obama is trying to expand spying well beyond the Bush administration's programs. Indeed, the Obama administration is arguing that citizens should never be able to sue the government for illegal spying.
He tolerates the existence of Bagram military prison in Afghanistan, where more than 600 people are being held without charge. The facility makes Guantanamo look like a "nice hotel," in the words of one military prosecutor
Moreover, Obama is still allowing "rendition flights" - where prisoners are flown to countries which freely torture - to continue. This itself violates the Geneva Convention and the War Crimes Act of 1996.
President Barack Obama defended Manning's treatment
These aren't rhetorical questions, folks. Let's not wait until they break our doors down in the middle of the night and haul us off to some detainee camp because we signed an ACLU petition.
Let me acomplish what I'm paid for in the Public Sector without physical abuse. Feel free to see
my immediate supervisor if there are any unresolved questions. Be advised officialdom will help
qualify Patriot Act provisions if any need application. That task is not in my job description.