whirledtraveler

Let me just say that I agree with you. But, what I don't agree with is the provision that makes this all possible without a judge involved in the process. That is the problem with the Patriot Act: all the new powers involve sidestepping the judiciary. They have never said why they need to sidestep the judiciary. Once they do sidestep, there are no checks and balances.

If they think it's important to see someone's records, they should talk to a judge. If they can't get a judge to agree, chances are they don't have a case anyway.

Operating within the Constitution isn't that hard if you believe in it.

whirledtraveler

Well, I think that is in the realm of "things that the person in the street would be shocked about if they knew." On an average day, you probably walk past a dozen people who've had misdemeanor or felony convictions. You might even do business with them on the street. Vendors, cab drivers, etc. I'm sure that in most cases, if told, the person in the street would look at what one of those ex-cons was doing and say "What? We can't let ex-cons do that?"

It is sad but true, that there are many things that are allowed to happen only because they have invisibly. It's also true that most of those things are statistically harmless, although you'd never guess it from the outrage that occurs when they are uncovered.

I'm no lawyer, but I suspect that would be seen as a threat that could be prosecuted if it got specific enough. But regardless, let's talk about other things. Should a person be allowed to ride a bus if they've ever said "I'm going to hijack a bus"? Buy a gun if they ever say "I'm going to shoot someone"? A world in which the government has that much perception and control would be truly frightening.

GUWonder

There have been various applications of using orders issued under Section 215 of the so-called USA PATRIOT Act to mandate that businesses surrender records to the government. Subjects mentioning such order/cooperation is a violation of law. [Can you tell your employees, can you tell your attorneys, and other questions of such remain. The employees/management of such firms are, on more than one occassion, told up-front that discussing the matter with anyone is illegal. (Whether this is true or not, legal or not, is another matter.)]

These demands on business include getting records from hotels, apartments/condos, telephone companies and ISPs. One example of the application: pulling records of all residents in various apartment buildings managed by one firm. Then after fishing for people whose names were thought to be of "foreign origin", apartments were accessed under the false pretenses of LEOs being "plumbers". Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act in play?

Another example: pulling records from a hotel firm to access all charges made by employees of one firm at a certain hotel property overseas. All phone calls that were made were checked out and it was determined that there were calls to escort services. Pressure applied to extract cooperation from married individuals in that firm. Was that Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act in play?

And with a Senate committee having approved "administrative subpoenas" in a closed door session recently, no judges (even from the secretive FISA courts) will be involved. This provision in the revision/renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act will essentially eliminate the need for FISA courts which currently operate in a very different manner than regular courts and help maintain secrecy in a way that does not necessarily occur with the regular courts.

red456

This article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/ny...rtner=homepage

makes no reference to searching library records, but you can bet if this poor girl did have a library card, the FBI searched the books she might have taken out.

IMO, the actions by our government in this particular case have more than likely converted any potential suicide bomber who might have been on the fence to now actually wanting to deliver a bomb, whether here in the US or elsewhere in the world.

The whole episode is disgraceful.

exerda

I'd argue it is not a straw man argument. It may be a step in building a "slippery slope" argument (the merits of which can be debated), but the truth is that the government under the Patriot Act can look at your library records, bookstore purchases, etc. without obtaining a warrant or notifying the suspect of their actions at any time. That's Big Brother-esque and can extend to any number of other records and activities beyond library activity.

If the government can convince a judge that they have cause to request those records, they can get a warrant and obtain them. They can even keep this secret whilst carrying out the investigation so as not to tip their hands. But they should be required to obtain a warrant--to do otherwise is to open up a huge can of worms and begin what I do see as the trip down a slippery slope.

GUWonder

What do investigators and prosecutors supporting the USA PATRIOT Act and its updates have to fear from obtaining a warrant? Or do these people believe that they are really involved in mostly fishing trips (that yield little or nothing) and thus have much to fear from requesting a search warrant from a judge working for the FISA courts?

Bart

It's a tricky proposition. I agree that search warrants and magistrate approval should be the rule rather than the exception. It is what protects us from tyranny. However, when the language of the law benefits criminals by allowing loopholes due to technicalities, then a more common sense approach needs to be taken within the spirit of the Constitution. I'm sure you're familiar with the stories of a search being called illegal because even though there were illegal drugs found at a suspect's house, the warrant erroneously missed the actual address by one number.

I am not for blanket approvals; however, I am for approvals that allow some measure of flexibility for law enforcement to deal with technologies such as cell phones, fax lines and other automated technologies. In other words, what good is it in obtaining a wiretap approval if the bad guy is using a cell phone but the approval erroneously listed his phone line? Pre-approval allowing flexibility to add the suspect's cell phone to the wiretap still focuses on the individual suspect. However, if the bad guy goes to his next door neighbor's house and uses his phone, then I'd draw the line right there and require a whole new warrant and wiretap approval be obtained rather than allow law enforcement the blanket approval to expand the wiretap to include the neighbor. To me, it's the difference between focusing on the suspect and the access the suspect has to various communications means AND giving law enforcement blanket authority to violate reasonable expectations of privacy and by-passing the checks-and-balances designed to protect us from abuse.

I don't know if the PATRIOT Act breaks it down as I've outlined. Legislative language is never very clear which is why we hire lawyers to interpret documents even though written in our native tongue. Based on what I'm familiar with, much of the PATRIOT Act breaks down the bureaucratic barriers that prevented multi-agency cooperation due to certain interpretations about jurisdiction, and the Act also serves to update the same law enforcement principles by applying updated technologies (email, wireless communications, etc).

I support the sunset provisions. Periodic reviews of the PATRIOT Act is a healthy thing to do. It prevents us from writing ourselves into a corner and suddenly finding ourselves in a police state.

daw617

An interesting claim. Have you seen the recent news articles? The US library association is reporting the results of a study, which found that law enforcement has made more than 200 requests to look at people's library records since 9/11.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/21/news/patriot.php
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/...510892,00.html

The study was not allowed to ask libraries whether any of these requests were associated with the PATRIOT act (more precisely: librarians are not allowed to disclose whether they have received a PATRIOT act disclosure request, due to PATRIOT's gag order provisions) -- but this makes your claim look pretty dubious to me.