Tell Senators to Oppose Patriot Act

February 23, 2006

Action Needed

Background


PATRIOT Act Up for Senate Vote on Tuesday, Feb. 28

Despite some minor tinkering, the PATRIOT Act violates our civil liberties. Please take action NOW to oppose its reauthorization in the current form.

Action Needed:

Please send a message to your Senators urging them to oppose the so-called compromise on the reauthorization of the USA Patriot and Terrorism Improvement and Prevention (PATRIOT) Reauthorization Act of 2005 (H.R. 3199), which was stripped of important reforms and poses a serious threat to individual privacy and to our precious civil liberties.

The reauthorization of this controversial law would still permit secret eavesdropping and secret search orders without the necessary judicial and congressional oversight. Some of the safeguards that were adopted earlier by the Senate have been deleted and, alarmingly, other provisions in would be made permanent, thus bypassing the critically important reauthorization process which serves as a regular Congressional review.

On February 16, a filibuster attempt by Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) was unsuccessful when the Senate overwhelmingly voted for "cloture" to shut down debate, and the Senate has scheduled a floor vote for Tuesday.

Unfortunately, the House has already approved its own, more intrusive,version of the bill, voting 251 to 174 to adopt the harsh measure.

Please contact your Senators as soon as possible and ask them to oppose this unwarranted expansion of government authority without essential oversight and accountability.

Take action NOW.

Background:

Just days after September 11, 2001, the Bush administration and right wing Republican leadership began pushing the "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" Act through Congress, more familiarly known by the misnomer, the USA PATRIOT Act (H.R. 3199). At the time, Congress members were pressured to pass the legislation, even though many had not even read the 342-page act.

Since its passage, the PATRIOT Act has been used to greatly expand the power and scope of the Executive Branch at the expense of individual and personal privacy. In the last few years, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Forces have greatly expanded their scope to investigate various anti-war and other organizations. In late 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union filed Freedom of Information Requests (FOIA) asking for information on more than 100 groups and individuals who may have been targeted by the FBI under the USA PATRIOT Act. Last spring, the ACLU filed a lawsuit attempting to compel the FBI to release files on such groups as Greenpeace, United for Peace and Justice, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

In December 2005, Senators on both sides of the aisle expressed grave concerns about the far-reaching and very hasty attempt to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act without any serious privacy protections. The Act was extended until March 10th to allow time for thorough debate. On February 9th, a compromise deal between the President and key senators was reached to extend the PATRIOT Act. However, the "compromise" does extraordinarily little to correct the essential problems -- namely the intrusive and unchecked powers of the Act.

This final version, a conference report for H.R. 3199, fails to provide a balance between national security and civil liberties. It is clearly a more draconian approach to seeking out supposed terrorists in a variety of ways that could easily be misapplied, such as "sneak and peak" searches (surreptitious searches without notice until some later date, often much later) under a broad standard not limited to terrorism, with new provisions for indefinite waivers to allow searches to remain secret; deletion of a number of limits on surveillance powers that would now be made permanent; and many other dangerous expansions of government power without accountability.

Many egregious provisions still remain in this "compromise version." A summary, thanks to the ACLU:

* The conference report ("conference report") makes virtually all of the expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act) permanent without including necessary changes to restore checks and balances.
* The reauthorization legislation provides a new, four-year sunset [expiration] requirement on only a limited number of provisions out of scores of new surveillance powers obtained by the government. The rest are permanent.
* Personal records from doctor's offices, businesses, and other entities that are not connected to an international terrorist or spy could still be obtained using either a secret order under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) or a "national security letter" (NSL) that can beissued by an FBI official with limited court oversight.
* Both secret FISA orders and NSLs would continue to contain a gag provision that bars a recipient from telling anyone (other than the recipient's lawyer) that records have been obtained for an entire year. The court must accept as "conclusive" the government's assertion that disclosure of an NSL would harm national security.
* The bill allows sneak-and-peek searches under a broad standard not limited to terrorism cases. New 30 and 90 day time limits could be waived or renewed indefinitely, allowing such searches to continue to remain secret for weeks, months or even years.
* It also omits modest limits on a host of additional Patriot Act surveillance powers, all of which are made permanent.

This fight is WINNABLE! Last year, the PATRIOT Act reauthorization had to be delayed because of concerns of Senators uneasy with the extraordinary powers being authorized with little debate or checks and balances. Many may still have concerns with this so-called compromise, but they need to hear from their constituents.

More information:

* American Civil Liberties Union: Reform the Patriot Act: http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/
* Bill of Rights Defense Committee: http://www.bordc.org/