A Black Day

Today is a black day in our country's history. The Senate has approved the renewal of the Patriot Act, with very few changes. Of course, Smirk will sign off on this, and the attack on our Constitution and its liberties will continue unimpeded. The original Patriot Act in 2001 had such lovely things in it. The current renewal keeps most of these items intact.

As Declan McCullagh pointed out, some such highlights of the 2001 Patriot Act include:

• Police can sneak into someone's house or office, search the contents, and leave without ever telling the owner. This would be supervised by a court, and the notification of the surrepititous search "may be delayed indefinitely (Section 213)
• Any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system and record addresses of web pages visited and e-mail correspondents -- without going to a judge. Previously, there were stiffer legal restrictions on Carnivore and other internet surveillance techniques. (Section 216)

There is and was more, of course. Enough people protested some of the more outrageous provisions, such as the accessing of library records, that when renewal came up, Congress "revisited" the Patriot Act. I say "revisited" because with the exception of a few people like Senator Russ Feingold and Congressman John Conyers, there wasn't a huge overhaul of the bill. As Conyers points out:

First, the bill is dangerous because it makes it practically impossible to challenge the gag orders that comes with a secretive 215 orders. It would not only make the recipient wait at least one full year before challenging a gag order, it deems government certifications concerning possible harm to national security to be "conclusive." This is far worse than current law under which the federal courts have rejected numerous certifications which failed to provide sufficient facts to justify the gag order.

Second, the bill operates as a mere fig leaf, covering over serious problems in the underlying conference report. For example, the bill pretends to protect libraries from receiving National Security Letters, but then revokes that protection if the library offers internet access, which nearly every library in the country does. The bill also does nothing to prevent the government from using security letters to obtain confidential information having nothing to do with terrorism; nothing to protect secret physical searches of homes and offices; and nothing to rein in abusive roving wiretap orders.

Third, this bill should not be on the suspension calendar which is ordinarily reserved for non-controversial, consensus legislation. This bill was written by a group of four Senators, with input only from the Administration. There was no consultation with the Conference Committee, no consultation with the Senate, and certainly no consultation with the House. Despite the lack of process, despite the absence of hearings or any committee debate, we are being asked to approve this bill on a take it or leave it basis. We have no opportunity to offer a single amendment on this issue of civil rights and liberties which is so important to our Democracy.

I don't know about you, but I don't like the Patriot Act, in either of its incarnations. I can tolerate differing opinions, approaches, and solutions to a lot of political issues, but where I draw the line is anything concerning civil liberties. To me, that's what this country is all about.

The fact that much of the Patriot Act is now permanent suggests to me that this country is going to take a sharp turn from its origins and turn down another path scares me. I was and am an American, but is the America I grew up in still there?