{news} THE PATRIOT ACT IS UNPATRIOTIC-HELP STOP THE PASSAGE OF THE "COMPROMISE BILL"

Sat Dec 10 03:28:10 EST 2005

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THE PATRIOT ACT IS UNPATRIOTIC.
HYPERLINK "mailto:ctgp-news at ml.greens.org" 
"COMPROMISE PATRIOT BILL" ABOUT TO BE PASSED IS A SELL OUT OF THE BILL OF
RIGHTS.

CALL YOUR SENATORS(AND OTHER SENATORS)AND DEMAND A FILIBUSTER IN THE SENATE.

READ ARTICLES IN THIS E-MAIL FOR LATEST DETAILS. 

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 Contact your own members of Congress (HYPERLINK
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*
BORDC updates its home page www.bordc.org, legislation page
www.bordc.org/legislation.htm, and articles page www.bordc.org/articles.htm
with new information on the progress of this bill. We thank the following
organizations, portions of whose action alerts and resources we have used in
this and other alerts. Please visit their web sites for more information:

Rights Working Group, http://www.rightsworkinggroup.org
Human Rights First, http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/
National Immigration Forum, HYPERLINK
"http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=663"http://www.im
migrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=663

READ THE LATEST NEWS ON THE "PATRIOT ACT":

GOP Accepts Deal on Patriot Act
Hill to Vote Next Week on Extending Provisions for 4 Years

By Charles Babington and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 9, 2005; A04

Republican negotiators accepted a White House-brokered deal yesterday that
clears the way for Congress to vote next week on whether to renew the USA
Patriot Act's most controversial provisions for four years, in slightly
modified forms.

GOP leaders called the development a major breakthrough in a long and
contentious debate over whether and how to renew the law, parts of which are
set to expire Dec. 31. Since it took effect four years ago, after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks, the act has made it easier for federal agents to secretly
tap phones, obtain library and bank records, and to search the offices or
homes of suspected terrorists.

But the agreement faces an uncertain future. No Democratic negotiators in
the House or Senate embraced the bill that emerged from the conference
committee, and a bipartisan group of senators complained that the proposed
revisions do too little to protect the civil liberties of innocent
Americans. Proponents had hoped for bipartisan support, but said they
believe the bill can survive threatened efforts in the Senate to block it.
Some warned, however, that the vote could be close.

The White House intervened this week to coax House Republican leaders to
accept a four-year extension of the law's most controversial provisions,
rather than a seven- or 10-year extension, as they had indicated they
preferred. The concession was enough to win the endorsement of Senate
Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), but not of the Democrats
on his panel. Specter called the measure "not a perfect bill, but a good
bill."

But three Senate Democrats and three Republicans issued a statement saying
they are "gravely disappointed" that Specter and others agreed during
House-Senate negotiations to drop "modest protections for civil liberties"
that were included in a version the Senate passed unanimously this year.
They predicted the Senate will reject the compromise bill.

The six were Republican Sens. Larry E. Craig (Idaho), John E. Sununu (N.H.)
and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Democrats Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Ken
Salazar (Colo.) and Russell Feingold (Wis.). Feingold vowed to launch a
filibuster, which would scuttle extension of the Patriot Act unless 60 of
the 100 senators oppose his effort. Some Republicans said Democrats would be
foolhardy to block an "anti-terrorism" bill on the eve of an election year.

Also criticizing the bill yesterday were Minority Leader Harry M. Reid
(D-Nev.); Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the Judiciary Committee's ranking
Democrat; and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.).

The compromise bill would slightly change the provisions that allow FBI to
obtain people's business records, including library records. Investigators
would have to provide a judge with a "statement of facts" showing
"reasonable grounds" to believe the records are relevant to an
anti-terrorism investigation.

Another provision governs "national security letters," which are used by the
FBI to demand customer records from businesses such as telephone companies,
Internet providers and libraries. Recipients of such letters are required to
keep the requests secret.

The new legislation would explicitly give businesses that receive such
letters the right to challenge them in court, but critics say the process is
set up in such a way that the government will nearly always prevail. There
is also no provision for notifying the individual whose records are being
targeted.

As part of the compromise, lawmakers dropped a provision that would have
made it a crime punishable by a year in prison to disclose receipt of a
national security letter. But the deal retains a five-year prison term if
the disclosure is aimed at obstructing an investigation.

Leahy and others strongly oppose provisions instructing judges to presume
that federal agents should obtain records unless the targeted person can
show that the government acted in bad faith. Kennedy called the targeted
person's opportunity to challenge a search "arguably worse than nothing."

The Washington Post reported last month that the FBI issues more than 30,000
national security letters a year, a hundred-fold increase over historic
norms. The Justice Department disputed the report but has refused to provide
its own tally.

The revised law also would allow agents to surreptitiously search a person's
home or business without telling the person for 30 days. The Senate bill
called for a seven-day limit on such "sneak and peek" powers; the House
version allowed 180 days.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales called the compromise bill a "win for
the American people."

The American Civil Liberties Union condemned the agreement, arguing that it
will continue to allow the FBI to obtain "a huge array of extremely private
records of innocent Americans" with little oversight or limitation.

© 2005 The Washington Post Co

ALSO THIS ARTICLE:

Finally, Congress Stands Up

By David Broder
Sunday, December 4, 2005; 
WASHINGTON POST B07

When Lindsey Graham and John Sununu joined the ranks of Republican senators,
the last thing the White House expected was that they would start
challenging administration policies on national security.

Graham, 50, came to the Senate in 2002 after a career as an Air Force
officer and lawyer and as a member, for eight years, of the House, where his
most notable service was on the team pressing impeachment charges against
Bill Clinton.

Sununu, who is 41, also won his first term in 2002, after six years in the
House. An engineer by training, he learned politics from his father and
namesake, who served as governor of New Hampshire and later as chief of
staff to the first President Bush.

Both of them had shown early streaks of independence. Graham led an abortive
conservative rebellion against House Speaker Newt Gingrich and supported
John McCain over George Bush in the 2000 South Carolina primary. Sununu
challenged and defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Bob Smith in a hard-fought
primary before beating Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen in the general
election.

Graham and Sununu have been supportive of most Bush policies, but their
current objections illustrate the way in which some of the president's
anti-terrorism methods have caused grave concerns among libertarian
conservatives.

Sununu has taken the lead in a group of senators pressing for changes in the
Patriot Act, the legislation expanding FBI powers that the administration
rushed through Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many of the
changes they wanted were made in the Senate bill, but administration
objections have stymied their acceptance in a House-Senate conference.

Sununu and the others, who range from senators as conservative as Larry
Craig of Idaho to those as liberal as Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Dick
Durbin of Illinois, have threatened a filibuster to force further
negotiations.

What Graham, Sununu and their brethren are looking for is specific and
significant: a requirement that the government convince a judge that a
search of records has a direct connection, not just vague "relevance," to a
suspected terrorist; a right of judicial appeal to challenge gag orders on
such searches; a requirement that targets of "sneak-and-peek" searches be
notified within seven days of their occurrence; and a four-year "sunset"
clause for these special powers.

Sununu and his allies have been discussing these points with the Justice
Department and the White House for two years. What is frustrating, he told
me in an interview, "is that they will not debate these specific changes;
they respond only with sweeping generalizations that we need to reauthorize
the Patriot Act. That's not good enough."

For Graham, the issue is the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay and
other (still secret) overseas facilities. Like 89 other senators, he
supported McCain's legislation barring the use of torture or the extreme
measures publicized at Abu Ghraib.

When Vice President Cheney lobbied the House to kill the McCain restriction,
Graham jumped in to offer additional leverage to the administration's
critics.

He first framed an amendment -- welcomed by the White House -- to bar enemy
combatants held at Guantanamo Bay from taking their cases into U.S. courts,
then enlisted liberal Democratic Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and
conservative Republican Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona in a bipartisan resolution
to provide automatic judicial review of all military trial sentences of at
least 10 years. The resulting compromise gained 84 votes and, Graham told
me, sends a strong message to the House that both the McCain language and
this compromise must be included in the final legislation -- the White House
notwithstanding.

What came through most clearly to me, in talking with both senators, was
their sense that Congress as an institution must assert itself and take
responsibility for setting policy on these national security issues.

For too long, they both said, it has been too easy to say -- or imply --
that it's the president's job alone to decide how to protect the nation's
safety and vital interests. That complacent attitude may have been tolerable
during the false lull after the end of the Cold War, but it cannot be
accepted during a time of war and continuing terrorist threats.

Last month the Senate asserted itself by passing a meaningful, bipartisan
declaration that 2006 must be a "year of transition" in which Iraqis take
over major responsibility for the security and stability of their own
country.

That younger senators such as Graham and Sununu are organizing bipartisan
coalitions on such corollary national security issues as the Patriot Act and
treatment of detainees is good news for the country. It is time for a
similar effort in the House.

davidbroder at washpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/02/AR2005120201
749.html

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

###As of December 2005:

Resolutions have been passed in 399 communities in 43 states including seven
state-wide resolutions. These communities represent approximately 62 million
people who oppose sections of the USA PATRIOT Act.

See the US map of communities at:
http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/resolutions.html

#########################################################

Citizens who dissent. 

It was revealed that the FBI has been collecting information on antiwar
demonstrators. Its October 15, 2003 memo asks local law enforcement to
report activities they consider "suspicious" to the FBI's counterterrorism
units. The FBI's listing of what constitutes "suspicious" shows how
subjective that word can be: rehearsing for demonstrations, raising money
via the Internet, and acquiring gas masks in case tear gas is used. Police
in some cities may consider the mere act of demonstrating against a war to
be suspicious. Clearly the announcement that "the FBI is watching" is meant
to discourage dissent, especially from noncitizens and the whole families,
including families of the military, who have been participating in the
demonstrations against the Iraq War.

This Administration has used fear to increase its power. We must not let
them use fear to silence dissent. Assure your community members of their
First Amendment right to free speech and to petition the government for
redress of grievances.

Accuracy and Disinformation.
The Patriot Act has been unjustly blamed for a multitude of transgressions.
While it is understandable that the misnamed act would come in for
substantial criticism, it is important that those of us who explain threats
to civil liberties distinguish between the Patriot Act and the host of other
regulations the government has been using. As the Department of Justice's
policies and claims face increased scrutiny from throughout the political
spectrum, the department increasingly tries to discredit its detractors by
claiming that they are "spreading disinformation." Here is an example: 

Section 215 vs. national security letters. In July of 2002, the Justice
Department claimed that it could not comply with the Section 215 requirement
to provide the House and Senate Judiciary Committees a semi-annual report of
the total number of times it had used Section 215 of the Patriot Act: That
information was "classified." This fall, under pressure from librarians and
booksellers, Attorney General Ashcroft reported that the number of times was
"Zero," and that librarians were simply "hysterical." We know librarians are
not hysterical, so what gives?

To obtain records using Patriot Act Section 215, the FBI would need to
obtain a warrant from a secret FISA court. The FBI has avoided this
necessity by issuing "national security letters," which require neither a
warrant nor a report to Congress. In fact, last week Congress expanded the
types of businesses subject to national security letter searches. The list
now includes casinos, travel agents, car dealers, the U.S. Post Office, and
others. As is the case with Section 215, the FBI may impose a gag order on
the person from whom it requests the information.

Section 412 vs. immigration laws. Section 412 of the Patriot Act states that
"the Attorney General shall place an alien detained under paragraph (1) in
removal proceedings, or shall charge the alien with a criminal offense, not
later than 7 days after the commencement of such detention. If the
requirement of the preceding sentence is not satisfied, the Attorney General
shall release the alien." To avoid the 7-day time limit, the Justice
Department has used immigration law to detain and deport immigrants.
Immigration law offers fewer protections from abuse than U.S. criminal law.

Sorting out "doublespeak." It is in the Department of Justice's interest to
prove that its laws and policies are working and that stronger laws would
provide better protection from terrorism. But listen carefully to claims
such as these, and be prepared to refute them:

"The U.S. has deported 515 individuals linked to the September 11
investigation." (Attorney General John Ashcroft, June 5, 2003 prepared
testimony presented to U.S. House Judiciary Committee) These individuals are
surely among the thousands who were rounded up after September 11 on the
basis of racial and ethnic profiling. Before they were deported or released,
the Attorney General ensured they had no ties to terror.

"In its 94-year history, the FBI has been the tireless protector of civil
rights and civil liberties for all Americans." (Attorney General John
Ashcroft, May 30, 2002) Between the organization's birth during the Palmer
Raids and its current activities were the FBI's infamous COINTELPRO programs
and its involvement in HUAC.

"I would say the Patriot Act is effective because we have not had another
attack this year." (Mark Corallo in Julia Scheeres, "How Changed Laws
Changed U.S.," Wired News, September 11, 2002) If that is so, then what
protected us from similar attacks previously?
--
To help you counteract some of the Justice Department's misleading claims,
CDT's Jim Dempsey and Lara Flynt have prepared a helpful analysis called
Setting the Record Straight: An Analysis of the Justice Department's PATRIOT
Act Website.

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