Attorney General Ashcroft says, the Patriot Act "reflects the stakes America has in the war on terror. When American lives are at stake, we need to have all the capacities to disrupt and to defeat terrorism that we've been successfully using over the last 28 months."
In a letter to Senate leaders, Ashcroft said changes proposed by Congress in the Security and Freedom Ensured Act, known as SAFE, would "undermine our ongoing campaign to detect and prevent catastrophic attacks." He said President Bush would veto any attempt to water down the present Patriot Act provisions.
Opponents of the Patriot Act say the law forces U.S. citizens to give up way too many personal freedoms and constitutional rights in exchange for any level of "safety" the law may provide.They argue that policing powers granted under the Act and the proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act (Patriot II) would fundamentally change American society, because the government would be allowed to carry out electronic searches of virtually all information available about an individual without having to show probable cause and without informing the individual that the investigation was being carried out.
Furthermore, if adopted it would allow the government to wiretap a person for 15 days without a warrant; federal agents could secretly arrest people and provide no information to their family, the media or their attorney until charges are brought, no matter how long that took; and it would allow Americans to be stripped of their citizenship for even unknowingly helping a group that is connected to an organization deemed to be terrrorist.
Even further, they say the Act would also make it a crime for people subpoenaed in connection with an investigation to alert Congress or anyone else to any possible abuses committed by federal agents. There is no checks-and-balances system to prevent abuses, they believe.
Where It Stands
ACLU National Media Relations director Emily Whitfield reports that more than 230 communities around the country, most recently Los Angeles, have passed resolutions calling for the repeal of certain controversial sections of the act. Some local governments have ordered their employees to not cooperate with federal agents making inquiries under a Patriot Act investigation.Provisions of the law are being challenged in court on their constitutional merits. A federal judge in Los Angeles struck down a provision the Act that prohibits providing "expert advice or assistance" to designated international terrorist organizations, because it is a violation of the First and Fifth Amendments and because it is impermissibly vague.
In Detroit, Michigan, an ACLU lawsuit is challenging the Act because it gives federal agents "unlimited and unconstitutional authority to secretly seize library reading lists and other personal records."
Likely, other challenges to the law will arise as other cases develop and the political battles will continue in Congress as the deadline nears on the first Patriot Act provisions.
