PATRIOT ACT 2: FBI SUBPOENAS WITHOUT A COURT

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is working on a bill that would renew the Patriot Act and expand government powers in the name of fighting terrorism, letting theFBI subpoena records without permission from a judge or grand jury.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050519/ap_on_go_co/patriot_act_1

It's even worse. They want to do it out of public view. That can't be good.


The Senate Intelligence Committee's Secret Session
The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse
By DAVE LINDORFF

In a stunning slap at the democratic legislative process, the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas), has suddenly and quietly scheduled a closed-door session for this Thursday to mark up its version of a renewed USA PATRIOT ACT, the frankenstein legacy of former Attorney General John Ashcroft and his then assistant Michael Chertoff (now secretary of Homeland Security).

The controversial act, many provisions of which seriously undermine basic Constitutional rights and protections, was just being examined in hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee headed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), where it came under heavy criticism from both right and left. Both the Intelligence and Judiciary committees have jurisdiction over the act, but the Judiciary committee, with its open hearings, was widely seen as having primacy.

Critics of some of the act's provisions, such as the notorious library records provision, which allows federal agents, or local law enforcement authorities working for them, to inspect the patron or customer records of libraries, video stores and bookstores, without a warrant and without notification, or the sneak-and-peek provision, which lets federal agents spy and surveil on people without later notifying them, carry a "sunset provision," which means if they are not renewed this year, they would expire.

The administration has been arguing for renewal or for making the provisions permanent, but a coalition of conservative and liberal groups calling itself Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, has expressed hopes of convincing a majority of the Judiciary Committees of both House and Senate to modify those and several other rights-threatening measures in the PATRIOT Act before sending the renewal legislation to the full Congress in June.

This surprise move by the Intelligence Committee, which is packed with senators from both parties who have not been particularly friendly to civil libertarians, appears to be an end run by supporters of the White House.

Says Lisa Graves, intelligence lobbyist for the American Civil Liberties Union, "This is an effort by the administration to get everything they want. It is an outrage." Graves says the move suggests that the administration and its congressional backers fear that they could lose in the Judiciary Committee, and are hoping to present the bill they want as a fait accompli and then call anyone who tries to weaken it "soft on terror."

"This is a radical bill," Graves says of the Intelligence Committee work-in-progress. She says her sources tell her that besides making the controversial sunset provisions of the PATRIOT Act permanent, the Intelligence Committee version of the revised act would greatly expand one of its most dangerous provisions, the administrative subpoena. "It would allow administrative subpoenas for virtually anything held by a third party, such as bank or phone or medical records, with only the merest unsubstantiated hint of a foreign connection." Equally troubling, she says, the Intelligence Committee version of the bill would strip out a current bar on using warrantless administrative subpoenas in cases that involved primarily protected First Amendment activities, such as legitimate political protest.

"I guess now we'll have to see whether the people on the Judiciary Committee will have the political courage to stand up to this," says Graves.

While the Intelligence Committee's plan for a closed-door mark-up of the bill is a clear affront to democracy and to the Bill of Rights, it is in keeping with the history of the PATRIOT Act, which was drawn up--reportedly at the direction of Chertoff, who was then in charge of terrorism issues at the Justice Department--in the weeks after the 9-11 attacks, and then passed by Congress with no committee hearings and virtually no discussion. Although no member of Congress even had time to read the mammoth 362-page bill, it passed in the Senate with only one dissenting vote--cast by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin)--and then passed in the House by a lopsided 357-66 margin.

Over the intervening four and a half years, a dramatic grassroots movement against the PATRIOT Act has swept across the country, with some 165 communities so far, large and small, including some major cities and three state governments, passing legislation that seeks to protect their residents from the act--for example by barring local or state law enforcement authorities from supporting unconstitutional federal agency requests for information or surveillance or by calling on state congressional delegations to vote to rescind the act.

Given this broad cross-party popular opposition to the Act, it will be interesting to see how the full House and Senate vote on whatever PATRIOT Act renewal bill is ultimately presented out to them.

Unlike the Intelligence Committee session this Thursday, their votes will be in public.


http://counterpunch.org/

Ach, It Never Ends.

spread the word... lets stop this evil shit.

when will people realize out liberties are all we got...

bartender187

Whats even worse is that in the time it took you to read this,they dis-mantled patriot act 2 broke it into 32 little bity bills and pushed them thru seperatly,yup,all done rite before our eyes,the machine is too big to stop.

This is just a state deal rite???? (cali i assume).Dont forget about homeland secur. I hear that that give em the rite to take down anyones door (busted?) without a warrent!!!Is this true???? Anyway this WAR on us is f**kin Shite man!Sorry but im about SICK of livein in fear of my goverment.Where would be a good SAFE PLACE FOR GROWERS.To relocate?We own a home so thinking about takin a 2nd morg. and rent this one out.Any help would be great!Sorry i know notta about the patriot act so im sorry for gettin off track greatfullhead! Please forgive me for ranting in youre thread>OG P.S. How do you get the mood thing?Everyone has one but me??????

Hi, Okie...

last i checked, the FBI was a Federal Agency. So is Homeland Security. :wink:

if you would like to fiddle with your mood, check this out:Mood link

Good luck on your refinance, but make sure the Lender knows you want to rent it out before you fill out all that paperwork...some lenders will have a very specific clause mandating you live in the home as your Primary residence. Do your home work before refinancing!!!

what's worse

what's worse

read this if you really want a wake up call....

United We Stand, but We'll Snoop Divided

by Robert A. Levy

Robert A. Levy is senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

Thankfully, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) is trying to prevent the Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS program, from being included in the homeland security bill.

Armey has the right idea. TIPS is crafted to transform us into a nation of meddlers and snoops.

The administration plans to recruit a million volunteers by next month to serve as government informants in 10 test cities. If the plan works, the goal is to enroll 4% of Americans, or about 11 million domestic spies across the nation. Evidently, the focus would be on truck drivers, cable installers, utility employees and others whose jobs regularly take them to a variety of places. (Bush wanted letter carriers to participate, but the Postal Service has declined.) According to reports, the government recruits would be well-positioned to recognize suspect activities. Never mind that your typical delivery driver or utility worker possesses neither the experience nor the expertise to judge what might be considered suspicious.

Despite that, the new breed of federal informant would identify potential mischief and potential mischief-makers, then report directly to the Justice Department, where all that information would be stored in a central database--yet another database containing names of people who have not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and his staff would, in turn, make the database available to state and local authorities, for who knows what purpose.

The administration has been quick to disavow any intent to deputize a pack of private moles. Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge told reporters: "The last thing we want is Americans spying on Americans. That's just not what the president is all about, and not what the TIPS program is all about." And Justice Department spokeswoman Barbara Comstock insisted that "none of the Operations TIPS materials ... made reference to entry or access to the homes of individuals; nor has it ever been the intention of the Department of Justice, or any other agency, to set up such a program. Our interest in establishing the Operation TIPS program is to allow American workers to share information they receive in the regular course of their jobs in public places and areas."

Perhaps. But if the administration merely seeks more and better information from diligent citizens, then why not simply publish a phone number where questionable behavior can be reported? That would reach 285 million Americans, not just a paltry 11 million.

Instead, the Justice Department would identify a special cohort of citizens who are presumably able to perform investigative work that the rest of us aren't positioned or equipped to perform.

The administration's motives may indeed be pure. But the law of unintended consequences would be apt to prevail. We would soon have meter readers on our property supposedly doing what we expect them to do; yet they might then rummage around our private residences and file a report with the Justice Department on anything they deemed questionable. If police officers wanted to do the same thing, they'd have to convince a judge or magistrate that there was probable cause to issue a search warrant.

TIPS may not raise 4th Amendment concerns, but it comes pretty close. What's worse, the program almost certainly wouldn't work. In fact, it probably would be counterproductive. With limited resources to battle terrorism, federal, state and local authorities definitely don't need an avalanche of worthless tips to ferret through to find maybe a nugget of useful information somewhere in the heap.

Naturally, that's not to say citizens should keep it to themselves when they observe suspect behavior in plain view. But the answer isn't a legion of federal emissaries serving essentially as undercover agents.

Terrorists are not stupid. They will not invite a utility worker in to spot the latest weaponry. That means the meter readers and cable installers would, for the most part, be observing ordinary Americans doing ordinary things.

The fear is that more zealous or malevolent informants would somehow find a national security risk lurking behind everyday conduct--an assessment that would occasionally be driven by outright prejudice or personal vendetta.

Every 20th century dictator appointed civilian armies to watch over their neighbors. The Bush administration would do well not to follow in those footsteps.

This article was first published in the Los Angeles Times

i ran into this here:http://www.whosarat.com/news.php?PHPSESSID=1bc322e8de5662080ebc078a2e359915

i got to get the hell out of here, any suggestions?

Great info buzzerd. thanks for the post

our country is goin to shit... its almost like Franco and Spain... Germany and the SS....

take care

this sounds like its taken straight out of 1984..... next thing you know... theres goin to be a news brief sayin we were never at war with Iraq, and they our now our prime ally.... released by the Department of Truth....

ALMOST (?)

Damn, it only gets worse...
Guess it's really time to go...
Damn Orwellian friggin fascist spying mofos...

I can't wonder how much of this is all media hype and propoganda as well. After all, where is the concrete proof of this, outside of the LA times? would it be true?

Get up stand up

Get up stand up

Is it right to pack up and leave the good ol' USA if you disagree with our gov't? OR, should you stay and fight for what you believe in. Ask yourself that question. Prohibition was repealed

I don't think it will affect me at all,

I am no terrorist, I am not building any bombs or plotting anything, so why should I worry? I feel safer knowing they are being hunted down right now, here and abroad.

This should be called the Big Brother act.

big brother act indeed, who would they be spying on? in the medea they adress the american public like forign terrorists. sure they tell the story, but it seems like its just not 100%. like im sure cnn could do a story on this but any govenment agent would just say its a matter of nation security. the CIA spyes on forign soil, the FBI is suposed to act within the borders. now that the "TERRORISTS" have struck our towers and bush has been givin the power no president has had before him our liberty our very persuit of happieness is being taken away to further fight this war on terror.

im all for america, if were gunna have people leaving in fear then we'll fave people fighting in pride. i say if it comes down to it their might could be a civil war between the overwhelming "right" that has over reched the checks and balance sysem, and the few bits and peices of what is lef of this great country that can stand up and fight for what it is out four fathers wher dieing for. after all if this country was created of the people, by the people, and for the people, we should have a damb right to feal protected from our government. and the security in knowing that not only will the voters get their say in the topics. knowing that their government is balansed and in controle of it self omogst other things.

Senate Panel OKs Expanded Powers for FBI By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 19 minutes ago



WASHINGTON - The FBI would get expanded powers to subpoena records without the approval of a judge or grand jury in terrorism investigations under Patriot Act revisions approved Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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Some senators who voted 11-4 to move the bill forward said they would push for limits on the new powers the measure would grant to law enforcement agencies.

"This bill must be amended on the floor to protect national security while protecting Constitutional rights," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (news, bio, voting record), D-Md.

Ranking Democrat Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., supported the bill overall but said he would push for limits that would allow such administrative subpoenas "only if immediacy dictates."

Rockefeller and other committee members, such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., also are concerned that the bill would grant powers to federal law enforcement agencies that could be used in criminal inquiries rather than intelligence-gathering ones.

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said the bill places new checks and balances on the powers it would grant, such as new procedures that would allow people to challenge such administrative orders. He called the Patriot Act "a vital tool in the war on terror" and lauded the Democrats who voted for it in spite of misgivings.

Portions of the Patriot Act — signed into law six weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks — are set to expire at the end of 2005. The bill would renew and expand the act.

The bill also must be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Feinstein and other Democrats planned to again offer amendments.

Overall, Rockefeller said, the committee gave a nod to most of the Patriot Act in its first few years fighting the nation's new enemies.

"We concluded that these tools have helped keep America safe ... and should be made permanent," Rockefeller said in a statement.

Still, civil libertarians panned the bill and the closed-door meetings in which it was written.

"When lawmakers seek to rewrite our Fourth Amendment rights, they should at least have the gumption to do so in public," said Lisa Graves, the ACLU's senior counsel for legislative strategy. "Americans have a reasonable expectation that their federal government will not gather records about their health, their wealth and the transactions of their daily life without probable cause of a crime and without a court order."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050608...Ycb.3QA;_ylu=X3oDMTBhbTlqazJiBHNlYwNjaWQ3MDM-

I'm with BARTENDER. Anyone who thinks 1984 was fiction needs to take a look around. People are afraid of their fellow citizens in addition to the government. Between the Televisions telling us what to believe and Cell phones tracking every citizen 24-7, I'm scared. I bet yall wish the C.S.A. would have won the war now. Then you would have a choice. Jefferson Davis was right. STATES RIGHTS