| Repeal the USA Patriot Act! Tod Landis July 4, 2003 On October 26, 2001, the House and Senate passed the USA Patriot Act. There was litte debate. In fact, some members of Congress, including Congresswoman Eshoo, voted for the USA Patriot Act without reading it. The result is a federal law which authorizes the American government to spy on its own citizens, without court involvement. This law may violate the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments of the Bill of Rights. In theory, the Supreme Court protects us from laws, like the Patriot Act, that violate the Bill of Rights. In practice, this may not be the case. The problem is that the act's most onerous provisions may not trigger court cases. For example, a citizen's reading habits may be under FBI surveillance, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, but he or she may never know it. The Watergate scandal taught us just how important it is for Congress to oversee and limit domestic spying by American intelligence agencies, but apparently Congress has forgotten that lesson. During the Watergate scandal we learned that employees of American intelligence services, including the CIA, were cooperating with the Committee to Reelect the President and engaged in spying and dirty tricks against President Nixon's political opponents. Over time, these revelations led to Nixon's resignation and a series of Congressional investigations into CIA misconduct. In his book, Secrets, Angus MacKenzie described MHCHAOS, a program of domestic spying by the CIA. Using the Freedom of Information Act, MacKenzie was able to discover that CIA spies had worked in the United States as college professors, reporters, and political organizers. These activities were in violation of federal law, which prevents the CIA from engaging in domestic espionage. As MacKenzie described, President Bush, Sr., played an import role in ending the Congressional investigations into CIA misconduct. During his tenure as Central Intelligence Agency Director, George Bush, Sr., used the death of a CIA officer in Greece as a pretext for new government secrecy contracts that effectively silenced government "whistleblowers". Without whistleblowers, and with a CIA culture that encouraged lying to Congress, it became much harder for Congressional Committees or reporters to investigate wrongdoing by the CIA In a very similar way, the World Trade Center attack has been used as a pretext to accumulate near dictatorial power by his son, George Bush, Jr. Congress must now act to check that power. At the very least, it should review the USA Patriot Act, and repeal those sections of the USA Patriot Act which are unconstitutional. Related links and references Text of the USA Patriot Act |
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