ACLU Concerns Regarding Patriot Act

How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Expands Law Enforcement "Sneak and Peek" Warrants (10/23/2001)

 The final version of the anti-terrorism legislation, the Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (H.R. 3162, the "USA PATRIOT Act") would allow law enforcement agencies to delay giving notice when they conduct a search. This means that the government could enter a house, apartment or office with a search warrant when the occupant was away, search through her property and take photographs, and in some cases seize physical property and electronic communications, and not tell her until later. This provision would mark a sea change in the way search warrants are executed in the United States. 

The Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures requires the government to both obtain a warrant and to give notice to the person whose property will be searched before conducting the search.

http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/12481leg20011023.html

Surveillance of Citizens and Non-Citizens

• Section 215 allows the FBI to order any person or entity to turn over "any tangible things," so long as the FBI "specif[ies]" that the order is "for an authorized investigation . . . to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." 
• Section 215 vastly expands the FBI's power to spy on ordinary people living in the United States, including United States citizens and permanent residents.
  • The FBI need not show probable cause, nor even reasonable grounds to believe, that the person whose records it seeks is engaged in criminal activity. 
  • The FBI need not have any suspicion that the subject of the investigation is a foreign power or agent of a foreign power. 
  • The FBI can investigate United States persons based in part on their exercise of First Amendment rights, and it can investigate non-United States persons based solely on their exercise of First Amendment rights.
    • For example, the FBI could spy on a person because they don't like the books she reads, or because they don't like the web sites she visits. They could spy on her because she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized government policy.
  • Those served with Section 215 orders are prohibited from disclosing the fact to anyone else. Those who are the subjects of the surveillance are never notified that their privacy has been compromised.
    • If the government had been keeping track of what books a person had been reading, or what web sites she had been visiting, the person would never know.

http://action.aclu.org/reformthepatriotact/215.html

How the USA PATRIOT Act redefines "Domestic Terrorism" (12/6/2002)

Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover "domestic," as opposed to international, terrorism.   A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to:  (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.  Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.

Section 802 does not create a new crime of domestic terrorism.  However, it does expand the type of conduct that the government can investigate when it is investigating "terrorism."   The USA PATRIOT Act expanded governmental powers to investigate terrorism, and some of these powers are applicable to domestic terrorism.

The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.  

Seizure of assets - Sec. 806:  Section 806 of the Act could result in the civil seizure of their assets without a prior hearing, and without them ever being convicted of a crime.

The civil asset forfeiture power of the United States government is awesome.  The government can seize and/or freeze the assets on the mere assertion that there is probable cause to believe that the assets were involved in domestic terrorism.  The assets are seized before a person is given a hearing, and often without notice.  In order to permanently forfeit the assets, the government must go before a court, but at a civil hearing, and the government is only required to prove that the assets were involved in terrorism by a preponderance of the evidence.

Disclosure of educational records - Sec. 507:  This provision of the USA PATRIOT Act requires a judge to issue an order permitting the government to obtain private educational records if the Attorney General or his designee certifies that the records are necessary for investigating domestic or international terrorism.

Disclosure of information from National Education Statistics Act - Sec. 508:  This provision of the USA PATRIOT Act requires a judge to issue an order for the government to obtain educational records that have been collected pursuant to the National Education Statistics Act. 

Single-Jurisdiction Search Warrants (Sec. 219):  This section of the USA PATRIOT Act amends Rule 41(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to authorize the government to go before a singe Federal magistrate judge in any judicial district in which activities relating to the terrorism may have occurred, to obtain a warrant to search property or a person within or outside the district. 

http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/14444leg20021206.html

How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Permits Indefinite Detention of Immigrants (10/23/2001)

Section 412 of the final version of the anti-terrorism legislation, the Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (H.R. 3162, the "USA PATRIOT Act") permits indefinite detention of immigrants and other non-citizens. There is no requirement that those who are detained indefinitely be removable because they are terrorists.

Section 412 requires that immigrants "certified" by the Attorney General be charged within seven days with a criminal offense or an immigration violation (which need not be on terrorism grounds).

However, immigrants who are found not to be deportable for terrorism, but have an immigration status violation, such as overstaying a visa, could face indefinite detention if their country refuses to accept them. Detention would be allowed on the Attorney General's finding of "reasonable grounds to believe" involvement in terrorism or activity that poses a danger to national security, and detention could be indefinite upon a determination that such an individual threatens national security, or the safety of the community or any person. Sec. 412, adding new INA section 236A(a)(3) and (a)(6).

http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/12483leg20011023.html

How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Allows for Detention of People Engaging in Innocent Associational Activity (10/23/2001)

The final version of the anti-terrorism legislation, the Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (H.R. 3162, the "USA PATRIOT Act") permits detention and deportation of non-citizens who provide assistance for lawful activities of a group the government claims is a terrorist organization, even if the group has never been designated as a terrorist organization.

http://www.aclu.org/natsec/emergpowers/12482leg20011023.html