Ashcroft resigns - AKA PATRIOT Act gripes
November 10th, 2004John Ashcroft, the US Attorney General and champion of the deceptively named PATRIOT Act, has resigned. His successor is still being discussed, but will likely be White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. I’m glad to see Ashcroft on his way out, but I’m not sure that I should expect any better from any potential successor - at least not under the current (and next term) administration.
I’m pretty disappointed with Ashcroft’s Justice Department. Their much touted PATRIOT Act was supposed to be just the tool they needed to fight terrorism, but why are they using it against a small time pot dealer and a corrupt strip club owner? Now I’m not refuting that what those people were doing was illegal, but this law was designed to fight terrorists not small time domestic criminals. I think the true intent of the PATRIOT Act comes out in this: to suspend due process in investigation and prosecution of anyone, regardless of any terrorist ties. It is not a law for fighting terrorism like it is so often claimed, but a law for spying on citizens, even innocent ones.
Now if you read Justice Department reports like this one you’ll see that the law did help in the conviction or confession of 179 terrorists, but you’ll also see mention of child pornography convictions, rescued kidnapping victims, and sex abuse cases. I admit all of these are crimes, but they are not terrorism. These cases amount to an abuse of the entirely too expansive power the PATRIOT Act gives law enforcement. Of course it’s hard to convince people of that abuse. Most people simply hear the reports of the convictions and think they are safer. But safer at what expense?
- At the expense of first amendment rights - The PATRIOT Act allows officials to track your library use, effectively requiring you to avoid “suspicious” materials if you don’t want to raise red flags to law enforcement, but it is your first amendment right to express and hear ideas (even if the government doesn’t like them).
- At the expense of your privacy - Under the PATRIOT Act law enforcement can snoop through your email and other communications, tap your phones, and otherwise spy on you - without a warrant. They aren’t even required to tell you when they have exercised a warrant anymore, so you don’t even know when your privacy is violated (part of due process is the notification of the charges being brought against you). Section 215 extends FBI power to conduct essentially warrantless records searches, especially on people who are not themselves terror suspects, with little or no judicial oversight.
- At the expense of national security - Sounds backwards doesn’t it? The PATRIOT Act is supposed to help us fight terrorism. However, it introduces noise into the signal that is security intelligence. All the spying on non-terrorist criminals introduces a bunch of data that doesn’t help with national security. The only way to deal with the mass of data is to throw more analysts at it. This increases the intelligence community’s size and bureaucracy to the point that they are even slower to respond to real threats.
Fortunately, some parts of the PATRIOT Act expire in 2005. Unfortunately, not all of it does. The part that extends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) so that it can be used against American citizens (Section 213) is here to stay. And Section 505 that effectively requires no check or balance on the Attorney General’s discretion to issue administrative subpoenas of personal records isn’t expiring in 2005 either.
Will Ashcroft’s replacement follow in his footsteps and abuse this all too powerful legislation? Or will he realize that the American people have not gained “national security” by giving up personal liberty and stop abusing them? Doubtful. And will the law be recognized for what it is and repealed? Not until the administration that tried to expand the law’s powers is out of office, and not just the Attorney General, but all of it, and the Congress who passed the unconstitutional law too.