Thread: Patriot Act - good or bad? Keep or repeal?

When the Patriot Act was originally passed, I was all for it because I strongly believed it was necessary to protect the USA from terrorists, and I had faith in our police, FBI< Homeland Security, CIA, etc to use it in good faith only as necessary when there was reasonable cause to suspect a threat to national security.

Wow was I naive.

I still believe the intent behind the Patriot Act is good, reasonable, and honourable. That intend being to protect this country against threats using necessary tactics, but applied in good faith with regard to necessity of each situation/case.

Unfortunately, the application of the Patriot Act has been a nightmare for US Citizens and even worse for foreigners. It has turned us into a police state in which the authorities can invade privacy at will and seemingly without regard to good faith. It has also allowed unlawful intimidation, detention, and abuse of many thousands of innocents. Sometimes police use it to bully and intimidate ordinary citizens who have done nothing wrong and are obviously not terrorists. It is used by authorities as a blank check to bully, intimidate, detain, and/or abuse. Often times to people who haven't even done anything to arouse even a reasonable suspicion in a reasonable person.

The Patriot Act has done as much damage to the freedoms of this nation, and to our national soul, than any terrorist ever has. If it were consistently applied in good faith, I think it'd be OK. But the sad fact is that many police authorities are not operating in good faith. Many times individual police (or FBI or others) are bullies and sadists who get off on intimidating or abusing people, and the Patriot Act provides police/FBI/Homeland Security with a blank check to do almost anything, and get away with it with impunity.

I strongly believe that many members of the authorities are using the Patriotic Act in good faith, and I have no problem with that, but I also know that many are using it in bad faith, as bullies, and getting off on it.

My sister and I are white of Northern European decent. I can tell you that going through an airport is a nightmare for anyone, including white people. However, it is far worse for non-whites. Especially Hispanics. Due to getting married, my sister now has a Hispanic last name and now she gets much more security treatment, including one time very abusive treatment of having her pants pulled down by a federal security person at an airport in El Paso TX. Her pants were roughly and forcibly pulled down in public, in front of hundreds of people, while standing in line.

The Patriot Act has turned this nation into a police state, reminiscent of other police states we used to decry for similar practices.

The Patriot Act is good in theory, but terrible in practice. I am now very against it.

Judge rules secret nat'l. security letters violate the First Amendment...

Judge rules secret FBI letters unconstitutional
Mar 15,`13 -- A federal judge has ruled that the FBI's practice of issuing so-called national security letters to banks, phone companies and other businesses is unconstitutional, saying the secretive demands for customer data violate the First Amendment.

The FBI almost always bars recipients of the letters from disclosing to anyone - including customers - that they have even received the demands, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said in the ruling released Friday. The government has failed to show that the letters and the blanket non-disclosure policy "serve the compelling need of national security," and the gag order creates "too large a danger that speech is being unnecessarily restricted," the San Francisco-based Illston wrote. FBI counter-terrorism agents began issuing the letters, which don't require a judge's approval, after Congress passed the USA Patriot Act in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The case arises from a lawsuit that lawyers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed in 2011 on behalf of an unnamed telecommunications company that received an FBI demand for customer information. "We are very pleased that the court recognized the fatal constitutional shortcomings of the NSL statute," EFF lawyer Matt Zimmerman said. "The government's gags have truncated the public debate on these controversial surveillance tools. Our client looks forward to the day when it can publicly discuss its experience." Illston wrote that she was also troubled by the limited powers judges have to lift the gag orders.

Judges can eliminate the gag order only if they have "no reason to believe that disclosure may endanger the national security of the United States, interfere with a criminal counter-terrorism, or counterintelligence investigation, interfere with diplomatic relations, or endanger the life or physical safety of any person." That provision also violated the Constitution because it blocks meaningful judicial review. Illston ordered the FBI to cease issuing the letters, but put her order on hold for 90 days so the U.S. Department of Justice can appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

MORE

Patriot Act - Repeal

DOJ drops support for email snooping...

Justice: Email snooping law no longer makes sense
Mar 19,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department on Tuesday dropped its support for a controversial provision in a federal law that allows police to review some private emails without a warrant, but it asked Congress to expand its surveillance powers in other ways.

The testimony by a top Obama administration lawyer before a House subcommittee was met with cautious optimism by privacy advocates and civil liberties groups who have worked for years to overturn parts of the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act. They said it provides a starting point for a compromise in a debate that has endured for more than a decade. "What's very positive to me is the amount of common ground that's suddenly arisen," said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, one of several organizations looking to change the law. "If we have an agreement on this (provision), we should move forward."

The 1986 law was written before the Internet was popularized and before many Americans used Yahoo or Google servers to store their emails indefinitely. The law allows federal authorities to obtain a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor - not a judge - to access electronic messages older than 180 days. Privacy groups have sought since 2000 to amend the law but failed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks shifted the debate over the government's ability to intercept communications.

With Americans increasingly relying on email - and the proliferation of "cloud computing" to store messages on servers outside a person's home - the debate has shifted back toward privacy protections. Meanwhile, technology companies including Google, Twitter and Dropbox have said they are overwhelmed with requests by law enforcement for email records. Google says government demands for emails and other information held on its servers increased 136 percent since 2009.

On Tuesday, the acting assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy, Elana Tyrangiel, told a House Judiciary subcommittee that there is no principled basis to treat email less than 180 days old differently than email more than 180 days old. She also said emails deserve the same legal protections whether they have been opened or not.

MORE

See also:

Judges asked to rule on warrantless GPS tracking
Mar 19,`13 -- A federal appeals court was asked Tuesday to decide whether the government must obtain a warrant before placing a GPS tracker on a suspect's car.

The case before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia involves three brothers suspected of robbing several pharmacies. Authorities placed a GPS device on their car without a warrant in 2010, and the tracking led to their arrests two days later. Lawyers representing the trio told a three-judge panel that warrantless tracking violates the Constitution's guarantee against unreasonable searches. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer contended that authorities followed relevant legal precedents at the time in using the tracker without a warrant and had probable cause to suspect illegal activity. "This is a very important law enforcement tool," Zauzmer said. A district judge last year ruled in favor of brothers Harry, Mark and Michael Katzin, who had sought to suppress evidence gathered during the traffic stop in which they were arrested. The Justice Department appealed that ruling to the 3rd Circuit.

The judge had based his decision in part on a recent Supreme Court ruling that found the use of a GPS tracker constitutes a search. However, the judge noted that the high court's 5-4 ruling did not address the issue of long-term monitoring or whether a warrant is required. The Philadelphia case began in 2009 after city police approached the FBI about a string of pharmacy burglaries, each of which involved the alarm system being disabled by cutting outside telephone lines. Authorities later identified electrician Harry Katzin as a person of interest after several suspicious encounters at Rite Aid pharmacies in which he was questioned by police but let go. The FBI eventually placed a tracker on the car, and the trio was pulled over after a Rite Aid burglary in Hamburg, Pa.

Harry Katzin's attorney, Thomas Dreyer, acknowledged that authorities had probable cause to suspect his client. "Whether they did the right thing with that probable cause is what we have to decide," said Judge Franklin Van Antwerpen. The brothers' lawyers argued that the warrantless tracking was an unreasonable search. They also argued that authorities had plenty of time to apply for a warrant - and should have done so, because the relevant legal issues were unsettled when the tracker was placed in 2010. "This was an open issue. Why not ... get a warrant?" said attorney Rocco Cipparone, who represents Mark Katzin. "We should err on the side of protecting Fourth Amendment rights."

Zauzmer countered that some federal appeals courts had ruled at the time that warrants were not required, and that authorities acted in good faith in relying on those decisions to justify the tracker. Moreover, he said, car searches don't require warrants. A lawyer for American Civil Liberties Union, which filed an amicus brief supporting the Katzins, disputed that interpretation of the so-called "automobile exception" to warrants. The exception was developed to help police find contraband hidden in cars, not to allow unlimited tracking of suspects, said attorney Catherine Crump. It's unclear when the appeals court will rule.

Source

Originally Posted by CCC

When the Patriot Act was originally passed, I was all for it because I strongly believed it was necessary to protect the USA from terrorists, and I had faith in our police, FBI< Homeland Security, CIA, etc to use it in good faith only as necessary when there was reasonable cause to suspect a threat to national security.

Wow was I naive.

I still believe the intent behind the Patriot Act is good, reasonable, and honourable. That intend being to protect this country against threats using necessary tactics, but applied in good faith with regard to necessity of each situation/case.

Unfortunately, the application of the Patriot Act has been a nightmare for US Citizens and even worse for foreigners. It has turned us into a police state in which the authorities can invade privacy at will and seemingly without regard to good faith. It has also allowed unlawful intimidation, detention, and abuse of many thousands of innocents. Sometimes police use it to bully and intimidate ordinary citizens who have done nothing wrong and are obviously not terrorists. It is used by authorities as a blank check to bully, intimidate, detain, and/or abuse. Often times to people who haven't even done anything to arouse even a reasonable suspicion in a reasonable person.

The Patriot Act has done as much damage to the freedoms of this nation, and to our national soul, than any terrorist ever has. If it were consistently applied in good faith, I think it'd be OK. But the sad fact is that many police authorities are not operating in good faith. Many times individual police (or FBI or others) are bullies and sadists who get off on intimidating or abusing people, and the Patriot Act provides police/FBI/Homeland Security with a blank check to do almost anything, and get away with it with impunity.

I strongly believe that many members of the authorities are using the Patriotic Act in good faith, and I have no problem with that, but I also know that many are using it in bad faith, as bullies, and getting off on it.

My sister and I are white of Northern European decent. I can tell you that going through an airport is a nightmare for anyone, including white people. However, it is far worse for non-whites. Especially Hispanics. Due to getting married, my sister now has a Hispanic last name and now she gets much more security treatment, including one time very abusive treatment of having her pants pulled down by a federal security person at an airport in El Paso TX. Her pants were roughly and forcibly pulled down in public, in front of hundreds of people, while standing in line.

The Patriot Act has turned this nation into a police state, reminiscent of other police states we used to decry for similar practices.

The Patriot Act is good in theory, but terrible in practice. I am now very against it.

Throughout history, government has commonly taken a mile when given an inch. This is the biggest reason I changed my mind about guns. I can see what is happening to our country. I see the fear that people have in guns, terrorism, having poor healthcare and not getting a bad education, and they always turn to government instead of taking responsibility for their own life. This has given an immense amount of power to a small group of government officials who can wield this power at their will. This group of politicians in our best interests, but that doesn't mean the next generation of politicians also will.

Sometimes it feels like, somebody's watchin' me...

Microsoft, Too, Says FBI Secretly Surveilling Its Customers
3.21.13 - Microsoft said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is secretly spying on its customers with so-called National Security Letters that don’t require a judge’s approval, a revelation Thursday that mirrors one Google announced two weeks ago.

Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft announced that the type of accounts the feds are targeting with National Security Letters, warrants or court orders include Hotmail/Outlook.com, SkyDrive, Xbox LIVE, Microsoft Account, Messenger and Office 365. The announcements by the two tech giants mark the first time U.S. companies have divulged they were secretly responding to National Security Letters and coughing up user data to the bureau without probable-cause warrants. And the Microsoft announcement comes six days after a federal judge declared National Security Letters unconstitutional and gave the President Barack Obama administration 90 days to appeal the ruling.

A breakdown of the number of National Security Letters the FBI has issued to Microsoft targeted accounts (“identifiers”) for user data.


The NSLs, which have been issued nationwide hundreds of thousands of times, are written demands from the FBI that compel internet service providers, credit companies, financial institutions and businesses like Google and Microsoft to hand over confidential records about their customers, such as subscriber information, phone numbers and e-mail addresses, websites visited and more as long as the FBI says the information is “relevant” to an investigation. “Like others in the industry, we believe it is important for the public to have access to information about law enforcement access to customer data, particularly as customers are increasingly using technology to communicate and store private information,” Microsoft said.

Google, Microsoft and other entities that receive NSLs are gagged from disclosing them publicly or to the targets. But, “pursuant to approval from the government,” Microsoft released a numerical “range” of the number of NSLs it has received dating to 2009. Two weeks ago, when Google released its numbers, it said it only publicized a range “to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations.”

The ranges each company published are similar, but not identical. For 2012, which is the latest data available, Microsoft said it received 0-999 National Security Letters involving between 1,000 to 1,999 accounts. In 2011, Microsoft said it received 1,000-1,999 of them for 3,000-3,999 accounts. For 2010, the company reported 1,000-1,999 requests targeting 5,000-5,999 accounts. In 2009, there were 0-999 National Security Letters targeting 2,000-2,999 accounts.

More http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...sl-revelation/

Repeal it. All of it. Let's go back to the way it was before that day the terrorists won and we gave up our liberty.

Originally Posted by CCC

The Patriot Act is good in theory, but terrible in practice. I am now very against it.

I am glad to hear that you experienced the same change of heart I did.
At first, the "for your safety" argument convinced me it was necessary.
Not until a couple years later did it hit me that nobody has a right to spy on me - particularly without probable cause. I am now a libertarian in all respects.

EFF wants Patriot Act revised...

Patriot Act erodes privacy rights, advocates charge
June 10, 2013 > The Electronic Frontier Foundation is calling on Congress to establish a 21st-century version of the Church Committee to curtail the government's collection of ordinary Americans' credit card, telephone and Internet records.

"The parallels between the 1970s and today are unmistakable," said Kurt Opsahl, senior staff attorney of the San Francisco-based, nonprofit foundation. "Then as now, we see a massive surveillance program of electronic communication. "Back then, you had telegrams and telephones. Today, you have cellphones and computers," he said. "The result has been the same -- the growth of a secret surveillance state that must be cut back."

Sen. Frank Church, an Idaho Democrat, chaired the select bipartisan committee that was developed as Washington recovered from the Watergate scandals that rocked President Nixon's administration. The committee's 1975 investigations uncovered a long list of federal spying and dirty tricks during the Cold War against the Soviet Union that raked in domestic civil rights groups, draft protesters, political parties and tens of thousands of ordinary Americans.

Armed with the findings, Congress passed laws during the next three years to rein in the power of federal law enforcement, military, tax collection and espionage agencies. Critics say those protections eroded after 9/11 and twin wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Case in point is the key law born from the Church Committee's findings, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, or FISA. Designed to regulate how and when a federal agency could eavesdrop on American citizens communicating with foreign powers during the Cold War, FISA's court convened in secret but required agencies to obtain warrants from its judges before snooping.

The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 and later amendments transformed FISA into a toothless tiger when it comes to protecting privacy, critics claim. They say its court rubber-stamps requests that other federal magistrates would toss out. No citizen can appear to challenge the court's decrees, and mandatory gag orders prevent discussions of rulings when they're issued. FISA judges approved all 1,856 warrants the Department of Justice requested in 2012, with the government withdrawing only one application. The judges modified 40 more, according to its annual report.

MORE

See also:

US spy programs raise ire both home and abroad
Jun 10,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration faced fresh anger Monday at home and abroad over U.S. spy programs that track phone and Internet messages around the world in the hope of thwarting terrorist threats. But a senior intelligence official said there are no plans to end the secretive surveillance systems.

The programs causing the global uproar were revealed by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old employee of government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden, whose identity was revealed at his own request, has fled to Hong Kong in hopes of escaping criminal charges. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee and supports the surveillance, accused Snowden of committing an "act of treason" and said he should be prosecuted.

Coolly but firmly, officials in Germany and the European Union issued complaints over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages - potentially including phone numbers, email, images, video and other online communications transmitted through U.S. providers. The chief British diplomat felt it necessary to try to assure Parliament that the spy programs do not encroach on U.K. privacy laws.

And in Washington, members of Congress said they would take a new look at potential ways to keep the U.S. safe from terror attacks without giving up privacy protections that critics charge are at risk with the government's current authority to broadly sweep up personal communications. "There's very little trust in the government, and that's for good reason," said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. "We're our own worst enemy."

Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was considering how Congress could limit the amount of data spy agencies seize from telephone and Internet companies - including restricting the information to be released only on an as-needed basis. "It's a little unsettling to have this massive data in the government's possession," King said.

MORE