Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [47]
Here’s what this law does. Your government may now “trap and trace” all those countless e-mails you thought were private. If this continues, you might as well delete the word “CONFIDENTIAL” from your spellchecker. Also up for inspection: banking records, school records, the list of library books you or your nine-year-old checked out this year (or even how often you have logged onto the Internet at the library), and your consumer purchases. Think I’m exaggerating? Next time you are sitting in your doctor’s waiting room or waiting in line at the bank, read their new privacy statements. Buried in the legalese you will find new warnings that your privacy protections do not cover the Big Brother provisions of our new Patriot Act.
There’s more. Under the special “SNEAK AND PEEK” provision, agents may now come into your home and search through your stuff and—get this—never tell you they have been there!
One of the most important sections of our Bill of Rights is the Fourth Amendment. We all cherish our individual privacy and like living in a place that encourages the free flow of ideas. At the core of all this is PRIVACY. That’s why under the United States Constitution, searching your home requires a warrant that is backed up with some proof there’s a damn good reason to be doing so. But along comes the new order under Ashcroft that violates our dearly held notion of home and hearth. Ashcroft’s law is no act of patriotism. Both my seventh-grade history teacher, Sister Mary Raymond, and our Founding Fellows (especially Jefferson) would not forgive me if I didn’t point out that once you allow your rulers to snoop into your life and violate your “space,” the notion of living in a free society is out the window.
Instead of showing probable cause in a regular court, Ashcroft’s agents get their secret warrants from a secret court (the government’s own Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, FISA, created in 1978), and the Feds can just show up, say the magical words “this is for intelligence purposes,” and the secret court judges rubber stamp each and every request. In addition, newspapers reported that in 2002 more than 170 “emergency” warrants were issued, compared to forty-seven in the previous twenty-three years. Those so-called emergency warrants amount to no more than pieces of paper signed by Ashcroft, which allow FBI agents to conduct wiretaps and searches for seventy-two hours without any FISA court review.
Built into the secrecy of the USA Patriot Act is a gag order so that once the FBI collects your library records, no one may utter a word about the search under pain of prosecution. (Perhaps libraries could safely post regular weekly updates that read: “No FBI agents have spied here this week” and when the sign is missing, then you can assume the worst.) With no real threat of anyone monitoring their behavior, Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft et al. are allowed to freely graze on the landscape of our way of life.
The Patriot Act also allows the attorney general’s office to demand and receive whatever information it wants from anyone just by issuing what is called a “national security letter.” These have been flying out of Ashcroft’s office so fast that no one—not even the House Judiciary Committee—knows how many have been sent. The Judiciary Committee demanded to know, but Ashcroft, citing his new powers, stonewalled them. With these national security letters, all the cops have to do is present one and presto—business, educational, Internet, consumer and other personal data are instantly turned over with no showing of probable cause or even a foreign intelligence need. The FBI can go after anyone—and Ashcroft refuses to reveal who they are going after—without even Congressional scrutiny.
That’s not all. We now have the precedent of secret detention that might make banana republics envious. Some 5,000 young men, mostly students, have been “interviewed” by the FBI for no other reason than they may not be citizens or they are of Middle Eastern origin. Another 1,200 people were detained, and held