Yup, the Patriot Act was a terrible Bill, it subverts the Constitution, read and learn my brothers this sums up the problem with the PA well - it was a bill sold by fear and not even debated on the house floor - disgraceful
reason: The Patriot Act seems to be a special bete noire of yours. What"™s the problem with it?
Napolitano: The Patriot Act"™s two most principle constitutional errors are an assault on the Fourth Amendment, and on the First. It permits federal agents to write their own search warrants [under the name "śnational security letters"ť] with no judge having examined evidence and agreed that it"™s likely that the person or thing the government wants to search will reveal evidence of a crime.
Remember that the British government permitted its soldiers to execute self-written search warrants. They called them "śwrits of assistance,"ť and they were one of the last straws that caused American colonist to rebel. It"™s bitterly ironic that 230 years later a popularly elected government would authorize its own agents to do the same thing that when a monarchy did it, we fought a war of rebellion in reaction"”which we won!
Not only that, but the Patriot Act makes it a felony for the recipient of a self-written search warrant to reveal it to anyone.
The Patriot Act allows [agents] to serve self-written search warrants on financial institutions, and the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2004 in Orwellian language defines that to include in addition to banks, also delis, bodegas, restaurants, hotels, doctors' offices, lawyers"™ offices, telecoms, HMOs, hospitals, casinos, jewelry dealers, automobile dealers, boat dealers, and that great financial institution to which we all would repose our fortunes, the post office.
So FBI agents can write their own search warrant with just the permission of their superior, no judge at all, nobody at the main Department of Justice, and serve it essentially on any entity they want, and if they serve this search warrant on your doctor, lawyer, grocer, or mailman, and that doctor, lawyer, grocer, or mailman tells you they received it, then that doctor, lawyer, grocer, or mailman, can be prosecuted for a felony, face five years in jail. What part of the First Amendment"™s "śCongress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech"ť do they not understand?
This creates a Soviet-style conundrum for the recipient, who can"™t even tell his or her lawyer or general counsel about getting the search warrant. You can"™t hire outside counsel to challenge it, you can"™t mention it to your spouse on the pillow, to your priest in confession"”not even to a federal judge in a federal courtroom where all language except perjury should be permitted. This is a conundrum the likes of which government has never visited even under the Alien and Sedition Act. If they prosecuted you for criticizing [President John] Adams you could complain about it to your heart"™s content without being charged with another crime.
reason: The Patriot Act was sold as a necessary protection from terror. How has that worked out?
Napolitano: How many people has the DOJ convicted in a jury trial for terrorism based on evidence obtained from the Patriot Act? Zero. They"™ve gotten people to plead guilty, to fold, and convicted many on drug trafficking, white slavery, prostitution, gambling, and political corruption, but haven"™t gotten a single [terror] case where they presented evidence in a public court before a judge and jury and the jury found a defendant guilty under evidence obtained under Patriot Act.
The reasons stated by [Attorney General John] Ashcroft and the House Republican leadership for there being no debate on the Patriot Act was that terrorists were under every bed, behind every toilet, and inside every refrigerator. Therefore the Patriot Act was so necessary to keep the country safe that there was no time for debate. The most sinful aspect of its passage was how members of the House were not permitted to read it. It was posted on the House Intranet for 15 min [before the vote] and it"™s 315 pages long. I read it twice, and it took me 20 hours each time. And you need in front of you not just it, but lots of other statutes, the full U.S. criminal code, to process it. It does lots of amending of other statutes, so you need to reread [those] statues to figure out what government has done by amending that statute.
I was speaking in the Midwest"”I don"™t want to tell you where, somewhere in the great Heartland"”two weeks ago and at the end of my speech, after I said many of these things I"™m saying here and in my book, there was a congressman in the audience. He and I socialized a bit, and he said, "śJudge, I"™m a little ill at ease. I didn"™t know until hearing you tonight that the Patriot Act permitted self-written search warrants and criminalized speech about receiving them, and I voted for it twice."ť
And I said"”knowing how he was going to answer"”I asked, "śDidn"™t you read it? You voted on it."ť No, he didn"™t have time, he only read the summary. And he didn"™t remember the summary talking about self-written search warrants and criminalized speech. He told me many of his colleagues were in the same situation. I said, "śWRONG"”
all your colleagues are in the same situation! No one in the House except maybe leadership read the Patriot Act you voted on!"ť It"™s abominable for the government to tamper with our basic liberties"”but it"™s inconceivable that they would do so without any debate.
Now, for the most part the president and his colleagues in both parties have succeeded in scaring the daylights out of people. Government grows in wartime because people are afraid, and they accept the satanic bargain that government offers: Give us your liberty and we will keep you safe. Many people think that when government is suppressing speech or privacy or fair prosecutions, that since those usurpations are so drastic that they
must be keeping us safer.
But when the president says that his first job is to keep us safe, He is
dead wrong. Read the oath of office: His first job is not to keep us safe, but to keep us free [by upholding the Constitution]. When you have this value judgment between freedom and safety, I"™d rather have freedom with danger than slavery with safety.
But the supposed tradeoff when it comes to civil liberties isn"™t really there.
Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School spent five years reading every judicial opinion in the history of the United States on freedom of speech. Of all the cases of people prosecuted and convicted of violating some law that regulated speech, his conclusion is there is not one, not one single instance in all American history, where America"™s security was adversely affected because of too much free speech. When government says it is keeping you safer by criminalizing speech, it"™s a canard. They are making their own job easier by criminalizing speech because they have less dissent to confront.
Obama & Patriot act.
