[Mb-civic] Congress, Read It This Time

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-patriot4oct04.story

RIGHTS AND THE NEW REALITY

Congress, Read It This Time

 October 4, 2004

 Perhaps the creepiest provisions of the Patriot Act are those greatly
strengthening the power of FBI agents to demand personal data on ordinary
Americans from telephone and Internet companies, banks, libraries and
bookstores. 

 In the name of fighting terror, agents can see who you've e-mailed or
phoned, when and where you used your credit card, the books you read or the
movies you like to rent. And if anybody at the bank or Internet company
tells you that you're under investigation, he or she will be staring at jail
time. To open this information floodgate, government lawyers don't have to
convince a judge they have probable cause to suspect someone. They need only
issue a national security letter after concluding that the information they
want is "relevant" to a terror investigation, and no judge can challenge
them. 

 But last week, a New York federal judge did. In a lawsuit filed by the
American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of an Internet service provider,
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero declared that the government's unchecked
authority to issue national security letters ‹ a type of search warrant ‹
violated the Constitution's free speech guarantees and protections against
unreasonable searches. Though these letters were authorized in the
mid-1980s, the Patriot Act gave the government greater discretion in issuing
them for terrorist investigations, and their use has expanded exponentially.
The sweeping nature of the requests for information ‹ the recipients of
every e-mail an individual sent over the last year, for instance ‹ combined
with what Marrero called the "coercive" threat that phone company officials
could do jail time if they informed a customer, opened the door to
intimidation and tempted federal agents to play their hunches more than ply
shoe leather in terror probes.

 The judge said he understood the government's need to keep terror probes
under wraps but warned that "secrecy's protective shield may serve not as
much to secure a safe country as simply to save face."

 Justice Department lawyers are considering whether to appeal. Whether or
not they do, Marrero's decision should push lawmakers to trim back the
Patriot Act's indefensible provisions instead of further expanding the
breathtaking power they granted to law enforcement after 9/11. Three years
ago, the massive anti-terror bill sped through Congress so fast that many
lawmakers later admitted they didn't read it. Yet they're poised to compound
that mistake.

 House and Senate leaders have committed to quick passage ‹ read: before the
election ‹ of a bill responding to the 9/11 commission's recommendations to
beef up domestic security. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) may introduce last-minute
amendments that would further expand the Justice Department's subpoena
power, allow judges to deny bail in terror cases and dramatically expand the
death penalty. We hope this time lawmakers will have their reading glasses
and copies of the Constitution ready.


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