From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Mon Mar 17 2003 - 08:40:23 MST
>That is not the "Patriot Act II" as you labeled it but the Patriot Act
>of 2001.
Sorry, my mistake.
This is Patriot Act I.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/
--------
This is the Patriot Act II.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/patriot2.html
"Introduction
In February 2003, the Center for Public Integrity obtained an
apparent draft of "PATRIOT II" legislation. The draft, dated January
9, 2003, contained an analysis and the proposed text of the
"Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003."
The draft touches on a number of areas of law, including
wiretapping, law enforcement access to business records, freedom of
information, search and seizure, encryption policy, and immigration
law.
When the language was leaked, the DOJ immediately issued a press
release minimizing the importance of the draft. However, the draft
indicates that DOJ intends to continue to increase executive police
power while either limiting or eliminating congressional or judicial
oversight."
--------
The EPIC site provides a huge number of documents. I encourage
people here to read them. For example:
ACLU and EPIC v. Department of Justice
Civil Action No. 02-2077 (D.D.C.)
EPIC, joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and
library and booksellers' organizations, filed suit on October
24, 2002, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) seeking
the disclosure of information concerning implementation of
the controversial USA PATRIOT Act. The lawsuit covers some of
the information the Justice Department withheld from the
House Judiciary Committee in response to a set of detailed
questions.
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot/foia/
Freedom of Information Act (Learn what your government is doing)
http://www.epic.org/open_gov/
On the Total Information Awareness Program
http://www.epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
--------------
EPIC site also provides links to other web sites on these
topics.
Here is a web site that summarizes the main amendments
of the Patriot Act II. I paste the summary below.
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/immigrant/sup/patriot-2_tlkpts.htm
More on Civil Liberties
Date Last Reviewed: 2/13/03
Talking Points I: Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003
("Patriot II")
The USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law on Oct. 26, 2001. For
months, Congressional legislative and committee staff have
anticipated follow-up legislation. The Administration consistently
indicated that, although many ideas were being considered, specific
proposals weren't ready to be shared with Congress. However, on
Friday, Feb. 7, 2003, the non-partisan Center for Public Integrity
(CPI) posted on its website a copy of a confidential draft of
proposed legislation dated Jan. 9, 2003, entitled the "Domestic
Security Enhancement Act of 2003," together with a "control sheet"
which appears to show that the confidential draft had been
transmitted on Jan. 10, 2003, to House Speaker Hastert (IL) and
Vice-President Cheney (presumably in his capacity as President of
the Senate). Availability of the document was publicized by Bill
Moyers on his Feb. 7, 2003, PBS TV program, "Now with Bill Moyers,"
when Mr. Moyers interviewed Charles Lewis, the head of CPI. The
Justice Department did not dispute the authenticity of the draft,
although it denied that Rep. Hastert or Vice-Pres. Cheney had been
sent the document.
The proposed law would radically expand law enforcement and
intelligence gathering authority; reduce or eliminate judicial
oversight over certain surveillance; authorize secret arrests,
detentions, and grand jury subpoenas; create a DNA database of
individuals who are suspected of association with terrorism or
terrorist groups; create new death penalty provisions; and empower
the government to remove American citizenship from persons who
belong to or support disfavored political groups.
Some highlights of the proposed act:
Increases secret surveillance. The proposed act would create broad
new powers of surveillance by the Administration, broadening the
definitions of who can be secretly watched, the certification that
the Administration must make to receive a warrant, and the
circumstances in which the Administration can conduct surveillance
without a warrant. It would terminate or alter consent decrees set
up to curb illegal surveillance by local law enforcement
authorities.
Increases control over immigrants. The proposed act would expand
the control of the Justice Department over immigration matters,
including expedited deportation. It would criminalize many
regulatory violations and remove judicial discretion from some
immigration rulings.
Establishes new crimes, criminal procedures, and sanctions. The
proposed act would create new crimes, criminal procedures, and
punishments relating to non-violent activities that could be linked
to terrorism or groups deemed to be "terrorist groups" by the
Administration. It would give the Justice Department new powers
concerning certification of evidence, submission of secret evidence,
and mandatory pretrial detention. It would permit surveillance of
the content of home computers and multi-use handheld devices, and
would permit surveillance of banking and credit accounts. It would
expand the Justice Department's subpoena power to include
"administrative subpoenas," issued without judicial oversight. It
would increase the government's control over banking activities and
further enhance money laundering provisions. It would make even
standard encryption of Internet and e-mail messages an enhancement
to other felonies.
Names new death penalty crimes. The proposed law would provide for
imposition of the death penalty for certain terrorism-related
crimes.
Grants right to autopsy. The proposed act would give federal
officials power to order an autopsy without permission during a
federal criminal investigation if the death occurred from terrorist
attack or "other deadly crimes."
Decreases access to public information. The proposed act would
restrict public Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) access to public
information about those detained during terrorism investigations. It
would restrict available public information about potential
pollution by private chemical businesses, curtailing environmental
and local government oversight. The proposed act would also prohibit
disclosure of information by witnesses and others subpoenaed in
terrorism cases, transforming these investigations from public to
secret.
Establishes a new terrorist-related DNA database. The proposed act
would create a DNA database under Justice Department control. Anyone
the Administration suspects of association with terrorism would be
forced to contribute DNA samples. Any "reasonably necessary" means
could be used to get the samples, and failure to comply would bear
criminal penalties. The DNA database information could be shared
with state and local law enforcement agencies.
Alters procedure for taking away U.S. citizenship. The proposed act
would allow the government to strip a citizen of his or her
citizenship by government inference of intent to relinquish
citizenship, inference rising from behavior including fighting with
a hostile foreign government or terrorist organization, or even
engaging in lawful activities of a group designated as a "terrorist
organization" by the Attorney General.
Allows extradition without treaty and expanded deportation. The
proposed act would permit extradition of individuals to countries
with whom the U.S. has no extradition treaty. It would permit
deportation to any location deemed acceptable by the Attorney
General if deportation to the country of origin is "impracticable,
inadvisable, or impossible," even if the destination's government is
not recognized by the U.S. or it has no government at all.
The proposed act is laced with interactions between federal law
enforcement activities and foreign intelligence activities. It would
further intermingle traditionally separated federal, state, and
local law enforcement agencies. The proposed act completely
by-passes the Homeland Security Department, new home to the
Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and numerous crime and
foreign intelligence operations. In addition, the provisions of this
proposed act would represent a fundamental change from the
Constitutional framework of separation of powers of the branches of
government, to delegating power to the Administration without
oversight or accountability. It would further decrease information
about government functions to the public. The proposed act would
remove numerous protective walls between government agencies,
erected by statute and regulation to correct past abuses.
-- ******************************************************************** Amara Graps, PhD email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" --Calvin
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