Bush signs parts of Patriot Act II into law - stealthily

Bush signs parts of Patriot Act II into law - stealthily
http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10705756&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=482778&rfi=6
By David Martin
12/24/2003
O n December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam 
Hussein, President George W. Bush not only 
celebrated with his national security team, but 
also pulled out his pen and signed into law a 
bill that grants the FBI sweeping new powers. A 
White House spokesperson explained the curious 
timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the 
President signs bills seven days a week." But the 
last time Bush signed a bill into law on a 
Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a 
spending bill that the President needed to sign, 
to prevent shutting down the federal government 
the following Monday.

By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's 
capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic 
expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere 
footnote. Consequently, while most Americans 
watched as Hussein was probed for head lice, few 
were aware that the FBI had just obtained the 
power to probe their financial records, even if 
the feds don't suspect their involvement in crime 
or terrorism.


By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's 
capture, Bush effectively consigned a dramatic 
expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere 
footnote.


The Bush Administration and its Congressional 
allies tucked away these new executive powers in 
the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal 
Year 2004, a legislative behemoth that funds all 
the intelligence activities of the federal 
government. The Act included a simple, yet 
insidious, redefinition of "financial 
institution," which previously referred to banks, 
but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships, 
casinos, credit card companies, insurance 
agencies, jewelers, airlines, the U.S. Post 
Office, and any other business "whose cash 
transactions have a high degree of usefulness in 
criminal, tax, or regulatory matters."

Congress passed the legislation around 
Thanksgiving. Except for U.S. Representative 
Charlie Gonzalez, all San Antonio's House members 
voted for the act. The Senate passed it with a 
voice vote to avoid individual accountability. 
While broadening the definition of "financial 
institution," the Bush administration is ramping 
up provisions within the 2001 USA Patriot Act, 
which granted the FBI the authority to obtain 
client records from banks by merely requesting 
the records in a "National Security Letter." To 
get the records, the FBI doesn't have to appear 
before a judge, nor demonstrate "probable cause" 
- reason to believe that the targeted client is 
involved in criminal or terrorist activity. 
Moreover, the National Security Letters are 
attached with a gag order, preventing any 
financial institution from informing its clients 
that their records have been surrendered to the 
FBI. If a financial institution breaches the gag 
order, it faces criminal penalties. And finally, 
the FBI will no longer be required to report to 
Congress how often they have used the National 
Security Letters.

Supporters of expanding the Patriot Act claim 
that the new law is necessary to prevent future 
terrorist attacks on the U.S. The FBI needs these 
new powers to be "expeditious and efficient" in 
its response to these new threats. Robert 
Summers, professor of international law and 
director of the new Center for Terrorism Law at 
St. Mary's University, explains, "We don't go to 
war with the terrorists as we went to war with 
the Germans or the North Vietnamese. If we apply 
old methods of following the money, we will not 
be successful. We need to meet them on an even 
playing field to avoid another disaster."

Opponents of the PATRIOT Act and its expansion 
claim that safeguards like judicial oversight and 
the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits 
unreasonable search and seizure, are essential to 
prevent abuses of power. "There's a reason these 
protections were put into place," says Chip 
Berlet, senior analyst at Political Research 
Associates, and a historian of U.S. political 
repression. "It has been shown that if you give 
[these agencies] this power they will abuse it. 
For any investigative agency, once you tell them 
that they must make sure that they protect the 
country from subversives, it inevitably gets 
translated into a program to silence dissent."

Opponents claim the FBI already has all the tools 
to stop crime and terrorism. Moreover, explains 
Patrick Filyk, an attorney and vice president of 
the local chapter of the ACLU, "The only thing 
the act accomplishes is the removal of judicial 
oversight and the transfer of more power to law 
enforcements agents."

This broadening of the Patriot Act represents a 
political victory for the Bush Administration's 
stealth legislative strategy to increase 
executive power. Last February, shortly before 
Bush launched the war on Iraq, the Center for 
Public Integrity obtained a draft of a 
comprehensive expansion of the Patriot Act, 
nicknamed Patriot Act II, written by Attorney 
General John Ashcroft's staff. Again, the timing 
was suspicious; it appeared that the Bush 
Administration was waiting for the start of the 
Iraq war to introduce Patriot Act II, and then 
exploit the crisis to ram it through Congress 
with little public debate.

The leak and ensuing public backlash frustrated 
the Bush administration's strategy, so Ashcroft 
and Co. disassembled Patriot Act II, then 
reassembled its parts into other legislation. By 
attaching the redefinition of "financial 
institution" to an Intelligence Authorization 
Act, the Bush Administration and its 
Congressional allies avoided public hearings and 
floor debates for the expansion of the Patriot 
Act.

Even proponents of this expansion have expressed 
concern about these legislative tactics. "It's a 
problem that some of these riders that are added 
on may not receive the scrutiny that we would 
like to see," says St. Mary's Professor Robert 
Summers.

The Bush Administration has yet to answer pivotal 
questions about its latest constitutional coup: 
If these new executive powers are necessary to 
protect United States citizens, then why would 
the legislation not withstand the test of public 
debate? If the new act's provisions are in the 
public interest, why use stealth in ramming them 
through the legislative process? *

©San Antonio Current 2003
--
http://groundtruthinvestigations.com/