[Overpaid Slacker]

Thom and CJ --
Not the entire thing, including every statutory cross reference (it says "Slacker" right in my handle...) but I have read the salient points -- Title II, Title VIII and Title IX b/c these seem to engender the most hystrionics. The legislative history on the USA Patriot Act is not particularly revealing, IMHO, b/c of the timeframe in which it was adopted -- but I'll confess I haven't read that history encyclopedically either. Reading the document (like most any legislation) really helps you to ask the questions you never would've known existed.

Example: Bernie Sanders (D-VT) makes the following scurrilous characterization: The USA PATRIOT ACT gives the government sweeping authority to monitor what books we read and buy." This falsehood is swallowed whole, and bookstores and libraries are in apoplectic fits about rescuing our basic freedoms.

The ACLU cliams the Act "set[s] the FBI loose on the American public -- a quote from their "analysis" of Section 215 : "For example, the FBI could spy on a person because they don't like the books she reads, or because they don't like the websites she visits. They could spy on her because she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized public policy."

This is like saying that giving cops nightsticks authorizes them to beat old guys in the park. An FBI agent could run amok, but he could do so before the Act. He can run amok now, after the Act, not by doing what the Act authorizes, but by breaking the law.

An investigation under Section 215 to "protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities" must be authorized by the FISA court -- a federal court established in 1978 (read: Democratic President and Democratic Congress) specializing in intelligence matters. FISA judges are normal federal judges appointed to the court.

215 stipulates that an FBI application for a court order must "specify the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation ... to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." In case neither the FBI nor the FISA does its job, there's an oversight measure in Section 215. Every six months, the AG must report to Congress how many request for court orders have been made and how many granted.

Can you guess the number of searches of library and bookstore records reported under the Act thus far? It's less than one.

Is the Act perfect? No. It's subject to review/improvement like any other piece of legislation. But to rabidly mischaracterize it to a public that will not read the Act itself is anti-government demagoguery.

I'm a conservative. I'm about as anti-government intrusion as you'll find. IMHO, the USA Patriot Act is not some overreaching extension of what came before. Not that you'd "know" that by simply reading the Act, of course. It does develop certain ideas more fully (see esp. Titles VIII and IX, as I mentioned) but it's not nefarious. It is being used as a bugaboo to scare Americans (who haven't and won't read it or much about it) into being herded for political purposes. "The Government is out to get you and you need ME to protect you! Send your money/vote for me/sign this petition!"

Thom - I agree that most of the USA Patriot Act codifies what was the law/situation/best practice before. Where it extends the law beyond what it was before, I believe there are sufficient checks (like the Section 215 record check requirements, FISA approval and AG report to Congress). Who can argue with the utility of Title III? Even where due process is trimmed or suspended, those practices are fully precedented in prior times of emergency.

I'm one of its defenders, and I do not assume it will be used only against "people with bath towels wrapped around their heads". That generalization, like the ACLU's, is spurious.

At the end of the day, what I'm saying is you're being deceived by demagogues who are preying on your ignorance and/or laziness. These people pander to basic government distrust (which is a healthy thing, if informed) and not a little paranoia. You can read the hotbutton parts of the Act and believe it goes too far, but it is simply not the privacy apocalypse the agendists make it out to be.

I don't make the least claim to be an expert on this piece of legislation, but I have done my diligence to express an opinion about it. Too often I hear people malign the Act w/o a particular lament -- they're just convinced, for no other reason than that they've been told, that the Act is Eeeeevvil. Don't expect the ACLU to tell you, for example, about the Section 215 protections or that there have been no requests made thereunder. That's not scary enough.

JP