The USA PATRIOT Act, beyond its role as a hallmark of the Bush administration and a legacy born from the rubble of Sept. 11, is a cunning acronym.
This, folks, is the stuff of champions. I remember sitting out my elementary school years scratching away at alternative meanings for DARE and CIA and FBI. Plenty of us got caught up in it, and the better ones moved on to be billionaires, as I’m sure whomever sold the rights to Full Body Inspector or Drugs Are Really Excellent could tell you.
But even those kids couldn’t hold a candle to whatever government committees were assembled to figure out USA PATRIOT. And we’re better for it our tax dollars have bought us the United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act which will, if nothing else, go down in history on par with James Joyce for literary achievement. Get me the number of whatever information bureau came up with this stuff I want them on campus as professors. Or deans.
Recently I realized that I’d been missing the whole boat the USA PATRIOT Act was more than just a clever stab at bearded, literary types. It was also a clever stab at bearded, civil-rights types. My amazement was doubled. It’s been about a year now since the act was initiated, and since our curious George of a president is keeping quiet about how exactly he’s using this new act, you and I and all of Congress have been left to figure out what it all means for ourselves. Are we ready?
Let’s start small. The USA PATRIOT ACT allows the United States Attorney General or any state attorney general to install the ‘Carnivore’ email snooping system without obtaining a court order first. All the state attorney general has to remember is that secret password: ’emergency situation.’
The act allows law enforcement to access telephone voice mail messages with nothing more than a search warrant. Once upon a time, you had to get a wiretap warrant, which wasn’t as easy, because the subject could appeal it. Also, upon delivery of a subpoena, a telephone company can be required to release details about subscriber information like, for instance, how often the subject pays his bills.
The act allows our government to detain legal immigrants for anywhere up to seven days, based on something as mere as an accusation of terrorism.
Got a library card? The broad powers allowed by the USA PATRIOT Act allow the government good old boys to investigate exactly what you’ve been doing with it. All libraries, upon receiving the warrant, should get some legal counsel. But don’t forget: loose lips sink ships. It’s against the law to tell anybody other than your counsel about the search warrant. Same goes for bookstores.
The act amends the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. When the federal cops come into town looking for terrorists, all schools can be required to disclose student records. The act also requires that institutions keep track of the passports and visas of all foreign students and record any changes concerning them.
The act expands the list of toxins previously thought to be dangerous and prohibits ‘restricted persons’ from working with these toxins, even under supervision at a university. Oh, and by the way, if you’ve ever been convicted of drug possession, you’re now officially a ‘restricted person.’
The act makes it mandatory for financial institutions to keep records and report back to the government on large transactions (i.e., more than $10,000). Financial institutions include credit unions, trust companies, banks, brokers, travel agents, etc.
Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft promised us that the USA PATRIOT Act would give the War on Terrorism a new, decisive advantage. It hasn’t. The act, in its first six months, was used in only three indictments nationwide. The situation is eerily reminiscent of Ashcroft’s advocacy of using $16 million military surveillance airplanes to catch the Maryland-area sniper, despite its violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. In the end, the powers that be eventually succeeded through good old detective work, but a nasty precedent has been left anyhow.
But the most unsettling thing about this 342-page masterpiece is that it defines a ‘terrorist’ so broadly that it could include a nonviolent protester. All the funds must’ve gone to the Acronym Committee, and none to the Definition Board. Even my 1943 copy of Funk ‘ Wagnall’s College Standard Dictionary has a definition of ‘terrorist,’ for Christ’s sake. And it wouldn’t authorize any secret federal investigation of an anti-war nun or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals activist, I’ll tell you that. The damned thing is too old. It’s learned from past wartime abuses of federal power. Why haven’t we?
The mere fact that I could be investigated by my own government for writing a couple hundred words against its new policies and plenty of people have had FBI visits in the past year for much less indicates the level at which our government is operating. Suspicion and paranoia have welcomed themselves into our lives and we’ve done nothing to close the door. We’ve become a nation obsessed with safety and have thus justified to ourselves turning a blind eye to lost freedoms.
By expanding its own power to unprecedented lengths and by maintaining a network of secret courts and clandestine investigating tools, our government has begun to replace the fears we have of terrorism with something far worse the fear of our own government.