Amnesty's Chip Pitts on the PATRIOT "hearing" [View All]

[G_j]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/061205X.shtml

Note: The entire hearing can be viewed at www.c-span.org.
Democracy in Action?

By Chip Pitts
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Sunday 12 June 2005

<snip>
The hearing, called under a special rule by the Democratic minority members, was one of the relatively rare recent opportunities that a diverse selection of Patriot Act critics have had to voice their concerns to Congress, and the only opportunity thus far to begin to highlight the links between the depredations of rights at home and abroad.

It was also unique in ending abruptly in what the New York Times described as "an angry uproar," the Washington Post called "a cacophony of protests," and other news outlets simply agreed was "chaos."

At issue was the USA Patriot Act, portions of which sunset at the end of this year. The President gave yet another major speech urging complete renewal of those provisions last week, and the Senate Intelligence Committee after closed door hearings agreed with him that the law should not only be preserved, but expanded.

As if it's not enough that law enforcement can now obtain your library and bookstore records in secret and without probable cause, clandestinely search your home without prior notice, and consider you a terrorist for peaceful civil disobedience, the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to expand FBI administrative subpoena authority to obtain all kinds of records without even the semblance of judicial review, and even allow them to get copies of your mail.

Not only my organization, Amnesty International, but groups ranging from the ACLU and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, to Bob Barr's conservative coalition of gun owners and professional organizations ("Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances"), fault the administration's unwillingness to acknowledge the invasions of constitutional rights occasioned by the Patriot Act, and strongly oppose the unjustified additional powers sought.

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