Patriot Act II + 1/2

From American Progress Report: Sept 27th, 2004:

INTELLIGENCE REFORM

Hastert's Political Trickery

A House bill crafted by GOP leaders with no input from Democrats seeks to "graft broadened police powers" onto a plan to reform the nation's intelligence-gathering agencies. The bill, released to House members on Friday, "stands in sharp contrast to the bill passed unanimously [last] week by the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee." Rather than working in the spirit of the bipartisan 9/11 Commission for which the bill is named, GOP leaders crafted the legislation behind closed doors and added several controversial provisions many groups say could endanger Americans' civil liberties. The changes in the House bill, besides potentially threatening the freedom of American citizens, "will present major challenges for House-Senate negotiators trying to agree on a single bill later this year."

POLITICIZING SECURITY: "Ebullient Republicans" all but admitted the provisions had been slipped into the bill as a political trick to bait Democrats into voting against a bill concerned with national security. John Feehery, a spokesman for House Majority leader Dennis Hastert (R-IL), said it would be hard for Democrats to oppose measures aimed at preventing future domestic attacks. "The Democrats got spanked hard on homeland security [in 2002]," Feehery told reporters, referring to the GOP's crass politicization of homeland security issues in 2002 Senate races. "I don't think they want to get spanked again." But some House Republicans were less than thrilled with such politicization. "The bill that I saw … I don't intend to support," said Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), who serves on the House Intelligence Committee. LaHood joined Democratic leaders in expressing skepticism the House and Senate would be able to reconcile their differing versions of the bill before Congress adjourns in mid-October. Here's more on how the Republicans have used national security as a political tool.

BROAD NEW POWERS FOR POLICE: The new bill includes broad measures that could do more harm to Americans' civil liberties than to terrorists. The New York City Bill of Rights Defense Council calls the new provisions "some of the most repressive legislation that we've witnessed in recent years…These provisions represent a massive attack on all of our civil liberties, and in particular the rights and liberties of immigrants and members of the Arab, Muslim, and South Asian communities." Among such provisions are measures permitting "warrants against non-citizens even when a target can't be tied directly to a foreign power." The bi-partisan 9/11 Commission, in contrast, called for civil liberties to be strengthened.

PATRIOT ACT: THE SEQUEL: Though it is named for the bipartisan 9/11 Commission, controversial portions of the House bill more closely mimic provisions suggested not by the 9/11 Commission report but which appeared "in a leaked Justice Department memo in January 2003, dubbed by critics 'Patriot II,' after the 2001 USA Patriot Act." That memo, crafted in secret by the Department of Justice and leaked to the public, sought to weaken "many of the checks and balances that remained on government surveillance." According to the ACLU, Patriot II made it easier for the government to initiate surveillance and wiretapping on U.S. citizens, enhanced the government's ability to obtain sensitive information without prior judicial approval and authorized secret arrests in immigration and other cases where the detained person is not criminally charged. One section explicitly expanded the attorney general's authority to authorize electronic surveillance and physical searches without court approval at any time after "Congress authorizes the use of military force."

UNIONS NOT TRUSTED WITH SECURITY: The Washington Post reports a small section buried deep within the new House legislation "would make it easier for the president to exclude unions from representing 'homeland security' employees." No one seems to know "where the proposal came from or why it is needed." The two-paragraph provision "would amend one part of civil service law and repeal a section of the 2002 law that sought to smooth the transition of unionized employees into the new Department of Homeland Security." It would also add "homeland security" to the list of functions that the president can deem exempt from union representation.