“It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”—Thomas Paine
While Congress subjects the nation to its impeachment-flavored brand
of bread-and-circus politics, our civil liberties continue to die a
slow, painful death by a thousand cuts.
Case in point: while Americans have been fixated on the carefully
orchestrated impeachment drama that continues to monopolize headlines, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law legislation extending three key provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which had been set to expire on December 15, 2019.
Once again, to no one’s surprise, the bureaucrats on both sides of the aisle—Democrats
and Republicans alike—prioritized political grandstanding over
principle and their oath of office to protect and defend the
Constitution...
The legislation passed the Senate with a bipartisan 74-to-20 vote. It squeaked through the House of Representatives with a 231-192 margin. And it was signed by President Trump—who earlier this year floated the idea of making the government’s surveillance powers permanent—with nary a protest from anyone about its impact on the rights of the American people.
Spending bill or not, it didn’t have to shake down this way, even with the threat of yet another government shutdown looming.
Congress could have voted to separate the Patriot Act extension from the funding bill, as suggested by Rep. Justin Amash, but that didn’t fly. Instead as journalist Norman Solomon writes for Salon, “The cave-in was another bow to normalizing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance powers.”
That, right there, is the key to all of this: normalizing the U.S. government’s mass surveillance powers.
In the 18 years since the USA Patriot Act—a massive 342-page wish
list of expanded powers for the FBI and CIA—was rammed through Congress
in the wake of the so-called 9/11 terror attacks, it has snowballed into
the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach,
corruption and abuse.
The Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of
Rights, violating at least six of the ten original amendments—the First,
Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Amendments—and possibly the
Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well.
The Patriot Act also redefined terrorism so broadly that many
non-terrorist political activities such as protest marches,
demonstrations and civil disobedience are now considered potential
terrorist acts, thereby rendering anyone desiring to engage in protected
First Amendment expressive activities as suspects of the surveillance
state.
The Patriot Act justified broader domestic surveillance, the logic
being that if government agents knew more about each American, they
could distinguish the terrorists from law-abiding citizens—no doubt a
reflexive impulse shared by small-town police and federal agents alike.
This, according to Washington Post reporter Robert O’Harrow,
Jr., was a fantasy that “had been brewing in the law enforcement world
for a long time.” And 9/11 provided the government with the perfect
excuse for conducting far-reaching surveillance and collecting mountains
of information on even the most law-abiding citizen.
Federal agents and police officers are now authorized to conduct
covert black bag “sneak-and-peak” searches of homes and offices while
you are away and confiscate your personal property without first
notifying you of their intent or their presence.
The law also granted the FBI the right to come to your place of
employment, demand your personal records and question your supervisors
and fellow employees, all without notifying you; allowed the government
access to your medical records, school records and practically every
personal record about you; and allowed the government to secretly demand
to see records of books or magazines you’ve checked out in any public
library and Internet sites you’ve visited (at least 545 libraries
received such demands in the first year following passage of the Patriot
Act).
In the name of fighting terrorism, government officials are now
permitted to monitor religious and political institutions with no
suspicion of criminal wrongdoing; prosecute librarians or keepers of any
other records if they tell anyone that the government has subpoenaed
information related to a terror investigation; monitor conversations
between attorneys and clients; search and seize Americans’ papers and
effects without showing probable cause; and jail Americans indefinitely
without a trial, among other things.
The federal government also made liberal use of its new powers,
especially through the use (and abuse) of the nefarious national
security letters, which allow the FBI to demand personal customer
records from Internet Service Providers, financial institutions and
credit companies at the mere say-so of the government agent in charge of
a local FBI office and without prior court approval.
In fact, since 9/11, we’ve been spied on by surveillance cameras,
eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our
phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions
questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USA Patriot Act, banks
are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise
suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people),
and our activities watched.
We’re also being subjected to invasive patdowns and whole-body scans
of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s
airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy
anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being
placed on a watch list.
It’s only getting worse, folks.
Susan Davis