What is the USA PATRIOT Act?
Just six weeks after the September 11 attacks, a panicked Congress passed the "USA/Patriot Act," an overnight revision of the nation's surveillance laws that vastly expanded the government's authority to spy on its own citizens, while simultaneously reducing checks and balances on those powers like judicial oversight, public accountability, and the ability to challenge government searches in court.
Why Congress passed the Patriot Act
Most of the changes to surveillance law made by the Patriot Act were part of a longstanding law enforcement wish list that had been previously rejected by Congress, in some cases repeatedly. Congress reversed course because it was bullied into it by the Bush Administration in the frightening weeks after the September 11 attack.
The Senate version of the Patriot Act, which closely resembled the legislation requested by Attorney General John Ashcroft, was sent straight to the floor with no discussion, debate, or hearings. Many Senators complained that they had little chance to read it, much less analyze it, before having to vote. In the House, hearings were held, and a carefully constructed compromise bill emerged from the Judiciary Committee. But then, with no debate or consultation with rank-and-file members, the House leadership threw out the compromise bill and replaced it with legislation that mirrored the Senate version. Neither discussion nor amendments were permitted, and once again members barely had time to read the thick bill before they were forced to cast an up-or-down vote on it. The Bush Administration implied that members who voted against it would be blamed for any further attacks - a powerful threat at a time when the nation was expecting a second attack to come any moment and when reports of new anthrax letters were appearing daily.
Congress and the Administration acted without any careful or systematic effort to determine whether weaknesses in our surveillance laws had contributed to the attacks, or whether the changes they were making would help prevent further attacks. Indeed, many of the act's provisions have nothing at all to do with terrorism.
The Patriot Act increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas
The Patriot Act increases the governments surveillance powers in four areas:
- Records searches. It expands the government's ability to look at records on an individual's activity being held by a third parties. (Section 215)
- Secret searches. It expands the government's ability to search private property without notice to the owner. (Section 213)
- Intelligence searches. It expands a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment that had been created for the collection of foreign intelligence information (Section 218).
- "Trap and trace" searches. It expands another Fourth Amendment exception for spying that collects "addressing" information about the origin and destination of communications, as opposed to the content (Section 214).
1. Expanded access to personal records held by third parties
One of the most significant provisions of the Patriot Act makes it far easier for the authorities to gain access to records of citizens' activities being held by a third party. At a time when computerization is leading to the creation of more and more such records, Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FBI to force anyone at all - including doctors, libraries, bookstores, universities, and Internet service providers - to turn over records on their clients or customers.
Unchecked power
The result is unchecked government power to rifle through individuals' financial records, medical histories, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, travel patterns, or any other activity that leaves a record. Making matters worse:
- The government no longer has to show evidence that the subjects of search orders are an "agent of a foreign power," a requirement that previously protected Americans against abuse of this authority.
- The FBI does not even have to show a reasonable suspicion that the records are related to criminal activity, much less the requirement for "probable cause" that is listed in the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. All the government needs to do is make the broad assertion that the request is related to an ongoing terrorism or foreign intelligence investigation.
- Judicial oversight of these new powers is essentially non-existent. The government must only certify to a judge - with no need for evidence or proof - that such a search meets the statute's broad criteria, and the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.
- Surveillance orders can be based in part on a person's First Amendment activities, such as the books they read, the Web sites they visit, or a letter to the editor they have written.
- A person or organization forced to turn over records is prohibited from disclosing the search to anyone. As a result of this gag order, the subjects of surveillance never even find out that their personal records have been examined by the government. That undercuts an important check and balance on this power: the ability of individuals to challenge illegitimate searches.
Why the Patriot Act's expansion of records searches is unconstitutional
Section 215 of the Patriot Act violates the Constitution in several ways. It:
- Violates the Fourth Amendment, which says the government cannot conduct a search without obtaining a warrant and showing probable cause to believe that the person has committed or will commit a crime.
- Violates the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech by prohibiting the recipients of search orders from telling others about those orders, even where there is no real need for secrecy.
- Violates the First Amendment by effectively authorizing the FBI to launch investigations of American citizens in part for exercising their freedom of speech.
- Violates the Fourth Amendmentby failing to provide notice - even after the fact - to persons whose privacy has been compromised. Notice is also a key element of due process, which is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.
2. More secret searches
For centuries, common law has required that the government can't go into your property without telling you, and must therefore give you notice before it executes a search. That "knock and announce" principle has long been recognized as a part of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The Patriot Act, however, unconstitutionally amends the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to allow the government to conduct searches without notifying the subjects, at least until long after the search has been executed. This means that the government can enter a house, apartment or office with a search warrant when the occupants are away, search through their property, take photographs, and in some cases even seize property - and not tell them until later.
Notice is a crucial check on the government's power because it forces the authorities to operate in the open, and allows the subject of searches to protect their Fourth Amendment rights. For example, it allows them to point out irregularities in a warrant, such as the fact that the police are at the wrong address, or that the scope of the warrant is being exceeded (for example, by rifling through dresser drawers in a search for a stolen car). Search warrants often contain limits on what may be searched, but when the searching officers have complete and unsupervised discretion over a search, a property owner cannot defend his or her rights.
Finally, this new "sneak and peek" power can be applied as part of normal criminal investigations; it has nothing to do with fighting terrorism or collecting foreign intelligence.
3. Expansion of the intelligence exception in wiretap law
Under the Patriot Act, the FBI can secretly conduct a physical search or wiretap on American citizens to obtain evidence of crime without proving probable cause, as the Fourth Amendment explicitly requires.
A 1978 law called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) created an exception to the Fourth Amendment's requirement for probable cause when the purpose of a wiretap or search was to gather foreign intelligence. The rationale was that since the search was not conducted for the purpose of gathering evidence to put someone on trial, the standards could be loosened. In a stark demonstration of why it can be dangerous to create exceptions to fundamental rights, however, the Patriot Act expanded this once-narrow exception to cover wiretaps and searches that DO collect evidence for regular domestic criminal cases. FISA previously allowed searches only if the primary purpose was to gather foreign intelligence. But the Patriot Act changes the law to allow searches when "a significant purpose" is intelligence. That lets the government circumvent the Constitution's probable cause requirement even when its main goal is ordinary law enforcement.
The eagerness of many in law enforcement to dispense with the requirements of the Fourth Amendment was revealed in August 2002 by the secret court that oversees domestic intelligence spying (the "FISA Court"). Making public one of its opinions for the first time in history, the court revealed that it had rejected an attempt by the Bush Administration to allow criminal prosecutors to use intelligence warrants to evade the Fourth Amendment entirely. The court also noted that agents applying for warrants had regularly filed false and misleading information. That opinion is now on appeal.
4. Expansion of the "pen register" exception in wiretap law
Another exception to the normal requirement for probable cause in wiretap law is also expanded by the Patriot Act. Years ago, when the law governing telephone wiretaps was written, a distinction was created between two types of surveillance. The first allows surveillance of the content or meaning of a communication, and the second only allows monitoring of the transactional or addressing information attached to a communication. It is like the difference between reading the address printed on the outside of a letter, and reading the letter inside, or listening to a phone conversation and merely recording the phone numbers dialed and received.
Wiretaps limited to transactional or addressing information are known as "Pen register/trap and trace" searches (for the devices that were used on telephones to collect telephone numbers). The requirements for getting a PR/TT warrant are essentially non-existent: the FBI need not show probable cause or even reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. It must only certify to a judge - without having to prove it - that such a warrant would be "relevant" to an ongoing criminal investigation. And the judge does not even have the authority to reject the application.
The Patriot Act broadens the pen register exception in two ways:
"Nationwide" pen register warrants
Under the Patriot Act PR/TT orders issued by a judge are no longer valid only in that judge's jurisdiction, but can be made valid anywhere in the United States. This "nationwide service" further marginalizes the role of the judiciary, because a judge cannot meaningfully monitor the extent to which his or her order is being used. In addition, this provision authorizes the equivalent of a blank warrant: the court issues the order, and the law enforcement agent fills in the places to be searched. That is a direct violation of the Fourth Amendment's explicit requirement that warrants be written "particularly describing the place to be searched."
Pen register searches applied to the Internet
The Patriot Act applies the distinction between transactional and content-oriented wiretaps to the Internet. The problem is that it takes the weak standards for access to transactional data and applies them to communications that are far more than addresses. On an e-mail message, for example, law enforcement has interpreted the "header" of a message to be transactional information accessible with a PR/TT warrant. But in addition to routing information, e-mail headers include the subject line, which is part of the substance of a communication - on a letter, for example, it would clearly be inside the envelope.
The government also argues that the transactional data for Web surfing is a list of the URLs or Web site addresses that a person visits. For example, it might record the fact that they visited "www.aclu.org" at 1:15 in the afternoon, and then skipped over to "www.fbi.gov" at 1:30. This claim that URLs are just addressing data breaks down in two different ways:
- Web addresses are rich and revealing content. The URLs or "addresses" of the Web pages we read are not really addresses, they are the titles of documents that we download from the Internet. When we "visit" a Web page what we are really doing is downloading that page from the Internet onto our computer, where it is displayed. Therefore, the list of URLs that we visit during a Web session is really a list of the documents we have downloaded - no different from a list of electronic books we might have purchased online. That is much richer information than a simple list of the people we have communicated with; it is intimate information that reveals who we are and what we are thinking about - much more like the content of a phone call than the number dialed. After all, it is often said that reading is a "conversation" with the author.
- Web addresses contain communications sent by a surfer. URLs themselves often have content embedded within them. A search on the Google search engine, for example, creates a page with a custom-generated URL that contains material that is clearly private content, such as: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=sexual+orient...
Similarly, if I fill out an online form - to purchase goods or register my preferences, for example - those products and preferences will often be identified in the resulting URL.
The erosion of accountability
Attempts to find out how the new surveillance powers created by the Patriot Act were implemented during their first year were in vain. In June 2002 the House Judiciary Committee demanded that the Department of Justice answer questions about how it was using its new authority. The Bush/Ashcroft Justice Department essentially refused to describe how it was implementing the law; it left numerous substantial questions unanswered, and classified others without justification. In short, not only has the Bush Administration undermined judicial oversight of government spying on citizens by pushing the Patriot Act into law, but it is also undermining another crucial check and balance on surveillance powers: accountability to Congress and the public.
Non-surveillance provisions
Although this fact sheet focuses on the direct surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act, citizens should be aware that the act also contains a number of other provisions. The Act:
- Puts CIA back in business of spying on Americans. The Patriot Act gives the Director of Central Intelligence the power to identify domestic intelligence requirements. That opens the door to the same abuses that took place in the 1970s and before, when the CIA engaged in widespread spying on protest groups and other Americans.
- Creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism." The Patriot Act transforms protesters into terrorists if they engage in conduct that "involves acts dangerous to human life" to "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion." How long will it be before an ambitious or politically motivated prosecutor uses the statute to charge members of controversial activist groups like Operation Rescue or Greenpeace with terrorism? Under the Patriot Act, providing lodging or assistance to such "terrorists" exposes a person to surveillance or prosecution. Furthermore, the law gives the attorney general and the secretary of state the power to detain or deport any non-citizen who belongs to or donates money to one of these broadly defined "domestic terrorist" groups.
- Allows for the indefinite detention of non-citizens. The Patriot Act gives the attorney general unprecedented new power to determine the fate of immigrants. The attorney general can order detention based on a certification that he or she has "reasonable grounds to believe" a non-citizen endangers national security. Worse, if the foreigner does not have a country that will accept them, they can be detained indefinitely without trial.
We're All Torturers NowWill anything about the U.S. torture scandal ever scandalize us again?
n April of 2004, the world first learned that American soldiers in Iraq had abused detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. Images first revealed on CBS and in The New Yorker showed prisoners standing hooded on a box with wires attached to their hands and genitals; piles of naked prisoners stacked into a pyramid; and detainees forced to simulate sexual acts upon one another, often with grinning GIs on hand to point and offer a jaunty thumbs up.The reaction to the Abu Ghraib scandal was swift and bipartisan. Within days, President George W. Bush had offered a public apology for "the terrible and horrible acts," and his secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, took "full responsibility" for the scandal, promising that the offenders would be brought to justice, because the victims "are human beings. They were in U.S. custody. Our country had an obligation to treat them right. We didn't do that." With the exception of a handful of outliers—Rush Limbaugh said the abuse was "no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation," and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., claimed to be "more outraged by the outrage than … by the treatment"—Americans reacted with almost universal surprise and revulsion.
In April of 2009, President Barack Obama released four government memos, written in 2002 and 2005, laying out legal justifications for prisoner abuse far more shocking than anything we had seen in the images from Abu Ghraib. Among other things, U.S. prisoners could be thrown into walls, water-boarded, shackled to the ceiling for hours, deprived of sleep for up to 11 days, and locked in coffinlike boxes. But the reaction could not have been more different. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey quickly penned an editorial in the Wall Street Journal condemning the release of the memos and defending the interrogation techniques. Former Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that the Obama administration now needs to "put out the memos that showed the success of the effort." Conservative pundits casually likened water-boarding to prep school initiation and claimed that anyone who opposes prisoner abuse must simply hate America. The many ordinary Americans who want to see torture allegations investigated—evidently a majority of them, in fact—have been dismissed by these same pundits as members of a bloodthirsty "hard left." The president himself asks us all to move on. And if we're moving on, it can't have been all that bad.
*go here for the rest of this disturbing article http://www.slate.com/id/2216792/
Guantanamo Bay [GTMO] "GITMO"
U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay is the oldest U.S. base overseas and the only one in a Communist country. Located on the southeast corner of Cuba, in the Oriente Province, the base is about 400 air miles from Miami, Florida. The terrain and climate of Guantanamo Bay make it a haven for iguanas and banana rats.
In December 1903, the United States leased the 45 square miles of land and water for use as a coaling station. A treaty reaffirmed the lease in 1934 granting Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, payment of $2,000 in gold per year, equating to $4,085 today, and a requirement that both the U.S. and Cuba must mutually consent to terminate the lease.
U.S. diplomatic relations with Cuba were cut on January 3, 1961 by President Dwight Eisenhower; shortly prior to John F. Kennedy's inauguration on January 20, 1961. At that time, many Cubans sought refuge on the base. U.S. Marines and Cuban militiamen began patrolling opposite sides of the base's 17.4 mile fenceline. Today, U.S. Marines and Cuba's "Frontier Brigade" still man fenceline posts 24 hours a day.
In October 1962, family members of service people stationed here and many base employees were evacuated to the United States as President John F. Kennedy announced the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This was the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis which resulted in a naval quarantine of the island until the Soviet Union removed the missiles. The evacuees were allowed to return to the base by Christmas 1962.
Another crisis arose just 14 months later on Feb. 6, 1964, when Castro cut off water and supplies to the base in retaliation for several incidents in which Cuban fishermen were fined by the U.S.
The base is divided into two distinct areas by the 2 1/2 mile-wide Guantanamo Bay. The airfield is located on the Leeward side and the main base is on the Windward side. Ferry service provides transportation across the bay. The primary mission of Guantanamo Bay is to serve as a strategic logistics base for the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet and to support counter drug operations in the Caribbean.
In 1991, the naval base's mission expanded as some 34,000 Haitian refugees passed through Guantanamo Bay. The refugees fled Haiti after a violent coup brought on by political and social upheaval in their country. The naval base received the Navy Unit Commendation and Joint Meritorious Unit Award for its effort.
In May 1994, Operation Sea Signal began and the naval base was tasked to support Joint Task Force 160, here providing humanitarian assistance to thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants. In late August and early September 1994, 2,200 family members and civilian employees were evacuated from the base as the migrant population climbed to more than 45,000 and the Pentagon began preparing to house up to 60,000 migrants on the base. The last Haitian migrants departed here Nov. 1, 1995. The last of the Cuban migrants left the base Jan. 31, 1996. In October 1995, family members were authorized to return, marking an end to family separations. An immediate effort began to restore base facilities for family use, including a child development center, a youth center, two schools and Sunday school. Additionally, the revitalization of Boy and Girl Scout Camps and the Guantanamo Bay Youth Activities (a free sports program for children) was enacted.
During the Haitian migrant operation "Operation Sea Signal" at Guantanamo Bay, a number of migrant camps were set-up at "Radio Range" the site of the Naval Base's radio antennas on the south side of the base, and the future site of the more permanent detainee facility. To identify the camps, a name was designated to each to correspond with the phonetic alphabet used for official military "radio" communication (Camp Alpha, Camp Bravo up to Camp Golf). When additional sites were established on the north side of the base, camp names were designated using the opposite end of the alphabet, to include Camp X-Ray. Camp X-Ray is the only camp site on the northern side of the base and is currently used as a temporary detention facility.
Since Sea Signal, Guantanamo Bay has retained a migrant operations mission with an ongoing steady state migrant population of approximately 40. The base has also conducted two contingency migrant operations: Operation Marathon in October 1996 and Present Haven in February 1997. Both of these short-fused events involved the interception of Chinese migrants being smuggled into the United States.
After 52 years of service, Guantanamo's Fleet Training Group relocated to Mayport, Florida, in July 1995. One month later, the naval base lost another major tenant command when the base's Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity disestablished after 92 years of service.
On 13 June 2003 Brown & Root Services, a division of Kellogg Brown & Root, Arlington, Va., was awarded a $12,495,601 modification to Task Order 0038 at under a cost-reimbursement, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity construction contract for various facilities, Radio Range, U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay. The work to be performed included new facilities for traffic control checkpoints (main and secondary checkpoints), troop bed-down facility, troop dining facility and destructive weather improvements to detention facility structures. The project was to also include site work, heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, plumbing and electrical work, as required for the various facilities. Work was to be performed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and was expected to be completed by June 2004. Contract funds wouldnot expire at the end of the fiscal year. The basic contract was competitively procured with 44 proposals solicited, three offers received and award made on June 29, 2000. The total contract amount was not to exceed $300,000,000, which included the base period and four option years. The Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Atlantic Division, Norfolk, Va., was the contracting activity (N62470-00-D-0005).
The Naval Base includes, as separate commands, a Naval Hospital and Branch Dental Clinic, detachments of the Personnel Support Activity, Naval Atlantic Meteorologic and Oceanographic Command, Naval Media Center, Naval Communications Station, Department of Defense Dependent Schools and a Navy Brig. Directly supporting the base as departments of Naval Station are Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Resident Officer in Charge of Construction, Human Resources Office, Family Support and Service Center, Red Cross, Security and Navy Exchange/Commissary.
Guantanamo Bay, located on the southeast coast of the island of Cuba about 500 statute miles southeast of Miami, Florida, is approached via the Windward Passage from the north or the Caribbean Sea from the south . Guantanamo Bay is the largest bay on the extreme south coast of Cuba, and affords anchorage for deep-draft ships. The bay is a pouch-shaped indentation about 12 miles long in a northeast-southwest direction and about 6 miles across at its greatest width. Guantanamo Valley, a low, hilly district, extends westward from the bay along the Sierra Maestra. The deep bay is sheltered by the nearby Cuzco Hills (elevations to 495 ft) to the south and east and by mountains to the north.
Entrance into the bay, between Leeward Point and Windward Point, is made through a 1 1/4 mile-wide channel with 42 ft least dredged depth up to a point westward of Fisherman Point. From there to a point southwestward of Caravela Point, the least dredged depth is 32 ft.
The bay complex is divided into an Outer Harbor and an Inner Harbor. The Outer Harbor stretches from the entrance to the Naval Reservation Boundary about 5 miles northeastward. The channel narrows to 250 yards here, at Palma Point, then widens into two separate bays whose total width is about 5 miles; the upper half, known as Ensenada de Joa, forms the Inner Harbor in which commercial ports are located. The naval base and the main anchorage area are contained within the Outer Harbor area.
The naval complex is located on the east side of the harbor between Fisherman Point (1 3/4 miles north of Windward Point) and Granadillo Point, abut 2 3/4 miles northeastward. The area contains many coves and peninsulas and a few islands. Much of the land here is elevated well above water level. The western side of Guantanamo Bay, generally low and mangrove-covered, contains many mud flats.
The more important coves, located between Corinaso Point and Deer Point, contain the pier and wharf facilities of the naval base. The land is lower and flatter here for a few hundred yards inland. Two airfields are located within the naval complex: McCalla Airfield, on the east side of the harbor entrance, is inactive; Leeward Point Field on the west side is an active naval air station.
Water depths vary from about 60 ft just inside the harbor entrance to approximately 30 ft in Granadillo Bay (on the east side of the Outer Harbor) and at the entrance to Eagle Channel. Many of the coves are only 25 ft deep. The mean tide range is 1.0 ft and the spring tide range is 1.3 ft. Periodic tidal variations as great as 4-5 ft have been observed, but these probably were meteorological versus astronomical phenomena. Harbor tidal currents in Guantanamo Bay are estimated to be about .25 kt on the flood to .50 kt on the ebb. Locally at the river mouth, stronger currents are observed periodically. Swells ranging 3-5 ft are common during the afternoons and nights, extending upbay from the harbor entrance to Fisherman Point. During an extended period of fresh southerly winds from a recent winter
At Guantanamo Bay, the Outer Harbor is used by the US Navy and the Inner Harbor serves as a commercial (Cuban) port. This evaluation deals with the facilities of the Outer Harbor only, although the climatology section is appropriate for both harbors. The Outer Harbor includes that portion of Guantanamo Bay from the entrance north to Palma Point (approximately 19° 58' 24"N). The major naval facilities are contained within Corinaso Cove from Corinaso Point to Radio Point. There are five piers available, varying in length from 180-900 ft with depths alongside from 20 to 35 ft. Three wharves provide accommodations up to 1065 ft with depths to 38 ft. Piers and wharves range from 6 to 10 ft in height above MSL. It should be noted that dredge depths decrease along some piers (see Pier B) and also that dredge width may be minimal and maneuvering is consequently difficult. Berths and anchorages in Guantanamo Bay are assigned by the Port Services Officer. The naval anchorage areas for deep-draft vessels are in the Outer Harbor. Pilots are available and required for ships engaged in commercial trade, but are not compulsory for ships of the US Navy. Tugs (normally two available) and other harbor services may be arranged through Port Control. Emergency harbor services are available 24 hours a day.
In early 2005, four white wind turbines began operating John Paul Jones Hill, the base’s highest point, named after the Revolutionary War naval hero. The turbines, standing at 80 meters (262 feet) high, feature three-blade turbines. The four turbines were estimated to provide as much as a quarter of the base’s power generation during the high-wind months of late summer and fall; an appreciable fact given that Guantanamo Bay is completely self-sustaining, generating its own power and water without having to rely on Cuban municipal sources. In addition to generating power, the turbines have significantly cut down on emissions of greenhouse gases created through burning diesel fuel. Black clouds containing carbon dioxide can routinely be seen pouring from the diesel generators supplying power to the base’s energy grid. Each turbine is anchored in a giant block of concrete, through which 22 soil anchors are drilled into the mountain to a depth of 30 to 40 feet deep. These are then sealed with grout. The automated turbines are rated to withstand winds of up to 140 miles per hour.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/guantanamo-bay.htm
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