[A-List] US imperialism: Burgeoning Domestic Police State

["annewilliamson" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

PATRIOT II

by

Michael C. Ruppert

© Copyright, 2003, From The Wilderness Publications,
www.fromthewilderness.com. All rights reserved. May be copied, distributed
or posted on the Internet for non-profit purposes only.


Feb. 25 2003, 1800 PST (FTW) -- With more than twenty U.S. cities having
passed resolutions openly opposing the multiple civil liberties violations
in the 2001 Patriot Act, and as the state of New Mexico debates legislation
that would encourage police agencies to avoid violations of the First
Amendment, the recent leak of a secret Bush administration bill that would
further erode civil liberties has provoked a bizarre tale of denials and
"non responses" by the administration. Thus far the saga of the Domestic
Security Enhancement Act of 2003 - commonly known as Patriot II - suggests
that the leak of the proposed legislation was possibly a "trial balloon" or
"tester" to gauge both public and congressional reaction to a bill that, if
passed, would grant the federal government drastic new powers in a
continuing erosion of the Bill of Rights.



Patriot II has not been officially introduced in either house of congress
and thus has no official standing. It has, however, been officially
transmitted by the Bush Justice Department to Vice President Cheney
(President of the Senate) and House Speaker Denny Hastert, R-Illinois.



The bill has already been given a clandestine odor and the Bush
administration has violated standard congressional protocols in its
handling. In fact, the administration has been caught in outright lies about
the bill's actual status. In official comments dated February 10, ranking
Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, stated, "For
months, and as recently as just last week, Justice Department officials have
denied to members of the Judiciary Committee that they were drafting another
anti-terrorism package. There still has not been any hint from them about
their draft bill."



John Conyers, D-Michigan, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee,
which has jurisdiction over proposed anti-terrorism legislation, in a Feb,
10th letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft -- signed also by
Representatives Robert Scott, D-Virginia, and Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas,
wrote:



We write to express my profound disappointment about your Department's
handling of anti-terrorism policy. Recent reports irrefutably indicate that
the Department of Justice has been working on a successor bill to the "USA
Patriot Act" for some time. Notwithstanding the Judiciary Committee's
jurisdiction in this matter and outstanding record of dealing with this
legislation, the Committee reported a bipartisan version of the Patriot Act
by a unanimous vote, according to the Chairman's spokesman there have been
no consultations with the Committee on this bill.



Your Spokesperson, Barbara Comstock, claimed in a February 7, statement
(attached) that the new draft bill was still in "internal deliberations"
within the Department and still being discussed at "staff levels" and has
not been "presented. to the White House." This is blatantly false in several
respects, yet the Department of Justice "Control Sheet" (attached) plainly
indicates that the bill was forwarded to the Speaker of the House and Vice
President on January 10.



Conyers specifically requested that the Attorney General reply to his letter
no later than February 15, 2003. A Conyers' spokesperson told FTW today that
not only has the Justice Department not replied to Conyers' letter but that
they have "not even acknowledged receiving it."



The Department of Justice did not respond to a call from FTW asking for a
response to Conyers' letter or an explanation as to why they had not
responded.



The bill's draft and the fact that it had been officially transmitted to
Cheney and Hastert nearly a month a month before its existence was disclosed
was revealed in major scoop released on Feb. 7, 2003 by Washington, D.C.'s
non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI). FTW has relied extensively
on comprehensive reports by the CPI for past major stories including our
2000 story, The Bush Cheney Drug Empire.



The original CPI story including links to the "Confidential" draft of the
bill and the official letter of transmittal is located at:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=502&L1=10&L2=10&L3
=0&L4=0&L5=0



In a follow-up story on PBS' Frontline, anchor Bill Moyers interviewed CPI's
Executive Director Chuck Lewis who disclosed that the CPI had obtained a
copy of the bill as a result of a leak from within the Justice Department by
someone who was exposing themselves to great risk in the post-9/11 climate
of secrecy in Washington. The fact that the story was leaked raises the
possibility that the Bush administration was attempting to gauge both public
and congressional reaction prior to introducing the bill for legislative
action.



WHAT'S IN PATRIOT II?



CPI's Lewis was not jesting when he told Moyers that Patriot II was five or
ten times worse than the first Patriot Act.



Its provisions allow for secret arrests of persons in certain
terrorist-related cases until indictments have been handed down and there is
no time limitation for this process. America has never permitted secret
arrests for indefinite time periods. In addition, Patriot II provides that
these terrorist arrests may be under "no bail" conditions and that any
federal employee who discloses the identity of someone who has been secretly
detained may be imprisoned for up to five years.



The bill mandates that government authorities are entitled to have ex parte
(one- on-one, without defense counsel or a public record) and in camera
(private) - meetings with judges without opposing counsel or defendants even
being notified to secure rulings on search warrants, admissibility of
evidence and investigative procedures. In certain cases where naturalized
American citizens are found to be working with foreign governments, or
making donations to foreign based charities later found to be supporting
terrorist causes, the Attorney General will have the right to revoke U.S.
citizenship and extradite those charged to any country in the world, whether
there is an extradition treaty in place or not.



There has been some debate, encouraged by inaccurate and extremely
irresponsible reporting by some "alternative" journalists and radio talk
show hosts indicating that the bill provides the government with the ability
to strip native-born U.S. citizens of their citizenship for seemingly
trivial offenses. This is patently untrue. The actual truth is bad enough.



Section 501 of Patriot II amends section 349 of the Immigration and
Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481) pertaining to the citizenship status of
those who have acquired U.S. citizenship. It states that those who have
entered into the armed forces of a foreign government (when such forces are
engaged in hostilities against the US), or have joined or provided material
support "to a terrorist organization. if the organization is engaged in
hostilities against the United States, its people, or its national security
interests" will be deemed to have made a prima facie (apparent on its face)
statement that they intend to relinquish their citizenship.



Lewis and Moyers were correct in their interpretation of this section in
that a naturalized American who makes a donation to an Islamic charity later
alleged to have been giving money to a terrorist organization could be
stripped of their citizenship and deported anywhere without it ever having
been established that he or she even knew how the charity was distributing
its money.



The act broadens the scope of activities that qualify for the
loose-to-non-existent guidelines for eavesdropping and surveillance under
Patriot I and allows law enforcement personnel to obtain "national" search
warrants for domestic and foreign terrorism investigations. As discussed in
previous FTW stories, under Patriot I the definition of "domestic terrorism"
is extremely vague and non-specific. Throwing away decades of progress
obtained as a result of litigation in the 1970s and 80s the new bill
specifically overturns dozens of consent decrees prohibiting law enforcement
agencies from infiltrating non-violent religious and civic groups exercising
protected first amendment rights.



Section 126 of the act allows the U.S. government to obtain consumer credit
reports and to impose criminal penalties on credit reporting agencies if
they disclose to individuals that the government has obtained copies of
their records.



Section 127 of Patriot II allows the Federal government to supercede all
local statutes governing autopsies in terrorism investigations which means
literally that if a person died at the hands of an illegal federal
investigation, the autopsy results could show a suicide or some other
finding favorable to the government. This would also apply in cases of
accidental death due to fatalities resulting from mass compulsory
vaccinations. In such cases, instead of finding dangerous vaccines as the
cause of death the federal government could instead blame terrorists.



Opening the door for the Total Information Awareness program run by
convicted Iran-Contra felon John Poindexter, section 128 provides for the
issuance of federal administrative subpoenas in cases "involving domestic or
international terrorism" to any company that maintains records on any
individual in the United States. This would apply to everything from medical
records, to credit card and utility bills, to the reading habits of the
targeted individual. This section also provides stiff criminal penalties of
up to five years imprisonment for any employee of a private company who
reveals that the records have been sought.



Once compiled, these records can be shared with any foreign government the
government wishes to share them with. It also allows federal agents to serve
search warrants issued by foreign governments inside this country.



Also in the list of list of noxious provisions, chemical and utility
companies would be absolved under the act from requirements that they
publicly disclose the kinds of dangerous chemicals in use at their
facilities or "worst case scenario" information about what might happen if
there were malfunctions or breakdowns at their facilities. This equates to
an environmental "carte blanche" for polluters.



At the same time, Supreme Court Justices and other federal VIPs are no
longer required to declare as income the cost of federally provided
bodyguard and security services. This amounts to a back door raise in pay of
up to several hundred thousand dollars a year for federal judges and
executives who will be much more likely to remain friendly to the
administration.



And in a particularly chilling passage, section 404 of Patriot II would
impose a penalty of up to five years of imprisonment for anyone who used any
form of computer encryption to commit anything defined as domestic or
foreign terrorism. Under the liberal definition of domestic terrorism
contained in Patriot I, a possible interpretation of this section could be
that a reporter who uses PGP or other encryption program to correspond with
a foreign confidential source could be imprisoned for five years - just for
using the software. It also suggests that no commercial entity which uses
encryption to protect its proprietary data would be permitted to use any
encryption program which the government did not already possess a key to.



WHAT TO DO?



Since the bill has not been introduced, any pre-emptive attempts to
influence members of Congress would have questionable effects. A member's
response would correctly be, "I have no power to do anything until the bill
is introduced." However, the actions of the Attorney General and, by
implication, the President, the Vice President and the Speaker of the House
are unethical and dishonest, if not illegal. It couldn't hurt to let them
know that you are watching for this bill's introduction and how they will
respond when it comes time.



Anyone wishing to make their voices heard on Patriot II should direct their
comments to the Department of Justice, the White House and the Speaker.
Their statements should be bold and demand that these institutions follow
the law and maintain good faith with the American people.



When the bill is introduced, most likely after the commencement of
hostilities in Iraq or another convenient terror attack, the moment -
perhaps the last one possible - when Congress can step up to the plate and
do its job the way it is obliged to, will have presented itself. If it
passes as it is written Patriot II will signal a final breach of contract
between the government and the people.