Say you're pulled over for a traffic violation - maybe your tail light is out. The officer asks to see your license and registration, and either issues a citation or a warning.
And then he or she runs a cotton swab through your mouth to collect a sample of your DNA for the federal government.
The Patriot Act and its reported follow-up, Patriot Act II, will be discussed at Monday's Missoula League of Women Voters luncheon.
Crichton and Bette Ammon, director of the Missoula Public Library, will speak.
The Patriot Act has already been used by the FBI to obtain information in investigations that have nothing to do with terrorism, including a probe into corruption in Las Vegas involving an owner of strip clubs.
Patriot Act II, officially known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, has reportedly been in the works from the Bush administration for nearly a year. Although Justice Department officials denied its existence to the Senate Judiciary Committee, shortly afterward an internally circulated 120-page Justice Department memo about the proposals, and a copy of the act, was leaked.
Expanding on the original, the new measure is said to instruct the government to build a database of citizen DNA information that could be collected without a court order on anyone suspected of wrongdoing; allow the government to wiretap anyone for 15 days and snoop on anyone's Internet usage, including chat and e-mail, without a warrant; allow the government to strip Americans of their citizenship if they have been found to have contributed material support to organizations deemed by the government, even retroactively, to be "terrorist;" and allow legal permanent residents to be deported, without a criminal charge being filed or evidence presented, if the attorney general considers them a threat to national security.
It would also erase many of the original act's "sunset" provisions that stipulated law enforcement's expanded powers would be rescinded in 2005.
After the proposals were leaked by a Justice Department official, the agency released a statement that said, "It should not be surprising that the Department of Justice ... discusses additional tools to protect the American people."
Crichton said Friday that with bipartisan opposition to the original Patriot Act growing - conservative Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, has already co-sponsored a bill that would rein in some of its powers - it was doubtful anything resembling a "Patriot Act II" would ever be introduced.
"What we think you'll see now is that they'll roll this out gradually, attaching elements of it to other bills," Crichton said. "It will make it more difficult to debate and fight it, but we're going to try."
At Monday's luncheon Crichton will address how the two Patriot acts threaten basic constitutional liberties. Ammon will talk about the provision currently in place that allows law enforcement to review records of patrons in secret and without court order, and bars librarians from notifying anyone about such an investigation.
The original Patriot Act was written and quickly passed in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.
Reporter Vince Devlin can be reached at 523-5260 or at vdevlin@missoulian.com
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)