From the San Jose Mercury News
Posted on Fri, Jun. 10, 2005
With the news of the FBI's investigation into alleged terrorist connections in Lodi, people are thinking about national security issues again.
They're worried about unintended consequences such as backlash. Worried about the Patriot Act, critical parts of which are up for renewal this summer. Worried we'll snooze through the vote without debate.
People like Fremont resident Cecilia Chang have peppered me with e-mails lately about developments on the civil liberties and security fronts. President Bush praised the Patriot Act on Thursday in pressing Congress to act quickly to expand its powers and renew 16 provisions that are due to expire this year.
Four years ago, Congress passed the Patriot Act, a raft of security provisions, in record time, citing the urgency made sickeningly apparent by the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Besides the well-publicized library snooping provisions, the act broadly expanded the executive branch's ability to look into all aspects of our lives with less and less oversight. Now, there's opportunity to talk about it with less rush.
It doesn't inspire much confidence that the Senate Intelligence Committee, during closed-door deliberations this week, approved provisions easing the FBI's ability to watch my mail or look at my hospital, hotel, bank and employment records without a judge. On just their own say-so, called an ``administrative subpoena.''
``This is not about stopping the type of Lodi investigations that take place,'' said Anthony Romero, the national executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who was in the Bay Area on Thursday.
``The question is, how is the government doing it?''
Bipartisan concerns
More than 400 cities and jurisdictions have passed resolutions expressing concern about the ``how.''
Senate Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho and Dick Durbin of Illinois are sponsoring the Safe Act, a bill that scales back some of the Patriot Act's powers, believing it is written in a way that allows abuses. Craig cites broad bipartisan support for revising and restoring some protections for ordinary Americans.
The government, after all, has been ``quite confident'' in making some high-profile arrests in the past, only to determine later that it had been mistaken, Romero said.
After the 2004 bombings in Madrid, the FBI was ``100 percent certain'' it had a match in the fingerprints of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield. That turned out to be ``100 percent wrong,'' Romero said.
The FBI admitted to Mayfield's attorney that Mayfield's home had been searched under provisions of the Patriot Act, Romero said in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who sits on the Senate intelligence and judiciary committees.
The very secrecy of investigations makes it impossible to know what the government looks at, except when it takes public action.
What's in your records?
ACLU staffers donned sandwich boards outside their office Thursday to make the privacy issues more personal. One slightly embarrassed young man wore one that said, ``I took Viagra this morning.'' Another young man bore ``I keep my Vegas winnings in my underwear drawer,'' referring to the act's ``sneak-and-peek'' provision. Hmmm.
This is not a simple ``thumbs up'' or ``thumbs down'' debate. Not a take-it-or-leave-it, love-it-or-leave-it choice.
The unfolding Lodi investigation has many Californians thinking anew about the balance of national security and personal liberty. We should be thinking about it.
Chang just sent me notice of a new book from the American Bar Association called ``Patriot Debates,'' a series of ``point and counterpoint'' essays by 21 experts on all sides of the debate, and a summary of the act's provisions.
It's time to get started. Congress could be debating the bill on floor by next month.
Contact L.A. Chung at lchung@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5280.
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