Activists Worry as Bush Stumps for Patriot Act
India West, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: Jun 20, 2005
As President George Bush made a case before Congress last week for making permanent certain expiring provisions in the controversial Patriot Act, as well as to broaden it, civil rights activists worry that it could come to pass.
The Act, passed in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S., among other things allows expanded surveillance of terror suspects, increases the use of material witness warrants to hold suspects incommunicado, and permits secret proceedings in immigration cases.
Now, more than a dozen provisions in the Act are about to expire, and Bush wants to prevent that.
"My message to Congress is clear: The terrorist threats against us will not expire at the end of the year, and neither should the protections of the Patriot Act," Bush said.
Kavitha Sreeharsha, staff attorney at the San Francisco-based Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, lambasted the Act as being harmful to immigrants.
"The Patriot Act is a means of targeting immigrants under the guise of homeland security," Kavitha Sreeharsha, staff attorney at the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, asserted to India-West. "Many studies show that airport security has not improved post 9-11.
"Meanwhile, immigrants have experienced a loss of civil liberties resulting in increased deportation and loss of rights under immigration laws."
California Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who earlier said she found "no reported abuses" of the Act, more recently seemed to take a different stance, after she heard the President's pitch to Congress.
She said that while she supports the current Patriot Act, she opposes portions of the bill that would give the government some expanded powers.
Under those, the FBI would be able to issue administrative subpoenas to collect evidence in terrorism cases without going through the courts.
It would also allow the Justice Department to gather information under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and to share information about terrorism cases.
It will also give the FBI the power to obtain records in terrorism-related cases from such businesses as libraries, hotels, banks and medical facilities.
"This is a very broad power, with no check on that power," Feinstein observed. "It's carte blanche for a fishing expedition."
In San Francisco last week, the American Civil Liberties Union held a press briefing to condemn the Act, while at the same time commending Feinstein.
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told the press that he was heartened by Feinstein's current stance.
"There's been a renewed interest on these issues from Sen. Feinstein that is very encouraging," Romero said.
One civil rights attorney India-West contacted earlier this week shared his views: "Senator Feinstein needs to be applauded for standing up to the White House in its attempt to extend the Patriot Act," noted Sanjeev Bery, director of the ACLU of Northern California in San Jose.
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