- A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a
new federal police force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights.
You might think that this cannot be true, as you have not read about it
in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.
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- Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and
Reauthorization Act of 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:
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- "There is hereby created and established a permanent
police force, to be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed
Division.'"
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- This new federal police force is "subject to the
supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security."
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- The new police are empowered to "make arrests without
warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence,
or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they
have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed
or is committing such felony."
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- The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions,
including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as
a special event of national significance" (SENS).
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- "A special event of national significance"
is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a "protected
person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration,
and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any
event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police
are empowered to keep out and arrest people at their discretion.
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- The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary
powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What
are "reasonable grounds"?
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- You can bet the Alito/Roberts court will rule that it
is whatever the executive branch says.
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- The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations
at Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police
powers from being used only in this way. Like every law in the U.S., this
law also will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire implications
for freedom of association and First Amendment rights. We can take for
granted that the new federal police will be used to suppress dissent and
to break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now arming themselves with
a Gestapo.
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- Many naïve Americans will write to me to explain
that this new provision in the reauthorization of the "PATRIOT Act"
is necessary to protect the president and other high officials from terrorists
or from harm at the hands of angry demonstrators: "No one else will
have anything to fear." Some will accuse me of being an alarmist,
and others will say that it is unpatriotic to doubt the law's good intentions.
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- Americans will write such nonsense despite the fact that
the president and foreign dignitaries are already provided superb protection
by the Secret Service. The naïve will not comprehend that the president
cannot be endangered by demonstrators at SENS at which the president is
not present. For many Americans, the light refuses to turn on.
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- In Nazi Germany, did no one but Jews have anything to
fear from the Gestapo?
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- By Stalin's time, Lenin and Trotsky had eliminated all
members of the "oppressor class," but that did not stop Stalin
from sending millions of "enemies of the people" to the Gulag.
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- It is extremely difficult to hold even local police forces
accountable. Who is going to hold accountable a federal police protected
by Homeland Security and the president?
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