On
the Third Anniversary of Patriot Act
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali---
CA
Oct. 26, 2004, marked
the third anniversary of the passage of the USA
PATRIOT Act, an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening
America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required
to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.
The Patriot Act
has given sweeping new powers to both domestic
law enforcement and intelligence agencies and
has eliminated the checks and balances that previously
gave courts the opportunity to ensure that these
powers were not abused. Most of these checks and
balances were put into place after previous misuse
of surveillance powers by these agencies, including
the revelation in 1974 that the FBI and foreign
intelligence agencies had spied on over 10,000
US citizens, including Martin Luther King.
Most of the changes
to surveillance law made by the Patriot Act were
part of a longstanding law enforcement wish list
that had been previously rejected by Congress,
in some cases repeatedly. Congress reversed course
because it was bullied into it by the Bush Administration
in the frightening weeks after the September 11
attacks on the World Trade Center in New York
and the Pentagon in Washington. The 342-page Patriot
Act bill was introduced in the congress on September
24, 2001 only 14 days after the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. It was approved on Oct. 25, without any
substantial discussion, by the Congress and signed
into law the next day by President Bush.
The Patriot Act
has affected the civil rights of all US citizens
and residents but the American Muslim and Arabs
communities have taken the brunt of the Patriot
Act and other federal powers applied in the aftermath
of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as confirmed by
a May 2004 report released by the California Senate
Office Of Research. The government measures have
created a fear that gripped the Muslims and Arabs
following federal sweeps, round-ups, detentions
of innocent Muslims and Arabs, who had neither
terrorist intentions nor any connection to terrorist
organizations. In the latest wave of interviews
of Muslims and Arabs thousands of people are being
questioned in a questionable manner. Worshippers
in mosques are being asked some questions which
are not related to terrorism.
In a bid to get
more information about the agency’s questioning
of Muslims and Arabs as it investigates the possibility
of pre-election terror attacks the American Civil
Liberties Union-Northern California sued the FBI
on Oct. 21, 2004. The ACLU, which describes the
unannounced interviews at homes, workplaces and
mosques “interrogations,” is seeking
internal documents under the Freedom of Information
Act about whether the government is protecting
the constitutional rights of those interviewed.
The FBI has done more than 13,000 interviews this
year as part of its 2004 Threat Task Force effort
to detect and disrupt a potential election-year
terror attack.
Critics of
the Act and other measures are having their positions
validated by a growing list of court decisions
and Department of Justice missteps.
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