Unpatriotic
Side of the Patriot Act
By Siddique Malik
Louisville, KY
It was not surprising
to hear that the FBI was found abusing the national
security letter provision of the Patriot Act. Lack
or absence of judicial oversight on any mechanism
would open the door to its being abused. Before
I proceed, let me pause to pay tributes to the framers
of our Constitution. They instilled a laborious
concept of checks and balances in the Constitution
so as to thwart the abuse of power. Gradually this
concept became an integral part of America’s
psyche. This concept has worked extremely well in
all areas and has been the reason behind the high
quality work at various levels of law enforcement.
The FBI crushed the mafia, kept strict vigilance
against corporate crime, foiled a terrorist plan
to bomb a few American planes that were to take
off from an airport in the Philippines (this happened
before the 9/11 tragedy), caught the would-be terrorists
as they entered our country from Canada en-route
to Seattle with the intention to bomb the new-millennium
festivities on December 31, 1999; and the list goes
on. Yes, the FBI made a few mistakes.
Especially devastating was the mistake over keeping
an eye on the 9-11 planners, but nonetheless it
was just an error, and to err is human. Overall,
the FBI deserves immense credit for keeping America
safe.
The FBI achieved the above goals while operating
under strict judicial oversight. Actually, this
oversight was the trigger for its successes. When
the FBI knew that it could only employ procedures
that a court could approve, it worked hard and in
the process reached the potential criminals.
When a doctor, in search of potential diseases,
applies pressure at those parts of your body where
generally even your spouse would not look, it is
as much for the purpose of protecting your health
as it is to avoid a potential legal suit against
the doctor him/herself. Accountability is the mother
of success. But then came along the Patriot Act
that removed judicial oversight from certain FBI
activities, e.g. national security letters, and
the natural human weaknesses kicked in.
When you know you can get away with a lapse, your
motivation to avoid lapses evaporates. Pretty soon
you find yourself depending on unsubstantiated quick
fixes. With no neutral third-party oversight, not
only the problem may go undetected, it may actually
worsen. This is what happened at the FBI. The inspector-general
found that the national security letters were being
issued excessively. I would not be surprised if
we find out that at some point during this process,
a potential terrorist got way from the FBI gaze
because some of its agents felt lulled by the false
securities of the Patriot Act.
The more unfettered powers a law-enforcement agency
gets, the more such powers it demands and thinks
it needs. The natural result is the absence of fairness
in administrative mechanisms and a lack of security
in society. Look at any dictatorial dispensation
and you would understand this argument. Saudi Arabia
is one of the most suppressive societies in the
world, where the concept of habeas corpus is as
unknown as a female face in a shopping center or
a driver seat. Yet there are more terrorist attacks
in Saudi Arabia than in America.
Some clauses of the Patriot Act are very unpatriotic
in their nature and effect. First of all these clauses
contravene the American values. Secondly, they were
created as a knee-jerk reaction to a tragedy at
a time when most of the legislators had lost the
fortitude to uphold America’s commitment to
due process and judicial oversight and were railroaded
by a shortsighted administration bent upon glorifying
itself and presenting itself as messiah in the wake
of the gloom caused by a tragedy. Therefore, the
concept of checks and balances slipped though the
cracks in this legislation while politicians who
only care about the opinion poll results were busy
checking their approval ratings.
It is time to make the entire Patriot Act subservient
to judicial oversight and thus restore the FBI’s
ability, reasons and motivation to do solid crime-prevention
and terrorism-suppression work. America’s
safety requirements desperately need this statutory
correction. These are dangerous times; we cannot
afford to lower our guards, administrative as well
judicial.
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