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How
it can be misused
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| Title
or Provision |
What
It Says/What It Changes |
Amendment I |
Amendment IV |
Amendment V |
Amendment VI |
Amendment VIII |
| USAPA §203:
Authority to share criminal investigative information. |
Permits law
enforcement to give CIA sensitive information gathered in
criminal investigations, including wiretaps and internet trapping. |
|
No court order is
required. CIA may share the information with other agencies and with
foreign governments. |
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| USAPA §206:
Roving surveillance authority under the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act of 1978. (AKA "roving wiretaps) |
Extends roving
wiretap authority to "intelligence" wiretaps authorized by the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court. |
|
These wiretaps may
be authorized secretly Expands the power broadly by
tapping any device used by a terrorist suspect, regardless of who is
using the device at the time. |
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| USAPA §213:
Authority for delaying notice of the execution of a warrant (AKA "sneak
and peek") |
Permits the
government to search your home with no one present and to
delay notification indefinitely. Court may authorize delayed
notification "if the court finds reasonable cause to believe that
providing immediate notification … may have an adverse result." |
|
Unlike the former
"knock and announce" policy, a person whose home is
to be searched cannot view the warrant to make sure the address is
correct or to make sure that the agent adheres to the warrant's
description of what is to be searched. |
|
|
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USAPA §215:
Access to records and other items under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act
|
It permits the FBI
director to seek records from bookstores and libraries of books that a
person suspected of terrorism has purchased or read, or of his or her
activities on a library's computer. It also places a gag order to
prevent anyone from disclosing that they have been ordered to produce
such documents.
Relaxes requirements and extends capabilities of FISA by enabling
anyone within the FBI down to rank of Assistant Special Agent in Charge
to request a court order for tangible items sought for an investigation
"to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence
activities." The judge must give permission if an agent has so
certified. For example, it permits the FBI director to seek records
from bookstores and libraries of books that a person has purchased or
read, or of his or her activities on a library's computer. It also
places a gag order to prevent anyone from disclosing that they have
been ordered to produce such documents. Eliminates the former test,
that "there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe
that the person to whom the records pertain is a foreign power or an
agent of a foreign power."
|
Puts people at risk for exercising
their free speech rights to read, recommend, or discuss a book or to
write an email. It also denies booksellers and library personnel the
free speech right to inform anyone, including an attorney, that the FBI
has asked for someone's reading list.
|
No legitimate checks and balances;
rather, the judge becomes a 'rubber
stamp'. No privacy protection for U.S. citizens or legal residents
acting legally. Transfers power from the judiciary to the executive
branch. |
|
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| USAPA §218:
Foreign intelligence information |
Amends Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by eliminating the
need for the FBI to show "probable cause" before conducting secret
searches or surveillance to obtain evidence of a crime. |
|
Eliminates judicial
supervision by giving the FBI the ability to gather
"foreign intelligence information" without a warrant, unless the
evidence sought is to be used in a criminal proceeding. Former standard
of "foreign intelligence information" is weakened.1 Agent may now say
that foreign intelligence is relevant or plays a part in the
investigation. "Probable cause" of a crime is no longer needed. |
|
|
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| USAPA §411:
Definitions relating to terrorism |
Allows Secretary of
State to designate any foreign or domestic group
that has engaged in a violent activity a "terrorist organization." |
|
Lowers standard for
terrorist designation; possibility of groups that
dissent peacefully being so designated as the result of an action by an
agent provocateur. |
|
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| USAPA §412:
Mandatory detention of suspected terrorists; habeas corpus; judicial
review |
Gives Attorney
General broad powers to certify immigrants as risks. |
|
Reduces previous
standard from "probable cause." |
Deprives immigrants
of "liberty … without due process of law." |
Infringes upon the
rights "to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State
and district…, to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him," and "to
have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
|
May result in "cruel
and unusual
punishments" (deportation).
|
| USAPA §802:
Definition of domestic terrorism. |
Creates a new crime,
"domestic terrorism," which it defines as "acts
dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of
the United States or of any State" and that "appear to be intended … to
influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion." |
Broad definition may
be used against activists exercising their rights to assemble and to
dissent. |
|
|
|
|
Attorney General's
Edict
for Increased Surveillance of Religious and Political Organizations |
Rescinds
anti-COINTELPRO regulations and authorizes the FBI to monitor
and surveil religious groups and political groups without evidence of
wrongdoing. |
Opens the door to
COINTELPRO
operations, which were used in the past to harass and to intimidate
people who disagreed with the government on issues such as civil rights
and the Vietnam War. |
Reduces standard for
surveillance from "probable cause." |
An unsuspecting
participant in a religious or political meeting may be "compelled to be
a witness against himself." |
|
|
| Attorney General's
edict subverting Freedom of Information Act requests |
Replaced Attorney
General Janet Reno's previous guidelines to agencies
for fulfilling FOIA requests, which were to make allowable
discretionary disclosures except where there was "demonstrable harm."
Ashcroft assures agencies that "decide to withhold records, in whole or
in part," that they "can be assured that the Department of Justice will
defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis or present
an unwarranted risk of adverse impact on the ability of other agencies
to protect other important records.” |
Enables federal
agencies to ignore many FOIA requests for unclassified
information. For example, the administration has used this edict to
keep secret the names of detainees detained for long periods, and to
close their hearings. |
|
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|
Attorney General's
approval of a Bureau of Prisons emergency
surveillance order |
Removes requirement
to obtain judicial permission before listening in
on conversations between prisoners (both prior to trial and convicted)
and their attorneys. |
Abridges freedom of
speech. |
Constitutes
"unreasonable searches" without the necessity to meet the standard of
"probable cause." |
A prisoner may be
made to be a witness against himself or herself. |
A prisoner who knows
that law enforcement may listen
in on conversations with an attorney may forego the
right to ask for Counsel to aid in his or her defense. |
|
| Attorney General's
TIPS program |
Sets up a system for
up to 2 million Americans, more than were involved
in the heyday of East Germany's Stasi, to secretly provide information
to the government about any persons whom they consider suspicious, and
for the government to set up a file on these persons. |
|
May potentially
damage someone's record due to innocent activities that
are misunderstood or are invented or enhanced by the caller because of
a personal vendetta. How the "tips" would be used has been neither
reported nor approved, nor have there been assurances that anyone who
is reported as "suspicious" will be confronted with the evidence
against him/her and given an opportunity to correct it. |
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| President Bush's
Military Order |
Establishes trials
by military tribunal, at president's discretion, for noncitizens. |
|
|
Denies "due process
of law," which applies not only to citizens but to
all "persons" in the United States. Allows secret evidence and hearsay
to be used against the accused. |
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| President Bush's
order designating "Enemy combatant" |
Allows committee of
attorney general, defense secretary, and CIA
director to label citizens and noncitizens as "enemy combatants,”
placing them in military custody, holding them in detention
indefinitely, interrogating them, and denying them communication with
outsiders or judicial review. |
|
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No opportunity to
prove innocence. Denial of "liberty without due process of law." |
Infringes upon the
rights "to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State
and district…, to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation, to be confronted with the witnesses against him," and "to
have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence."
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