PATRIOT ACT II

The Justice Department is writing a sequel to the USA Patriot Act of 2001, a wide-ranging expansion of the post-Sept. 11 legislation that gave the government unprecedented powers in domestic intelligence-gathering, surveillance and law enforcement. This Patriot Act II is being prepared amid the utmost secrecy: congressional committees with oversight of Justice don’t know about it, neither does the department’s own public affairs staff, which denies its very existence.

We know about it because a copy of the draft proposal, labeled, “Confidential – not for distribution,” was leaked by an anonymous someone in the Justice Department to the Washington-based nonprofit The Center for Public Integrity, which distributed it to journalist Bill Moyers, who distributed it to viewers of his PBS television program “Now” last Friday night. Did we mention that the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 is being prepared amid the utmost secrecy?

This is amusing, but not for long. The Justice Department has yet to demonstrate it can handle the enhanced powers it was given in the Patriot Act while sufficiently protecting civil liberties; it has resisted reasonable congressional oversight and public accountability. Now it wants more powers to snoop on Americans, it wants a free hand to collect ever more sensitive information about citizens as it demonstrates it cannot protect sensitive information about itself.

Before the department asks Congress for more powers, it needs to disclose how it is using the ones it already has. Yet the Justice Department has balked at reasonable oversight and public information requests. In fact, the draft legislation would allow the department to withhold information concerning the identity of Sept. 11 detainees, a matter now before the courts. At the very least, Congress should insist on a full understanding of what the department is doing before granting the executive branch still more authority.

Some of the provisions make sense. A DNA database for terrorists and suspected terrorists would help solve the very real problem of increasingly hard-to-detect false identities and documentation. Making terrorism hoaxes a new federal crime would end the troubling practice of having to prosecute under laws not designed for that purpose and would properly elevate these serious, damaging and expensive acts of malice. Allowing the secret special appeals court that reviews applications for domestic surveillance to appoint lawyers to argue against the government is a welcome enhancement of civil liberties.

Many of the provisions, however, move in the opposite direction. It would make it easier for the government to gain court approval to watch people, citizens and visiting foreigners, as intelligence targets even when the government produces no evidence that person is linked to terrorism or any manner of illegal activity. It would allow more surveillance without any court approval whatsoever. It would further shield businesses that use dangerous chemicals from public disclosure and enlarge the national security blanket under which Freedom of Information Act requests can be denied.

The circumstances under which people suspected of terrorist activities or support can be stripped of the protections of the legal system are expanded. An American citizen can be stripped of citizenship and expatriated if he or she is found to be a member of, or providing material support to, a group determined by the government to be a terrorist organization, even if the citizen’s involvement is, in itself, entirely legal.

Pretty startling stuff – who says public TV isn’t entertaining? Perhaps “Now,” the Justice Department will take this show to a more appropriate venue, the United States Congress.