WASHINGTON — Ten months after it was passed because of the Sept. 11 attacks,
the USA Patriot Act remains shrouded in complexity and secrecy.
The legislation, overwhelmingly approved by Congress after the White House
demanded new tools to prevent the next terrorist assault, resulted in the largest
expansion of police powers in decades.
Yet Americans know little about it, Congress is having difficulty getting
questions answered, and Bush administration officials won't say how it has been
used.
The act makes it much easier for government agents to monitor phones and computers,
scour financial, medical and student records, investigate library use, conduct
secret searches and detain noncitizens.
The CIA and FBI for the first time ever are allowed to mix foreign intelligence
with law enforcement on U.S. soil. Citing the act, Attorney General John Ashcroft
also authorized FBI agents to spy on domestic groups without having to show evidence
of a crime.
The legislation is an amalgam of changes to dozens of federal statutes in
300 subject areas. Businesses, libraries, colleges and Internet service providers
still have lawyers and consultants scurrying to decipher how they are affected.
Most of the act's track record is hidden from view and, with one important
exception, its provisions have not been challenged in court.
The Justice Department has released only limited information on how the Patriot
Act has been used to detain and deport noncitizens and freeze the assets of suspected
terrorist groups, or how law enforcement has pursued search warrants that could
mean snooping on citizens.
In Congress, the chairmen of the two judiciary committees that have oversight
over federal law enforcement have complained that Ashcroft is not supplying important
data about the use of the Patriot Act or the secret detention hearings of noncitizens.
The first judicial challenge to the Patriot Act has come from an unlikely
source: the supersecret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes
wiretaps and other surveillance of suspected spies and terrorists.
The court this summer ruled against the Justice Department's request to use
the Patriot Act to allow counterintelligence agents and criminal prosecutors to
work more closely together. The Justice Department is appealing the ruling.
Critics in Congress and civil libertarians, including some conservatives,
say the Patriot Act was a classic case of overreach, threatening privacy and due
process through new powers that the FBI and other agencies had sought unsuccessfully
for years.
"What's really dangerous is this administration is using these powers with
the attitude that because this is a war, it's not really the business of Congress,
or in some cases, the courts," said Susan Herman, a constitutional law professor
at Brooklyn Law School.
Bush officials defend the legislation. They say it has helped foil terrorist
plots and has been used carefully. But they won't provide details.
"It's impossible to know exactly how many terrorist attacks have been prevented,"
assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant wrote the House Judiciary Committee.
"The enhanced tools and information-sharing under the Patriot Act strengthens
our ability to detect and disrupt such plans in an effective and coordinated manner."
There is no doubt the act is wide-ranging. The Treasury Department recently
announced rules that tighten requirements on all financial institutions to check
the identity of their customers and whether they appear on lists of terrorist
groups and to report "suspicious activity."
The act also reduces privacy in libraries and threatens state confidentiality
laws that protect book and computer use. Federal agents can easily obtain warrants
to review a patron's reading and computer habits. Under the law, a librarian cannot
disclose the request for records.
Copyright © 2002 The Seattle Times Company
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