5 ms·

I don't like the word reform. I think the correct word is Repeal. "Reforming" by bandaging over is not sufficient. These "reform" bills can also be very long

• chris_wot 11y ago
  If you want to repeal it, fine. But what precisely do you want to repeal? You really want to repeal section 215 of the Act. The Patriot Act covers a lot of uncontroversial ground - if you repeal the entire Act it will cause utter chaos and there will be side effects most people don't want or expect. The problem IMO is not the Act. That had flaws which have been remedied by the courts over the years. The issue is how agencies like the NSA are interpreting the laws and making up secretive (!!) legal fictions to justify the way they do things... in secret. And the FISC is too secretive and willing to rubber stamp the secret requests of the government, leaving little or no opportunity for public scrutiny. But you see, that's a problem with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (aka FISA), which was enacted after the Church Commission found egregious violations of civil liberties in the 60s and 70s. The Patriot Act amended this law, but the structural problems exist even without the USA Patriot Act's amendments, and where even reasonable measures made by the Act have, ironically, been deliberately misinterpreted by government agencies.
  • MCRed 11y ago
    You're correct that the FISA needs to be repealed as well, and it's continued existence shows the PATRIOT ACT is not an anomaly. Those egregious violations of human rights need to be prosecuted, not "reformed". I don't think there's any part of the PATRIOT ACT that is "uncontroversial" the entire thing should god. The claim that it will cause "utter chaos" is kinda silly. We didn't have utter chaos before it was law. IF you think there are bad side effects people don't want, then name them. Too many people think that government is a good thing and that most of what they do isn't evil, and thus they just give the benefit of the doubt time and time again. Well, you may not be doing that, and that might even be true for the government as a whole, but the PATRIOT ACT does not deserve the benefit of the doubt-- the provisions that are clearly abusive and extremely offensive to the constitution show that none of it deserves the benefit of the doubt. I looked at the section titles of your wikipedia article on it, and all of them are either criminal acts for government to do or administrative enabling of criminal acts. What the Church Commission confirmed is what the founders knew, which was that a federal "law enforcement" agency would become the secret police, and that's why they forbade it in the constitution: The only enumerated power for such enforcement is here: "To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;" Everything else, and including everyone involved in propagating these crimes, should be prosecuted. Their crimes are felonies if committed while armed, under USC 18-242. So yes, repealing the PATRIOT ACT doesn't go far enough, the government has been abusing its powers since nearly the late 1700s.
    • chris_wot 11y ago
      If you looked at my link and got through it, I congratulate you :-) but we're still talking about only title II of the Patriot Act! FWIW, I personally don't find anything particularly controversial about title III which deals with money laundering. I don't think concentration accounts should ever be allowed, tightening the rules around identifying foreign beneficial owners and a whole raft of measures were actually very effective and fair. Title IV had problematic aspects around modifications to the INA, particularly around disallowing the entry of family of designated terrorists from entering the U.S. as I feel that's overly broad and discriminatory. I'm particularly cautious about the mandatory detention provisions, even with the safeguards in place. Title V was the one that introduced NSLs, but that was deemed unconstitutional do it's a moot point now. Title VI provided for victims of terrorism, public safety officers and their families. Rolling back these provisions would be pretty bad. I gotta dash, so can't comment on the other titles, from memory there were some issues, but by and large many of the changes were benign. That's the problem with the Act - firstly, the name causes suspicion ("Patriotism is the first refuge of a scoundrel"), it was pushed through far too quickly and I doubt any members of Congress read it which is why it has large holes in it, and parts as it was enacted were later deemed unconstitutional. The good citizens of the United States should really insist on smaller, more focussed bills passed separately in future. And those pushing the bills would be better off skipping cute backronyms like the "USA PATRIOT Act".