The USA Patriot Act
The Patriot Act radically (and, in some cases, frighteningly) expands the strength of the US government and law enforcement in regards to the continued war and obstruction against and on domestic terrorism. The interesting thing is that, with the renegotiation of the Patriot Act, the definition of terrorism is very broad. You could be a suspected terrorist, and not even know it. ISP (Internet Service Providers) often report your suspicious actions to the government.
Of course, in order to get a full grasp of the magnitude of the Act, you’d need to look at everything therein as a whole. For the sake of your interest (and sanity?) I’ll only go over the more significant bits.
The Patriot Act has ten titles, each with its own individual sections. The more disturbing Titles include, “Title III: International money laundering abatement and anti-terrorist financing act of 2001”, “Title V: Removing obstacles to investigating terrorism”, and “Title VII: Increased information sharing for the critical infrastructure protection”, “Title VIII: Strengthening the criminal laws against terrorism”.
Title III supports the government’s ability to check things such as bank withdraw, deposit, and transfer history, seize money from you if they think you may be supporting terrorism, and various other assorted nasties like that. This ability is given not just to federal government, but also, in some cases, to local government. Of course, there are procedures that have to be undergone before they can gaze into your financial history, but if someone is intent on getting information about you, procedure will not stop them. Government corruption, especially on the local level, has happened before, is happening now, and will happen again. If nothing else, the potential for abuse is fascinating and frightening.
Title V is probably the most publicly favorable part of the Patriot Act. It allows people who give the government information about terrorists to receive (sometimes large) checks from the government for their contribution. It furthers communication between federal and local government in regards to DNA identification and tracking of individuals, especially convicted felons, and the like. It also cuts some funding to schools and organizations who restrict information flow from parents regarding their children, and who openly give the information regarding children to various companies without the approved written consent of the parents. This may be widely appreciated. It could potentially lessen incidences of identity theft, and may ensure the future of your children.
Title VII extends the Director the Bureau of Justice Assistance to “make grants and enter into contracts” with organizations in order to deal with terrorist groups that cross boundaries of jurisdiction. Title VII gives the Bureau of Justice Assistance a decent budget to carry out these anti-terrorism acts. In 2002, the budget was 50,000,000 dollars, and in 2003, it was 100,000,000 dollars. Not too shabby; I sure hope all that money goes to the right thing.
Title VIII defines and extends the traditional definition of ‘terrorism’, and assigns just punishment to acts of terrorism that could be enacted by the courts at their discretion. It even ventures to define what can be called terrorism, even giving a Neurocam-esque list.
Times are changing, and so are the laws. The Patriot Act extends the powers of the government to watch you, inspect you, with or without your knowledge. If you’ve ever been to a pyrotechnics site, you may be in the suspected terrorist database. If you frequent anarchistic websites, you may be in the listings. These laws are here, and they’re not going away. The war on terrorism will not result in peace, only retribution, and in the future, we will see laws reflecting this. You can expect to lose more and more privacy as the government institutes more and more security in the never-ending pursuit of the homebrewed terrorist.
