Can you clarify how this is part of the Patriot Act? I’m just confused because you say it was also done (though at a lower frequency) prior to 9/11/01. That would seem to imply that the Patriot Act wasn’t needed. I’m not objecting to your statement, just trying to understand it.
Enough cites, yes.
Yor first one doesn’t involve the Patriot Act, does it?
Your second cite is certainly relevant to the question. It address behavior by federal officials that is clearly legal under the Patriot Act, and raises the spectre of how that behavior may be undesirable.
Your third cite is on the fence. While it claims to address Patriot Act violations, the actual wrongs it alleges – mistreatment in a federal detention center, for instance – are independent of the Patriot Act. In other words, the Patriot Act does not authorize the beating of someone in federal detention. That’s illegal WITH the Patriot Act, and would be illegal WITHOUT the Patriot Act. It’s unclear to me how its relevant to a discussion of wether the provisions of the Patriot Act create wrongs.
Your fourth cite involves not the Patriot Act, but the powers granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
I’m surprised nobody has brought up the perception of the USA PATRIOT act. As an outsider, I always thought that America was among the most free countries in the world. I have no doubt that it still is, to some degree.
However, at least to me, the USA PATRIOT act seems like a huge infringment on personal liberty and privacy. Which are values that are generally regarded to be held by every American.
It’s unfortunate that it had to come to this, after 9/11 and everything.
I suppose that doesn’t exactly count as “abuse” of the power. I think the USA PATRIOT act itself is an abuse of power, and anathema to what most people believe America is all about.
From the article:
And:
So that’s what the Patriot Act did.
And just to make you feel more secure about the government’s handling of these records:
AFAICT, the decisions about what to do with these records, once they’ve got them, weren’t made by the Patriot Act, but if it weren’t for the PA, the government wouldn’t be able to play fast and loose with the records in the first place.
It’s not just Democrats that are unhappy with the loosening of standards on the NSLs:
I see no reason to assume that any abuses from the Patriot Act would be made known to the public. That’s one of the problems with all the secrecy involved…it’s secret.
The thing is, perceptions are easy to manipulate. If critics of anything can’t point to chapter and verse and explain what the problem is, then all they’re doing is handwaving and muddying the waters of the discussion.
Too much of that goes on already in our national discourse. Here at the Dope, we try to combat that tendency.
Why is it that a majority of people (Americans, that is) favored the Patriot Act, if it was such anathema to what most of them believed?
Because they’re morons.
At what point in time did the majority of the American people favor the Patriot Act, and how much did they know about it at the time?
I think the answer to your question is a matter of perceptions about the Act, and not a matter of genuine understanding by more than a handful of Americans. Hell, even on this board, each PA discussion seems to have to deal with a great deal of ignorance.
In re my first cite, you are correct, and I had previously said as much.
In re my third cite, the expanded powers given the FBI in the Patriot Act were, as I understand it, responsible for the agents being where they were, or the persons in custody being where they were. Were it not for the Act, the abuses would not have taken place.
In re my fourth cite, I believe it covers powers of the FISA expanded within the Patriot Act, and then promptly abused.
Am I in error?
This post I made in the other thread gives a good breakdown. Basically, most of the proivisions have majority support. People don’t like the “sneak and peek” provision, though.
Sadly, too many Americans are like my Mom. I wouldn’t call my mom a “moron”, but she is fond of saying: If you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.
I understand that. It’s certainly a shame that critics of the USA PATRIOT act would take that route instead of having an honest discussion of the real problems the act could cause (okay, you can laugh now 
).
I’m sure there are great reasons for the USA PATRIOT act to exist. I might be quite alone in this thread on this, but I think, for better or worse, all American’s gave up a significant amount of their liberty and privacy with the passing of this act.
That other countries might see America as less free than before this act was passed might not matter to Americans at all. Why should it?
It is, however, quite confusing that a people so devoted to their liberty would easily agree to an act such as this.
I meant “most people outside the country believe”, if that makes a difference. I believe (and if the posts I have read of yours in the past is any guide, you’ll disagree with me 
) that the USA PATRIOT act was accepted because after 9/11 the administration used the public’s very understandable fear to quickly pass the act and subsequently give authorities significantly more power to spy on it’s own citizens.
It could be argued that it’s all for the greater good, and perhaps it is.
If I am wrong, it’s still just as confusing that the people of America would favour such an act. I’d say the majority of people in America, and elsewhere, value privacy and freedom.
Read the link in my post #31. It’s not that simple. The Patriot Act has lots of provisions, and some are very popular while others are not popular at all.
Oh yes, I read the link. However the parts that were less well received were part of the USA PATRIOT act. They weren’t seperate acts on their own. I never did contend that the majority of Americans disliked the entire USA PATRIOT act. Obviously provisions such as the “sneak and peak” were not at all popular. Couldn’t the USA PATRIOT act have been modified before passing it to eliminate those particular provisions that were sure to be unpopular with the majority of Americans?
Regardless of how effective those unpopular provisions are, the administration could have saved themselves a lot of bad press if they were to have softened or left out those provisions.
I clicked on the “Submit Reply”-button too early.
Just from the same link:
If someone wants to test it, I can give you the links to al-Quida and ‘nearby’-links.
Henry
I find that a little coy, buddy. It was passed in late October 2001. That’s just six weeks after the towers were hit. At that point people were so damn scared they’d have approved of bills that entitled the government to set up death camps for anyone who LOOKED middle eastern, regardless of any other evidence.
For me, the PATRIOT act (I hate cute acronyms, FTR) strikes me as one of those ‘trust us, we’re the good guys’ measures from the government. I wouldn’t want something like that on the books even if God himself were President. Call me a cynic but given a chance to operate and abuse power government WILL operate and abuse power.
Give me accountability, sunshine laws, open database access for all, and any other measure that fully allows citizens to see what their government is up to. I’m just not a trusting soul when it comes to politicians.
The cite I gave in post #31 is from Aug '05, and shows that a majority of Americans support the Patriot Act.
That one is particularly disgusting. What do you call people who oppose the Patriot Act?
IIRC, the act was passed largely before anyone got a chance to even read it. This SF Chronicle piece from 2002 backs up my recollection:
I’m less than convinced that some of those descriptions are apt, in the sense of giving respondents a true picture of the workings of the Patriot Act. For instance, I don’t see any explanation of what a National Security Letter is, or how it can be used, or how often it is used, anywhere in that poll.