REPORT, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, "SEEKING TRUTH FROM JUSTICE, PATRIOT PROPAGANDA: THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S CAMPAIGN TO MISLEAD THE PUBLIC ABOUT THE USA PATRIOT ACT," JULY 2003 The Justice Department's Campaign to Mislead July 2003 ACLU AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION Seeking Truth PATRIOT Propaganda: The Justice Department's Campaign to Mislead Published July 2003 THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION is the nation's premier guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Seeking Truth From Justice PATRIOT Propaganda: The Justice Department's Campaign to Mislead n recent months, citizen concern about the Unfortunately, the Department of Justice Primarily at issue is Section 215 of the without an ordinary criminal subpoena or search warrant and without probable cause an order from a court giving them records on clients or customers from librarics, bookstores, doctors, universities, Internet service providers and other public entities and private sector businesses. The Act also imposes a gag order prohibiting an organization forced to turn over records from disclosing the search to their clients, customers or anyone else. The result is vastly expanded gov crnment power to rifle through individuals' finances, medical historics, Internet usage, bookstore purchases, library usage, school records, travel patterns or through records of any other activity. The debate over the PATRIOT Act comes at a time when the Justice Department is not only pushing Congress to remove "sunset" or expiration provisions that apply to some portions of the Act, but is also planning to ask Congress for passage of new legislation – dubbed "PATRIOT II" that would give federal law enforcement authorities even more expansive powers. In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on June 5, Attorney General Ashcroft testified that the new powers would include expansions of the offense of "material support" for terrorism, which under overbroad definitions of terrorism in the original PATRIOT Act could be applied to political protesters, and an expansion of presumptive, pre-trial detention even after the Department's own Inspector General found widespread mistreatment of detainees wrongly classified as terror suspects. It is troubling that in its cagerness to prepare a foundation for new surveillance and other powers, the Justice Department has resorted to spreading falsehoods and half-truths about the powers it already has. The following report lays out a series of Seeking Truth From Justice FALSEHOOD: The PATRIOT Act does not apply to Americans. What the government has been saying: "This is limited only to foreign intelligence," said Mark Corallo, a spokesman with the Department of Justice. "U.S. citizens cannot be investigated under this act." - Florida Today Sept. 23, 2002 Mark Corallo, Justice Department spokesman, said Wednesday that critics of the USA Patriot Act were "completely wrong" and denied that the act targeted Americans. ... "I don't know why they are mislcading the public, but they are," he said of the act's critics Thursday. "The fact is the FBI can't get your records." - Bangor [ME] Daily News April 4, 2003 "And I have prepared... this handy chart that takes the actual text of section 215 and explains the requirement for court authorization, the requirement that it not - it is not directed at US Persons, the requirement that it cannot be directed solely at First Amendment activities. ..." "The public has I think been misled, and this is the myth versus the reality of section 215." Viet Dinh. Assistant Attorney General, primary author of the PATRIOT Act, speaking at the National Press Club, Washington D.C., April 24, 2003) "I think, for instance, there is concern that under the PATRIOT Act, federal agents are now able to review library records and books checked out by U.S. citizens. If you read the Act, that's absolutely not true.... It can't be for U.S. citizens.” - Testimony of Timothy Burgess, U.S. Attorney for Alaska, before the Alaska Senate State Affairs Committee on May 13, 2003 TRUTH: Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act can be used against American citizens. Claims that Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act cannot be used against American citizens are simply wrong. According to the text of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act as it was amended by Section 215: (a)(1) The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or a designee of the Director (whose rank shall be no lower than Assistant Special Agent in Charge) may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. ! Video of Dinh's remarks is available online at www.c-span.org. "Viet Dinh & Marc Rotenberg Debate Patriot Act,” April 24, 2003, |