Abstract

Patriot Act Evasions

The article presents an editorial regarding the United States Congressional hearings on the Patriot Act's infringement on civil liberties. In the first round of Congressional hearings into the Patriot Act, the normally precise Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took on the oily grammar of evasion whenever he was pressed on a core civil liberties issue. The review of the Patriot Act marks an opportunity for Congress to catalogue abuses and rethink the Administration's rights-shredding approach to security. Through January 2005 the Justice Department served at least 155 "sneak-and-peek" search warrants, undermining the American tradition requiring reasonable notice of searches and seizures. Many of those secret warrants involved not terrorism but conventional prosecution for violent crime and drugs--a broadening of police power with no national-security justification. When Congress passed the act in 2001, not even its critics foresaw the full breadth of the Administration's sustained assault on civil liberties and the rule of law. Congress should pass the Security and Freedom Enhancement Act, a bipartisan bill that would restore key checks and balances and constitutional provisions.