Just as the Bush administration is preparing a preemptive strike on Iraq, its Justice Department has been preparing yet another preemptive strike -- a new assault on our civil liberties.
For months, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and his staff have been secretly drafting the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, designed to expand even further the new government powers for domestic surveillance created by the 2001 USA Patriot Act. Justice Department officials have repeatedly denied the existence of the draft bill, dubbed the "Patriot Act II," but a copy leaked out recently and has been posted on a Web site, www.public integrity.org.
Since Sept. 11, 2001, the government has rounded up hundreds of people in secret and refused to disclose even their names, on the spurious grounds that this protects their privacy. As drafted, the measure would remove existing protections under the Freedom of Information Act, making it easier for the government to hide whom it is holding and why, and preventing the public from ever obtaining embarrassing information about government overreaching.
Another section would nullify existing consent decrees against state law enforcement agencies that prevent the agencies from spying on individuals and organizations. These consent decrees were crafted because state and local governments illegally invaded the privacy of American citizens and repeatedly violated their civil rights. To make matters worse, the proposed bill prevents courts from issuing injunctions to block future abuses.
Perhaps the most troubling section would strip U.S. citizenship from anyone who gives "material support" to any group that the attorney general designates as a terrorist organization. Citizenship is the most basic right for all Americans, one from which other rights -- such as the right to vote, to participate in politics and even to live in this country -- all flow. Under our Constitution, Americans can't be deprived of their citizenship, and the rights that go with it, unless they voluntarily give it up.
The measure would get around that constitutional guarantee through a legal loophole. It presumes that anyone who provides "material support" to an organization on the attorney general's blacklist -- even if that support is otherwise lawful -- has intended to relinquish citizenship and therefore may be immediately expatriated.
