Usa Patriot Act

"Powers of Patriot Act in Eye of the Beholder" (Sept. 2) provides little to clarify the areas of "misconception" that people have regarding the USA Patriot Act. The only thing that is clear to me is that there are sections in the act that do undermine our constitutional rights. Using the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Court, a secret tribunal (emphasis on the word "secret"), to circumvent the usual grand jury process in criminal investigations deprives a suspect of due process. The broad nature of the Patriot Act's definition of "domestic terrorism" should give us all cause for concern.

Along with the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the Bush administration's illegal eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, the USA Patriot Act came to symbolize the excesses of the post-9/11 war on terrorism. Now, as it weighs the extension of three expiring provisions, the Democratic-controlled Congress has an opportunity to restore key privacy protections that were forgotten in the aftermath of the attacks. Earlier this month, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to renew the provisions and sent it to the Senate floor.

It's a bitter irony that Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's Justice Department is touting his freedom-depriving coup, the USA Patriot Act (Aug. 20), at the Web site www.lifeandliberty.gov. The Patriot Act goes so far in gutting the liberties guaranteed to Americans under the Bill of Rights -- removing protections against unreasonable search and seizure, the right to due process under the law, the right to a speedy trial (ask anyone at Guantanamo) -- that the surgical tool used might as well have been a machete.

The Patriot Act -- a favorite tool in the George W. Bush administration's fight against terrorism -- may be renamed later this year as the Justice Act. But the law itself, including its controversial provisions that gave FBI agents more leeway to search computers and bank records, is likely to survive, albeit with some changes to limit who can be searched. "Security and liberty are both essential in our free society," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.

What America does Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) think he's protecting by his proposal to delete the sunset provisions of the USA Patriot Act and extend forever the hollowing of our nation's constitutional protections of individual civil liberties ("A Sly Move by Sen. Hatch," editorial, April 14)? Perhaps he's protecting the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy's vision of America -- but certainly not that of our founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, or the millions who came to America to escape tyranny and seek freedom.

Participants at a Muslim American conference called on the Immigration and Naturalization Agency Saturday to terminate its registration program and stop "deceptive tactics that frighten law-abiding members of the community." And they asked the INS to disclose the number and locations of people who were detained last week while trying to register.

ATTY. GEN. Alberto R. Gonzales has been the cheerleader-in-chief for the USA Patriot Act, the post-9/11 legislation that has made it easier for government investigators to obtain electronic records detailing the habits of ordinary Americans. So when even Gonzales complains that the FBI has been cutting corners in obtaining such sensitive information, Congress needs to take another look at the Patriot Act.

EUGENE, Ore. -- Hope Marston keeps the seeds of revolution in four plastic crates stacked on the planked floor of her overcrowded bungalow here at the southern edge of this left-leaning college town.

Along with the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and the Bush administration's illegal eavesdropping on U.S. citizens, the USA Patriot Act came to symbolize the excesses of the post-9/11 war on terrorism. Now, as it weighs the extension of three expiring provisions, the Democratic-controlled Congress has an opportunity to restore key privacy protections that were forgotten in the aftermath of the attacks. Earlier this month, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill to renew the provisions and sent it to the Senate floor.

Marin County supervisors have approved a resolution opposing the USA Patriot Act and the Homeland Security Act. The vote came Tuesday with just one dissent and over the objections of the county's sheriff and district attorney. The USA Patriot Act gives law enforcement broad powers to search people's homes, examine business records and eavesdrop on phone and computer activity.

A federal appeals court ruled Monday that some portions of the U.S. Patriot Act, which governs dealings with foreign terrorist organizations, are unconstitutional because the language is too vague to be understood by a person of ordinary intelligence. The ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a 2005 decision by U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins. Collins ruled on a petition seeking to clear the way for U.S.

The Bush administration is appealing a ruling by a federal judge in Portland who struck down key portions of the USA Patriot Act as unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled last month the act cannot be used to authorize secret searches and wiretapping to gather criminal evidence -- instead of intelligence gathering -- without violating the 4th Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Two provisions of the Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the 4th Amendment."

The Bush administration's war on terrorism suffered another legal setback Thursday when a federal judge struck down part of the revised USA Patriot Act. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled that investigators eventually must get a court's approval when ordering Internet providers and phone companies to turn over records without telling customers.

washington -- The Justice Department is putting the final touches on regulations that could give Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales important new sway over death penalty cases in California and other states, including the power to shorten the time that death row inmates have to appeal convictions to federal courts.

ATTY. GEN. Alberto R. Gonzales has been the cheerleader-in-chief for the USA Patriot Act, the post-9/11 legislation that has made it easier for government investigators to obtain electronic records detailing the habits of ordinary Americans. So when even Gonzales complains that the FBI has been cutting corners in obtaining such sensitive information, Congress needs to take another look at the Patriot Act.

I find it sadly ironic that on the April 25 front page there was an article regarding the World War II Japanese internment camps and another article indicating U.S. support of the USA Patriot Act. When will we learn? Marlene Forstrom Rancho Mirage

The Justice Department's war on terrorism has drawn intense scrutiny from the left and the right. Now, a chief architect of the USA Patriot Act and a former top assistant to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft are joining the fray, voicing concern about aspects of the administration's anti-terrorism policy.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales has so politicized the Justice Department that he should step down for the sake of the nation, the Senate's third-ranking Democrat said Sunday. Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York -- citing recent disclosures about the FBI's improper use of administrative subpoenas to obtain private records and the controversy over the dismissal of eight U.S.

Angry lawmakers on Friday threatened to amend the USA Patriot Act and limit the FBI's powers in the wake of a disclosure that agents had improperly obtained confidential records of people in the United States.