Text 13619, 108 rader
Skriven 2005-06-16 13:36:48 av Alan Hess
Ärende: keep the Patriot Act
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It aids in the war on terror.
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I've posted views from both sides of the debate.  Personally, I think some
aspects of the Patriot Act infringe too much on our civil liberties.  Some
aspects don't (such as allowing intelligence and law enforcement to share
information.)  Let's see if Congress can strike a good balance.
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http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-op.patriot16jun16,1,2123834.story
?coll=bal-pe-opinion
Law strikes right balance


By James Jay Carafano and Paul Rosenzweig

June 16, 2005

WASHINGTON - On June 14, 1985, TWA Flight 847 took off from Athens bound for
Rome. Shortly after takeoff, two men in masks commandeered the plane.
Negotiations began, and the FBI was able to intercept communications between
the hijackers and possible co-conspirators in the United States.

During a stop in Beirut, the hijackers grew impatient, killed an American Navy
diver from Maryland named Robert Stethem and dumped his body on the tarmac on
live TV. At this point, the Justice Department announced its intention to
capture and prosecute those responsible. This meant the "primary purpose" of
the intercepts no longer was foreign intelligence-gathering. It was now,
clearly, prosecution.

As a result, because the rules prohibited using intelligence-gathering
techniques in a situation in which intelligence-gathering was not the main
purpose, the FBI did what it thought it had to do and turned off its listening
devices.

As lawmakers take up renewal of the Patriot Act, we're going to hear a lot
about the potential for police or prosecutorial abuse in several of its
provisions. And, to be sure, many of the provisions will require constant and
consistent oversight.

But free societies constantly make tradeoffs between freedom and security, and
the calculus in those decisions changes with the circumstances. It appears the
balance struck by the Patriot Act has been about right. It has brought an end
to law enforcement officials making the kinds of decisions the FBI did in the
TWA Flight 847 case, and it has done so with no discernible damage to civil
rights.

The "wall" that formerly existed between intelligence and law enforcement when
it came to sharing information has been the main casualty of the Patriot Act.
And what did that wall do for us? Coleen Rowley, the FBI whistleblower, says it
prevented the FBI from "connecting the dots" before 9/11.

The Patriot Act replaced the "primary purpose" standard with one that allows
intelligence-style information-gathering techniques, such as the intercepts in
use that day in Beirut, if intelligence-gathering is a "significant" purpose of
the investigation. In other words, now, any information lawfully gathered
during a foreign or domestic counterintelligence investigation can be shared
with other federal agencies.

Let's hope this spirit of reasonableness governs the debate over whether to
renew the Patriot Act. The debate ought not stray into alleged shortcomings of
the war on terror. It should address three questions: Do the provisions of the
Patriot Act that require renewal help in the war on terror? Are they being
abused? Is there sufficient oversight over the agencies involved in protecting
us from the terrorist threat?

The answer to the first question is obvious. According to the Justice
Department, we've identified and disrupted more than 150 terrorist threats,
captured or killed nearly two-thirds of al-Qaida's known leadership, ended the
terror careers of 3,000 operatives, broken up terrorist cells in Buffalo,
Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Northern Virginia, charged 379 people in
the United States with terrorism-related crimes, convicted more than 200 of
them and frozen $136 million in assets around the world.

As for the second question, consider the remarks of Democratic Sen. Dianne
Feinstein of California on the Senate floor in 2003. "I've tried to see what
has happened in the complaints that have come in," she said. "And I've
received, to date, 21,434 complaints about the Patriot Act." These, she said,
turned out to be unrelated civil liberties gripes or complaints about a
"Patriot Act II" that doesn't yet exist. "I have never had a single [verified]
abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me. My staff e-mailed the ACLU [American
Civil Liberties Union] and asked them for instances of actual abuses. They
e-mailed back and said they had none."

As for the third question, the law, though hastily written, contains a bevy of
safeguards against abuse. Courts still must approve sneak-and-peek warrants -
and even then, law enforcement has to demonstrate a clear likelihood that
evidence would be destroyed or witnesses harmed for this special type of
enforcement.

To be sure, one man's giving aid and comfort to the enemy is another's lawful
expression of First Amendment rights. The Patriot Act did not outlaw criticism
of our government, and it cannot and should not be construed as such. But when
senators such as Ms. Feinstein and Delaware Democrat Joseph R. Biden Jr., who
said the Justice Department "is doing a pretty good job" of implementing the
Patriot Act, are trying to cool the rhetoric, someone must be doing something
right.

James Jay Carafano and Paul Rosenzweig are senior legal research fellow for
national security and homeland security and senior research fellow,
respectively, at the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage
Foundation. They are co-authors of Winning the Long War: Lessons from the Cold
War for Defeating Terrorism and Preserving Freedom.

Copyright + 2005, The Baltimore Sun

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