As a piece of legislation, it is quite disturbing to examine both for its implications and the utter lack of debate that it encountered as it moved through the three primary branches of the American Government. Where 9/11 redefined Bush's presidency, the Patriot Act, and its successor, 'Patriot II' set the tone of the current Republican-dominated government in the United States.
I have assembled a bunch of linkage about the Patriot Act itself, both official and editorial in nature:
- The Text of the "Patriot Act"
- The "official" DOJ Web Page Presence
- Editorial: EPIC Organization's Patriot Act Page
- Editorial: Slate Magazine's Commentary
- A leaked draft of Patriot II
- Editorial: EFF's Analysis of Patriot II
- Editorial: San Antonio Current Magazine
- Editorial: Prison Planet e-zine
- Editorial: ACLU's Analysis of Patriot II
As a number of editorials I uncovered point out, the Bush Administration has been quietly adding parts of the Patriot II agenda to the legislative arsenal that US government agencies have at their disposal. It's been a small bill here, another amendment there approach - which in the US Congress and Senate seems to be how things get passed - riders that are totally unrelated to a 'funding bill' get attached and suddenly are part of the legislative body. It makes the legislation a complex, tangled web to follow at the best of times. (I almost feel sorry for US lawyers)
On examination, the Patriot Act(s) and their offspring are quite disturbing. They provide the government with wide ranging powers of search and seizure that are quite beyond the old tests that would have been needed for a judge to grant a search warrant. There are also aspects of the legislation that amount to a carte-blanche right to wiretap electronic communications such as e-mail and web browsing habits. Obliging librarians to report 'suspicious' book withdrawals is another worrisome thing, and rapidly begins to approach the Orwellian notion of 'ThoughtCrime' (See George Orwell's 1984).
I've noticed on several occasions little 'byline' articles describing a piece of legislation that had been signed into effect. Basically, it looks like under the 'fog' created by war in Iraq, and strategically placed terrorism alerts, laws that would otherwise cause quite a stir are being enacted. In any democracy, this is a very worrisome pattern, especially when many of the laws either grant new powers to law-enforcement agencies, or they begin restricting legitimate civil liberties.
As a Canadian, how do laws like the Patriot Act affect me? Not directly perhaps - unless I find myself living in the United States for some period of time. However, it was pointed out recently in this country that the Canadian subsidiary of Lockheed-Martin corp. was contracted to provide census systems to Statistics Canada. Commercially, that decision may have made a lot of sense. However, as people pointed out, under certain conditions of the Patriot Act, Lockheed Martin's US parent company could be compelled to turn over data that its Canadian subsidiary had on its servers. A potentially very worrisome notion if any legitimate census data were to be present on their servers. The indirect reach of the Patriot Act crosses international borders, and does so in ways that do not respect the sovereignty of foreign powers.
As an assault on civil rights that the American public, the Patriot Act and its offspring have implications that should worry citizens of all liberal democracies. While I can forgive the Patriot Act being a little overreaching as a knee-jerk reaction to the horrors of 9/11, Patriot II (or whatever form it has taken) is a much more coldly calculated bill, its intentions pointing towards giving unreasonable powers to law enforcement agencies without adequate counter-checks to ensure that those powers are not being abused.
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