| Topic: |
Science > Abortion |
| User: |
"james g. keegan jr." |
| Date: |
24 Jul 2007 04:43:38 PM |
| Object: |
Patriot Abuse |
Patriot Abuse
By Janet Nocek
The Hartford Courant
Sunday 22 July 2007
I was gagged by the Patriot Act while the attorney general was
free to tell falsehoods about it.
When the USA Patriot Act was being reauthorized in 2005, Attorney
General Alberto R. Gonzales claimed that not one single abuse of the
"national security letters" provision had been reported.
It must be his poor memory that caused Mr. Gonzales to tell
Congress that no abuse had been reported. What else would explain why
he did not mention the reports that described abuses and
mismanagement of NSLs - which we now discover were in his possession
before his testimony?
I was one of four library colleagues who challenged an NSL in the
courts around the time of its reauthorization. We were under a gag
order because of the nondisclosure provision of the NSL section of
the Patriot Act. This happened even though a judge with high-level
security clearance had declared that there was no risk in identifying
us as recipients of an NSL.
We were therefore not allowed to testify to Congress about our
experience with the letters - which seek information, without court
review, on people like library users.
It is more than irksome to now discover that the attorney general
was giving Congress false information - at the same time that we
recipients of NSLs were not allowed to express our concerns. My
colleagues and I were lucky to have our gag order lifted eventually,
with the help of lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union,
after the federal District Court found constitutional problems with
that section of the Patriot Act. Unfortunately, we were prohibited
from speaking to the public - or even to our U.S. senators and
representatives - until after the Patriot Act was reauthorized.
A gag order is very difficult to deal with. A person cannot tell
her family or friends she has received a demand from the government
to turn in information on another person. Whether you agree with the
security-letter provision or not, receiving such a letter is an
emotionally wrenching experience.
And if the government requires you to compromise your
professional and personal ethics, it can be an intensely disturbing
experience. You feel like a character in an Orwellian book. You feel
trapped in a world that others like you may inhabit, but you cannot
reach outside of that world to find out.
Reportedly hundreds of thousands of security letters have been
sent out. The recipients remain gagged and can never speak about
their experience, under threat of a five-year prison sentence. They
can never describe the scope and nature of the information they give
to the FBI.
Therefore, it is laughable to assume that no abuse has been made
of the security-letter provision. The secrecy under which the
provision is administered guarantees a lack of oversight.
The act was reauthorized without significant change to the
nondisclosure provision, which prevents anyone who receives an
national security letter from talking about the experience, to
anyone, ever.
I don't believe the FBI is to blame for its reported
mismanagement of NSLs. The Patriot Act does not effectively address
court and congressional oversight. It follows that abuse and
mismanagement are practically a given.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072407D.shtml
--
get real. like jesus would ever own a gun or vote republican.
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