It's easier to list what they can't do under the patriot act then what they can do.
I don't see how the 1A was affected at all.
Sometimes I think it is helpful to get back to what the Patriot Act really says, as so much hype has occurred.
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Some key provisions of the legislation consisted of amendments to the Wiretap Act (1968; amended 1986 and 1994), which had prohibited eavesdropping by the government on private face-to-face, telephone, and electronic communications except as authorized by court order in narrowly defined circumstances in cases of serious crimes. Sections 201 and 202 of the USA PATRIOT Act added computer and terrorist crimes to the list of serious offenses in connection with which law-enforcement officials could seek a court order to conduct eavesdropping. Section 209 established that voice mail was not entitled to the same protections that governed telephone conversations but only to the weaker safeguards applicable to telephone records and e-mail stored with third parties (usually an Internet service provider). In Section 210 the act added individual subscribers’ credit card or bank account numbers to records that could be obtained from a communication services provider through a subpoena.
So terrorist crimes were added to the list, I have no problem with that at all. I don't see much difference in voice mail and email, so I don't have a problem with the two being treated the same. Getting account information via a subpoena? They could do that anyhow with a subpoena just issued to a different company.
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Section 216 permitted the use of trap-and-trace devices and pen registers—which record the source and destination, respectively, of calls made to and from a particular telephone—to monitor electronic communications, understood to include e-mail and Web browsing. Court orders for such surveillance did not require probable cause (a showing of facts that would lead a reasonable person to believe that the surveillance would be likely to uncover evidence of criminal activity by the target) but only a certification by the government that the information sought was likely to be relevant to a criminal investigation.
Okay, I would tend to agree with you here.
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To facilitate cooperation between law-enforcement and intelligence agencies in cases involving terrorism, Section 203 allowed government attorneys to disclose matters before a federal grand jury (whose investigations are generally secret) to “any Federal law enforcement, intelligence, protective, immigration, national defense, or national security official” when such matters concerned “foreign intelligence or counterintelligence.” Section 213 authorized so-called “sneak and peek” searches, in which notification of the target is delayed until after the search has been executed. (The length of the delay must be “reasonable” but could be extended indefinitely for “good cause shown.”)
Sharing information regarding foreign intelligence is not a problem to me. Section 213 could be dicey.
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Other provisions of the act made changes to the operation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which was established by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to authorize electronic surveillance (and later physical searches) targeting foreign powers or their agents. Section 218 removed the requirement that the government certify in its applications for surveillance authority that “the” purpose of the surveillance was to collect foreign intelligence information. Instead, it was sufficient that the government state that collecting such information was “a significant purpose.” In other changes, Section 215 removed a FISA provision that limited the types of records that the government, with a FISA court order, could require certain businesses to produce, replacing it with a general authority to demand “any tangible things” of any third party, including “books, records, papers, documents, and other items.” This section also imposed a gag order that generally prohibited third parties from disclosing the fact that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had sought or obtained such things.
I have no problems with surveillance of foreign powers and their agents.
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A related provision, Section 505, authorized the FBI to issue subpoenas based on a certification that the information sought is relevant to a foreign intelligence or international terrorism investigation. Orders for such information, known as National Security Letters (NSLs), also imposed gag orders on their recipients. Other sections of the act permitted the FISC to authorize “roving” electronic surveillance, which could be carried out in any location and with any equipment (Section 206), and increased the number of judges on the FISC from 7 to 11 (Section 208).
One could be concerned about abuse of this. But then if one believes the FBI is going to break this law, why would one have any doubt that the FBI would do this regardless of whether or not the Patriot Act existed?
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In other titles, the USA PATRIOT Act increased the powers of the Secretary of the Treasury to combat money laundering; tripled the number of border patrol, customs service, and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) personnel along the northern U.S. border; established new terrorism-related grounds for detaining or deporting foreign nationals or denying them admittance to the United States; expanded the definition of “material support” for terrorist organizations to include “expert advice or assistance”; and created new terrorist crimes, including attacking a mass transit system. Finally, to allay the concerns of legislators who had questioned the constitutionality of some provisions, Section 224, titled “Sunset,” stipulated that 16 sections and two subsections of the act would cease to have effect on December 31, 2005.
Not sure that this does any damage to US citizens' rights.
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W never intended for the Patriot Act to go on forever, anyway.
to be fair the 9th circuit is about as whacko as they come. this judge may be the most conservative judge on the circuit. Here's the list, it's a bunch of REAL winners. I didn't see ya'll bitching about Bush's appointees to the circuit, most of whom are NOT conservative.
View attachment 140757
1A Erosions:
Surveillance orders (4A) based on a person's (1A) activities:
What website do you visit?
What books do you read?
What products do you buy?
What have you posted to a web forum or social media?
What about that letter to the editor you wrote?
So now you’re under surveillance.
Or the FBI has issued a search order upon you.
You have no 1A right to tell others about the surveillance you’re under, about the search order against you, even if there’s no need for such secrecy.
Your 4A rights can be void based on exercising 1A rights in a “bad” way as determined by “the government” without your knowledge of the reasons for suspicion, without your ability to challenge due cause.
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You do understand that freedom never comes without a price, how much freedom are you willing to pay for security?Not that I completely agree, but I can see where you are coming from now.
So if a terrorist posts plans to blow up a skyscraper on social media, has researched bomb making, etc., you don't think that would be cause for surveillance?
Not that I completely agree, but I can see where you are coming from now.
So if a terrorist posts plans to blow up a skyscraper on social media, has researched bomb making, etc., you don't think that would be cause for surveillance?
You do understand that freedom never comes without a price, how much freedom are you willing to pay for security?
If a leftist presidential regime puts me under surveillance because I look at FoxNew.com and read opposing political viewpoints, then that’s a real problem.
And this isn’t far from the abuses that are happening.
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But you see, that is not tied to the Patriot Act.
Look at the crap the IRS did under Obama. And the FISA abuse by the FBI. The latter was not even legal according to the Patriot Act. Those leftists don't care about the rule of law, the end justifies the means. I am not going to blame the Patriot Act for such things. I blame the leftists and the idiots that keep voting them in.
I will respectfully disagree, sir, I believe it absolutely is tied to the Patriot Act.
And I’m not the only person or organization who believes this, based on googling patriot act abuses.
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That's really complicated and more the fault of the re-organization roadmap initiated under the Clinton administration.Look at the crap the IRS did under Obama.
How can it be tied to the Patriot Act law when it VIOLATED that law?
I absolutely do not condone what they did in breaking the law. But I will blame the actual culprit - those who broke the law, rather than blame a law that itself did not allow what they did.
The Patriot Act has become a whipping boy for everything including global warming...
https://americanvision.org/11356/ju...ndment-protected-speech-of-innocent-citizens/
As long as the activities of someone else are being investigated, you can be pulled in through some form of guilt-by-association, and the FBI can investigate you and seize your property. Again, this is true now even if everything you do and say is 100 percent perfectly legal and there is no probable cause against you. And this is true, according to the opinion we are about read, even if the court itself concludes that your own personal activities are protected by the First Amendment.
The takeaway is, Americans are being investigated for their First Amendment protected activity, so long as someone’s else’s related conduct is not protected, even where the relationship between the American and the other party is too attenuated to support suspicion of aiding and abetting or conspiracy.
And, of course, “related” is a matter of opinion of the court based on the “facts” laid before it by the FBI or whoever requests the review. The Tenth Amendment Center piles on due criticism:
In the document, Federal judge John D. Bates wrote an opinion stating that law-abiding citizens are fair game for investigation by the FBI under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, as long as it takes place within the context of a greater international terrorism investigation. This obviously gives a great deal of discretion to the feds to abuse the rights of Americans. . . .
The idea that we can rely on government employees to protect our rights from being violated by other government employees is really a silly concept. It is impossible for politically connected judges beholden to those who put them into prestigious positions of power to consistently defend the freedoms of the people. The situation creates a conflict of interest that usually results in decisions slanted in favor of excessive state power.o
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