September
11
A Year Later
Congress questions Patriot Act policies
By JOE FEUERHERD
Washington
Feeling a small but discernible sense of buyer’s remorse for
its overwhelming and hurried support of the post-Sept. 11 Patriot Act, Congress
is placing increasing pressure on the Bush administration to explain its
domestic spying policies.
One result of that nagging regret: House Judiciary Committee
hearings this fall on government surveillance of U.S. residents, including, as
a result of a May Justice Department initiative, those who gather at religious
services or political events.
Spearheaded by a political odd couple -- committee chairman F.
James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., one of the House’s most conservative
Republicans, and John Conyers, D-Mich., the committee’s senior Democrat
and one of the body’s most liberal members -- the hearings promise an
enlightening civics lesson. The key questions: What constraints on domestic
spying does the Constitution provide on a government that is on a war footing
and worried about foreign operatives within its borders? Where to draw the line
between legitimate intelligence gathering and illicit government snooping?
The scrutiny has already begun. In a June 13 letter to Attorney
General John Ashcroft, Sensenbrenner and Conyers asked more than 50 questions
related to implementation of the Patriot Act. The Justice Department said
answers to several of the questions were within the purview of the more
secretive House and Senate Intelligence Committees and requested additional
time to respond publicly to others. Sensenbrenner threatened to compel answers.
“I’ve never signed a subpoena in my five-and-a-half years as
chairman,” Sensenbrenner told an Aug. 18 editorial meeting of the
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “I guess there’s a first time for
everything.”
Among the unanswered queries: How many times has the Justice
Department shared foreign intelligence and counterintelligence information with
domestic law enforcement agencies and immigration officials?
Meanwhile, Ashcroft’s decision last May to expand FBI
“surveillance guidelines” -- agents can now begin investigations when
they have a “reasonable indication” that criminal activity is taking
place -- has civil liberties groups howling. Under the old rules, FBI agents
could not begin an investigation without “probable cause” and
high-level Justice Department authorization.
The guidelines were eased, according to the Justice Department, to
allow agents access to information and meetings on an equal basis with any
member of the public. The new guidelines correct what Ashcroft termed
“excessive constraints on our intelligence gathering and sharing
capabilities.”
Others see a less benign outcome, pointing to previous abuses by
the FBI, including government infiltration and disruption of the civil rights
and anti-war movements of the 1960s and ’70s.
The Arab American Institute, for example, said “the new
guidelines allow wide-ranging monitoring of political and religious activities
unconnected with any investigation of any crimes, and do away with the
requirement that some kinds of investigations be approved in Washington. On
this point, it is clear that the guidelines clearly target Arab Americans,
Muslims, immigrants and visitors to this country.”
James Dempsey, deputy director of the Washington-based Center for
Democracy and Technology, pointed to the 1980s investigation of the Committee
in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, CISPES. There, said Dempsey, the
FBI received information, later shown to be false, that the Dallas chapter of
the group was planning “to carry out violent activities” in
opposition to U.S. policy in Central America. That initial tip spiraled into a
broad investigation that encompassed surveillance of mainstream church groups,
including those who, for example, publicly questioned U.S. immigration
policies. The fear is that the new guidelines will lead to a repeat of such
activities, where groups and people are investigated, said Dempsey, “not
for what they’ve done, but for what they believe.”
Further, said Dempsey, formerly assistant counsel to the House
Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, the changes are not
needed to fight terrorism. FBI agents and other law enforcement officials had
the authority under the old guidelines to investigate religious or political
groups if they suspected criminal activity.
The coming debate on government surveillance is just one of many
post-Sept. 11 civil liberties issues Congress and the courts will consider this
fall. Among them:
- The identity of the more than 100 people currently held by
federal authorities. Civil liberties groups have a suit pending that would
require the government to reveal the names of those held in Sept. 11-related
arrests. More than 1,000 people were detained in the two months following the
Sept. 11 attack.
- The use of military tribunals to try non-citizens allegedly
involved in terrorism.
- Increased monitoring of legal immigrants and visitors from Arab
countries.
Convinced that its policies have thwarted additional terrorist
attacks, and fearful of blame in the event of another, no one expects the Bush
administration to back off its aggressive stance. But the Patriot Act expires
in 2005, at which point those who question the administration’s approach
hope to turn congressional buyer’s remorse into a recall.
Joe Feuerherd is a freelance writer in Maryland.
Related Web sites
Arab American Institute
www.aaiusa.org
Center for
Democracy and Technology
www.cdt.org
Department of
Justice
www.usdoj.gov
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
www.house.gov/judiciary
Text of the
Patriot Act
jurist.law.pitt.edu/hr3162.htm
National Catholic Reporter, September 6,
2002
|
