While the PATRIOT Act may not deserve all of the ridicule that is heaped against it, there is little doubt that the legislation has been repeatedly and seriously misused by the Justice Department. Consider the following:

â?˘ It has been used more than 150 times to secretly search an individualâ??s home, with nearly 90% of those cases having had nothing to do with terrorism.

â?˘ It was used against Brandon Mayfield, an innocent Muslim American, to tap his phones, seize his property, copy his computer files, spy on his children, and take his DNA, all without his knowledge.

â?˘ It has been used to deny, on account of his political beliefs, the admission to the United States of a Swiss citizen and prominent Muslim Scholar to teach at Notre Dame University.

â?˘ It has been used to unconstitutionally coerce an Internet Service Provider to divulge information about e-mail activity and web surfing on its system, and then to gag that Provider from even disclosing the abuse to the public.

â?˘ Because of gag restrictions, we will never know how many times it has been used to obtain reading records from library and bookstores, but we do know that libraries have been solicited by the Department of Justice â?? voluntarily or under threat of the PATRIOT Act â?? for reader information on more than 200 occasions since September 11.

â?˘ It has been used to charge, detain and prosecute a Muslim student in Idaho for posting Internet website links to objectionable materials, even though the same links were available on the U.S. Governmentâ??s web site.

Even worse than the PATRIOT Act has been the abuse of unilateral powers by the Administration. Since September 11, our government has detained and verbally and physically abused thousands of immigrants without time limit, for unknown and unspecified reasons, and targeted tens of thousands of Arab-Americans for intensive interrogations and immigration screenings. All this serves to accomplish is to alienate Muslim and Arab Americans â?? the key groups to fighting terrorism in our own county â?? who see a Justice Department that has institutionalized racial and ethnic profiling, without the benefit of a single terrorism conviction.

Nor is it helpful when our government condones the torture of prisoners at home and abroad, authorizes the monitoring of mosques and religious sites without any indication of criminal activity, and detains scores of individuals as material witnesses because it does not have evidence to indict them. This makes our citizens less safe not more safe, and undermines our role as a beacon of democracy and freedom.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/democr...atriot_act_721

THEY ARE WATCHING
BlueCat Reviewed by BlueCat on . Are we being watched? :confused: Does anyone wonder if the Law is watching this place. Y'know like monitoring who is on here and what they say so that maybe they can get enough info to bust us? Maybe its just me but I've been wondering that. :confused: Rating: 5