Fisking the Propaganda Machine (Part 1)

Immediately after the brutal terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, both Congress and the Administration reexamined the legal tools available to investigators and prosecutors in the fight against terrorism. Taking into account the lessons learned from past experience, they found these tools to be inadequate. Acting swiftly and responsibly to correct numerous deficiencies, Congress and the Administration set out to update, strengthen, and expand laws governing the investigation and prosecution of terrorism within the parameters of the Constitution and our national commitment to the protection of civil rights and civil liberties. As a result of those efforts, Congress overwhelmingly passed, and on October 26, 2001, the President signed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act ( USA PATRIOT Act or Act ).1

The Department of Justice has issued a report on the Patriot Act, and I've got a mirrored copy in case theirs goes away. The above is from the introductory paragraph. It's an interesting way to characterize a law that had already been written by the government's lawyers well before 9-11 occurred (they were just waiting for the right moment to introduce it), and was passed with many congressman unable to read the bill before voting.

Bear in mind that this report is presenting the Administration's case. It's not an unbiased report at all. I'm going to fisk it, but one of the dangers of fisking is that it's hard to criticize what isn't mentioned at all.

This legislation provided our nation s law enforcement, national defense, and intelligence personnel with enhanced and vital new tools to bring terrorists and other dangerous criminals to justice. As President Bush stated upon its signing, the Act takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike.

Funny, they didn't have much problem identifying several of the 9/11 terrorists before they struck. There didn't seem to be much disruption going on, though. It wasn't for lack of investigative power; it was for political correctness. It wouldn't be politically correct to investigate Arabs who don't want to take off or land, after all.

Since the USA PATRIOT Act was enacted, the Department of Justice -- ever cognizant of civil liberties -- has moved swiftly and vigorously to put its new tools into practice. As of May 5, 2004, the Department has charged 310 defendants with criminal offenses as a result of terrorism investigations since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and 179 of those defendants have already been convicted.

You mean like the freedom to take pictures of landmarks from public land without being harassed by the police? How about people who were beaten in police custody?

For a variety of reasons, this report cannot describe every case in which the USA PATRIOT Act has been instrumental. Some of these cases, for instance, are ongoing and cannot be publicly discussed. Others, particularly including a number of terrorism- related cases, cannot be discussed usefully without disclosing classified information. Therefore, this report is not a comprehensive discussion of the use of USA PATRIOT Act authorities, but is instead an unclassified overview of the usefulness of those authorities.

What they mean is, "We left out the embarassing ones."

As the Attorney General has affirmed, The fight against terrorism is now the first and overriding priority of the Department of Justice. 3 The Department s efforts over the past twoand- a-half years have been characterized by an unwavering commitment to two complementary objectives: securing the United States against the threat of terrorist attacks and preserving the rights and liberties that are guaranteed to every American. Security and liberty are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, not conflicting, goals. Under the leadership of the President and the Attorney General, the Department of Justice has been, and remains, dedicated to using the USA PATRIOT Act in service of both aims.

So much so that Ashcroft recently launched a 32-person task force investigating internet pornography. Yeah, cracking down on terrorism does make it easier to crack down on free speech.

Anyone know how the Patriot Act can be used to serve the aim of liberty, and preserve the civil rights and liberties of Americans? I'd love some ideas, because I just don't see it. I mean, really. "Ma'am, we wrote a National Security Letter to your library to see what books you checked out. We found you're not reading enough subversive material, so we can't arrest you for anything yet. So, me and the guys, we figured we'd drop by and let you know that you can read all the subversive material you want. Go right ahead, it's OK. We have freedom and liberty in America. And we really need an arrest to justify this surveillance."

Prior law, as interpreted and implemented, had the effect of sharply limiting the ability of law enforcement and intelligence officers to share information, which severely hampered terrorism investigators ability to connect the dots.

Actually, what they really mean is, "We instituted a really stupid policy, going beyond the requirements of the law, that prevented us from watching terrorists we knew were in the country when it was misinterperted to be even more strict by a desk jockey at the FBI who didn't want to get up off his ass to ask a judge for a search warrant."

This case involved several residents of Lackawanna, who traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 to receive training at an al Qaeda-affiliated camp near Kandahar. The investigation of the Lackawanna Six began during the summer of 2001, when the FBI received an anonymous letter indicating that these six individuals and others might be involved in criminal activity and associating with foreign terrorists.

They needed an anonymous tip after the people flew to Afghanistan to attend an Al Qaeda training camp?

Prosecutors in New Jersey have used section 373 of the USA PATRIOT Act to bring charges against Yehuda Abraham, an unlicensed money transmitter whose services were used by Hemant Lakhani, an individual attempting to sell shoulderfired surface-to-air missiles to terrorists with the understanding that they were going to be used to shoot down American commercial airliners. Lakhani employed Abraham s money transmitting services to funnel, from the United States to an overseas account, money being paid by a cooperating witness, acting under the direction of federal law enforcement officers, as a down payment on the first missile. As a result of the USA PATRIOT Act, prosecutors were able to quickly put together an effective case against Abraham for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business,

So, an informer runs a sting operation using some foreign terrorist, and tries to buy missiles with the money. But they charge only Abraham, and only with operating an unlicensed monetary transmission service. Seems to me that Abraham probably didn't know what the money was for, or they would have charged him with something related to terrorism.

Prosecutors have also secured convictions of individuals operating unlicensed money transmitting businesses that sent money from the United States to Iraq, Yemen, the United Arab Emirates, and India. In Boston, for example, the successful prosecution of Mohammed Hussein, the co-operator of an al-Barakaataffiliated money transmitting business, was based on both pre- and post-USA PATRIOT Act violations of 18 U.S.C. § 1960. In 2000 and 2001, Barakaat accepted approximately $3 million in customer deposits and wired those funds to the United Arab Emirates without a license.

He wired money without a license. Horrors. It's one thing if the money is going to a terrorist, and the middleman knows it. But this is just trivial.

In an effort to stem the flow of money to terrorists, section 371 of the USA PATRIOT Act made bulk cash smuggling a serious criminal offense... Prosecutors have used section 371 of the USA PATRIOT Act to obtain the forfeiture of millions of dollars connected with terrorism and drug dealers.

Bulk cash smuggling, huh? Bet it helps with the budget, too.

Section 319 authorizes the government to seize funds subject to forfeiture that are located in a foreign bank account by authorizing the seizure of foreign banks funds that are held in a correspondent U.S. account. This is true regardless of whether the money in the correspondent account is directly traceable to the money held in the foreign bank account.

In other words, they can seize YOUR money because a terrorist uses an overseas branch of your bank.

The USA PATRIOT Act also strengthened criminal laws protecting against cyberterrorism. Section 814 of the USA PATRIOT Act increased the maximum penalty for intentionally damaging a federally protected computer from a prison term of five years to a prison term of 10 years and raised the maximum penalty from a prison term of 10 years to a prison term of 20 years for intentionally or recklessly damaging a federally protected computer after having previously been convicted of computer abuse.

It's a lot easier to pass a new law than it is to actually make government computers secure, at least if you don't work for the NSA... but I can guess which one would be more effective.

-15- In 2002, a package intended for a New Jersey man was mistakenly delivered to another person. Inside the package were fraudulent identification documents. Law enforcement investigators learned that the identification documents had been sent by a man in Texas who was found to possess a large quantity of weapons, including chemical weapons such as sodium cyanide. A subsequent search of the New Jersey man s residence revealed many guns and gas masks, numerous knives including those made to avoid setting off a metal detector, a crossbow, and thousands of rounds of ammunition including hollow point and armor piercing bullets. As a result of section 219, law enforcement agents were quickly able to secure a search warrant in New Jersey for a search of Vermont properties associated with the New Jersey man, rather than having to go through the additional time and effort necessary to secure such a warrant in Vermont. The searches in Vermont subsequently revealed over 10,000 rounds of ammunition and over 70 firearms including an AK-47 gun, an Uzi firearm, and the barrel of a .50-caliber weapon. Investigators believe that their ability to search the Vermont properties quickly was important in the recovery of the weapons and ammunition. The New Jersey man subsequently pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the transportation of false identification documents.

The effect of the Patriot Act in this case was to enable the government to quickly obtain a search warrant for the Vermont properties... where they found a bunch of legal items. Yeah, I can see how that helped them.

As a result, in section 210 of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress authorized the use of administrative and grand-jury subpoenas to obtain information about temporarily assigned network addresses and users billing records from electronic communications service providers without requiring investigators first to undertake the timeconsuming step of applying to the courts.

Those pesky time-consuming courts! It's called a warrant, and it's a Constitutional requirement -- not an optional extra. Congress does not have the power to waive the warrant requirement!

To be continued...