|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
FUR COMMISSION USA COMMENTARY, NOVEMBER 15, 2001
Click here to download the USA PATRIOT Act in PDF format.
PATRIOT: Too Far or Not Far Enough?
By Teresa Platt, Executive Director, Fur Commission USA
IS IT POSSIBLE to protect the democratic process from those who seek to shortcut it with terror tactics? How can we stop government from tracking ideas or political leaders in an overzealous search for criminals on the political fringe? How do we protect our right to any opinion, no matter how brilliant, shocking, unpopular, or ignorant, without fear of ending up on some government list? Will our government go too far? Or not far enough?
Congress wrestled with these questions before Sept. 11. Law enforcement, tasked with fighting terrorism, had requested certain 21st Century tools, only to have Congress, concerned about maintaining citizen freedoms and privacy, refuse to deliver. After Sept. 11, the debate heated up and Congress moved into overdrive. Every tool that law enforcement had requested was put on the table for review.
The result? The "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001", or "USA PATRIOT", formerly HR3162, now Public Law No. 107-56 after being signed Oct. 26 by the President.
Much of PATRIOT focuses on undesirable aliens, balancing human rights while attempting to keep foreign criminals and terrorists out of the US in the first place. It rules that aliens are ineligible for admission and deportable if involved with "(aa) a foreign terrorist organization, as designated by the Secretary of State under section 219, or (bb) a political, social or other similar group whose public endorsement of acts of terrorist activity the Secretary of State has determined undermines United States efforts to reduce or eliminate terrorist activities."
So Secretary of State Colin Powell is a key player. For info on the State Department's counterterrorism activities, see www.state.gov/s/ct.
The bill pushes surveillance into the 21st Century, expanding old-fashioned phone tapping to all methods of communications from smoke signals to cell phones to e-mail and electronic communications of any kind.
PATRIOT includes novel approaches to tracking the financial structure of terrorism, allowing local law enforcement, when working with the feds, to access tax and financial information. PATRIOT gives the US "extraterritorial jurisdiction" when terrorists use a "device issued, owned, managed, or controlled" by US institutions. So terrorists better watch out when they use those credit and debit cards.
PATRIOT offers a staggering $25 million reward for Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the Sept. 11 attacks. The FBI gets another $200 million annually for 2002-04 to battle terrorism. An additional $50 million each goes to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service "for purposes of making improvements in technology for monitoring the Northern Border and acquiring additional equipment at the Northern Border."
Section 802 of PATRIOT defines "domestic terrorism" as activities that "(A) involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the US or of any State; (B) appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and (C) occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the US."
Section 810 increases penalties for terrorist acts and planning terrorist actions, or giving material support to terrorists: "any term or for life", 10 years increased to 15, etc. Section 813 includes acts of terrorism as racketeering activity, pulling them into the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Finally. The penalties are worthy of law enforcementŐs investigative time.
SO WHAT GROUPS are designated as "foreign terrorist organizations" under the Immigration and Nationality Act?
The 2001 Report on Foreign Terrorist Organizations released on Oct. 5 by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, combined with Pres. BushŐs Sept. 23 executive order, lists hundreds of people, groups and corporations involved in terrorism. Neither ALF nor the "Justice Department", both originally based in the UK, made the lists. A search of the State Department website for "Animal Liberation Front" finds just one mention: an arson at a McDonaldŐs in Belgium. The bomb-happy Justice Department doesnŐt show up at all.
How come groups listed as terrorists by Scotland Yard donŐt show up on our State DepartmentŐs list? ShouldnŐt we be supporting our alliesŐ efforts to battle terrorism before the groups are exported to our shores? Some housekeeping appears in order here.
See also:
Media Link September 11 with Ecoterror FCUSA commentary, Oct. 17, 2001.
FCUSA press kit Special Feature: Safe Farms Campaign
Chronology of animal extremist / ecoterror crimes
Farmers for Safe Farms flyer Animal Rights and Eco-Terrorism : The Price We Pay (PDF format).
Back to Perspectives / Home