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news
Patriotism conflicts
with personal privacy
By Jeanne Hoffa
On-line Forty-Niner
Americans thought
living at home was bad. Now Uncle Sam can read e-mails, track
web-surfing, tap phones, scrutinize bank accounts, and even
look through an underwear drawer when you are away, leaving
behind no other trace than a tiny microphone.
President Bush
signed into law Friday new provisions that give authorities
freedom to intimately evaluate the private transactions and
belongings of suspected terrorists in the United States.
That means officials
may not always need a warrant to search through property or
personal records, or a court order when they detain or deport
suspects, or a subpoena in order to follow financial transactions,
or when they want to eavesdrop on Internet communications.
It also means government
organizations such as the CIA, the FBI and the Treasury are
now free to share information with each other.
Bush said of the
legislation would help fight terrorism, "we're dealing
with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods
and technologies, some of which were not even available when
our existing laws were written."
The House and Senate
agreed, as the measure passed both legislative bodies, 356-66
and 98-1 respectively.
Sen. Orrin Hatch
R-Utah said the provisions would prevent future violence.
"These laws will help ensure that Americans will never
be violated in the way we were on Sept. 11," Hatch said.
The measure is
not quite as popular at Cal State Long Beach. Political science
professor Charles Noble said that once civil liberties are
lost, they are hard to win back.
"There's no
real evidence that giving them up will make us more secure,"
Noble said. "But it will make it easier for the government,
now or later, to intimidate critics and dissidents."
History major Jim
Araby said the definition of terrorism is so broad that even
government protesters can be perceived as terrorists.
"Do not think
for a second that the right-wing government that we have in
power right now will not use this to their full advantage,
to undermine any groups that oppose the policies that are
being set forth by the government," he said.
The Libertarian
Party launched a failed last-ditch effort urging people to
call their Senators and convince them to drop the anti-privacy
provisions from the bill - or to vote against the measure
altogether.
"This bill
does too much damage to the Constitution," said Steve
Dasbach, the national director for the Libertarian Party.
"Under the new delayed notification, standard, the government
could enter your house, apartment, or office with a search
warrant while you were away, search your belongings, take
photos, and even copy your computer files and not tell you
until later."
Dasbach also criticized
language in Title III, which requires banks to conduct, enhanced
scrutiny of customer bank accounts, even when no wrongdoing
is suspected. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. tried to
implement a similar law in 1999, but withdrew it when they
received complaints from a quarter-million Americans.
Though the administration
asked for a permanent change in the law, the new surveillance
authority is supposed to expire in four years.
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