Page 29 - Fruits from a Poisonous Tree

Mel Stamper 13

3. Destroys many of our hard-won unalienable rights and liberties for
which so many of our ancestors and our own generation fought and died.
The Patriot Act is a complicated law. I have assembled for this Chapter
the sections which I feel are most troubling. Specifically, the Patriot Act:
1. Permits agents of law enforcement to enter and search your home, in
secret, without ever informing you. The U.S. Constitution requires not only
probable cause to search, but that you are notified of the search. Section 213 of
the Patriot Act disembowels the notice requirement of the 4th Amendment.
2. Section 216 of the act permits agents of the government to tap your
phone or computer without probable cause having been established. Under
this section, a judge MUST authorize a warrant as long as law enforcement
agents certify that the surveillance is “relevant to an ongoing criminal
investigation.” No probable cause of criminal activity is required to issue the
warrant, and the criminal activity does not have to have anything to do with
terrorism. This violates the probable cause provision of the 4th Amendment.
th
So for all intents and purposes, the 4 Amendment is a dead letter.
3. In addition, Section 218 permits the government agent to carry
out secret searches and wiretaps without showing probable cause merely by
certifying that there is a “significant” foreign intelligence purpose. This also
evades the 4th Amendment protection.
4. Section 411, in tandem with section 802, expands the power
of government to designate a group as a “foreign terrorist organization.”
Any group which endorses so-called “terrorist activity” which under 802
may be otherwise a lawful protest activity, can be designated as a terrorist
organization. This would enable government to designate such groups as the
California Tree Huggers, Protestors in Puerto Rico objecting to bombing
of their land, or those Protestors against the World Trade Organization, as
terrorists, such as in Seattle, New York, Chicago and Washington. Good-bye,
st
1 Amendment.
5. Section 411 also allows the government to indict anyone who provides
material support or assistance to a terrorist organization. It is now possible for
the federal government to determine that a domestic organization is in fact a
terrorist group, i.e. the Michigan Militia, or Save a Patriot, American Rights
Litigators, or any group who may disagree with government policy. One man
makes the determination of terrorist – the President. No evidence is necessary
th
and no court can stop that designation. No more 5 Amendment!
6. Section 412 of the PATRIOT Act permits the government to arrest
and detain immigrants indefinitely for nothing more than a visa violation.
In fact, of the one thousand, two hundred known immigrant detentions
since 9/11, the ACLU determined that only about five had been detained on
terrorism-related charges.