Untitled Document
A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a new federal police
force with the power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this
cannot be true, as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed
by talking heads on TV.
Go to House
Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 and
check it out for yourself. Sec.
605 reads:
"There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to
be known as the 'United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.'"
This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary
of Homeland Security."
The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any
offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony
cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds
to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such
felony."
The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an
event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national
significance" (SENS).
"A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor
does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president
in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves,
can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed
on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and arrest people
at their discretion.
The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an
offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"?
You can bet the Alito/Roberts court will rule that it is whatever the executive
branch says.
The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at Bush/Cheney
events. However, nothing in the language limits the police powers from being
used only in this way. Like every law in the U.S., this law also will be expansively
interpreted and abused. It has dire implications for freedom of association
and First Amendment rights. We can take for granted that the new federal police
will be used to suppress dissent and to break up opposition. The Brownshirts
are now arming themselves with a Gestapo.
Many naïve Americans will write to me to explain that this new provision
in the reauthorization of the "PATRIOT Act" is necessary to protect
the president and other high officials from terrorists or from harm at the hands
of angry demonstrators: "No one else will have anything to fear."
Some will accuse me of being an alarmist, and others will say that it is unpatriotic
to doubt the law's good intentions.
Americans will write such nonsense despite the fact that the president and
foreign dignitaries are already provided superb protection by the Secret Service.
The naïve will not comprehend that the president cannot be endangered by
demonstrators at SENS at which the president is not present. For many Americans,
the light refuses to turn on.
In Nazi Germany, did no one but Jews have anything to fear from the Gestapo?
By Stalin's time, Lenin and Trotsky had eliminated all members of the "oppressor
class," but that did not stop Stalin from sending millions of "enemies
of the people" to the Gulag.
It is extremely difficult to hold even local police forces accountable.
Who is going to hold accountable a federal police protected by Homeland Security
and the president?