White House Engaged in Patriot Act Misinformation (ACLU)
 

ACLU Says White House Is Engaged in Patriot Act Misinformation Campaign; Releases Point-By-Point Response to Bush Falsehoods

April 22, 2004


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON - The American Civil Liberties Union today released an item-by-item rebuttal to a slew of false claims that President Bush made in Buffalo this week about the controversial USA Patriot Act.

"The president's speech was misinformation, pure and simple," said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. "The administration is making a series of deliberate misstatements to deceive the American public."

In response to the president’s new campaign to remove the Patriot Act’s sunsets, the ACLU said it would prepare and release periodic detailed rebuttals on White House misinformation. Romero noted that the ACLU has taken similar issue with information presented by Attorney General John Ashcroft and produced a report, "Seeking Truth From Justice: The Justice Department's Campaign to Mislead The Public About the USA PATRIOT Act."

Point-by-Point Rebuttal

The President:

"By the way, the reason I bring up the Patriot Act, it’s set to expire next year. I’m starting a campaign to make it clear to members of Congress that it shouldn’t expire. It shouldn’t expire for the security of our country."

The Truth:

Less that 10 percent of the Patriot Act expires; most of the law is permanent and those portions that do sunset will not do so until December 31, 2005.

The President:

"And that changed, the law changed on- roving wiretaps were available for chasing down drug lords. They weren’t available for chasing down terrorists, see?"

The Truth:

Roving wiretaps were available prior to 9/11 against drug lords and terrorists. Prior to the law, the FBI could get a roving wiretap against both when it had probable cause of crime for a wiretap eligible offense. What the Patriot Act did is make roving wiretaps available in intelligence investigations supervised by the secret intelligence court without the judicial safeguards of the criminal wiretap statute.

The President:

"… see, I’m not a lawyer, so it’s kind of hard for me to kind of get bogged down in the law. (Applause). I’m not going to play like one, either. (Laughter.) The way I viewed it, if I can just put it in simple terms, is that one part of the FBI couldn’t tell the other part of the FBI vital information because of the law. And the CIA and the FBI couldn’t talk."

The Truth:

The CIA and the FBI could talk and did. As Janet Reno wrote in prepared testimony before the 9/11 commission, "There are simply no walls or restrictions on sharing the vast majority of counterterrorism information. There are no legal restrictions at all on the ability of the members of the intelligence community to share intelligence information with each other.

"With respect to sharing between intelligence investigators and criminal investigators, information learned as a result of a physical surveillance or from a confidential informant can be legally shared without restriction.

"While there were restrictions placed on information gathered by criminal investigators as a result of grand jury investigations or Title III wire taps, in practice they did not prove to be a serious impediment since there was very little significant information that could not be shared."

The President:

"Thirdly, to give you an example of what we’re talking about, there’s something called delayed-notification search warrants. … We couldn’t use these against terrorists [before the Patriot Act], but we could use against gangs."

The Truth:

Delayed-notification - or so-called sneak-and-peek search warrants - were never limited to gangs. The circuit courts that had authorized them in limited circumstances prior to the Patriot Act did not limit the warrants to the investigation of gangs. In fact, terrorism or espionage investigators did not necessarily have to go through the criminal courts for a covert search - they could do so with even fewer safeguards against abuse by going to a top secret foreign intelligence court in Washington.

For criminal sneak-and-peek warrants, the Patriot Act added a catch-all argument for prosecutors - if notice would delay prosecution or jeopardize an investigation - which makes these secret search warrants much easier to obtain.

The president’s sneak-and-peek misstatement clearly demonstrates that the Patriot Act is not limited to terrorism. In fact, many of the law’s expanded authorities can clearly be used outside the war on terrorism.

The President:

"Judges need greater authority to deny bail to terrorists."

The Truth:

The new presumptive detention that the president is proposing takes judicial authority away from the bail process. The presumption would take away the prosecution’s burden of showing that the accused is a danger or flight risk and instead puts it on the accused.

"Presidential recklessness with the facts is deeply troubling," Romero said. "We’ll be watching the president and his statements very closely during this campaign. He is clearly fighting a losing, defensive battle for the Patriot Act."

"President Bush clearly is attempting to silence his critics within the Republican Party, who believe that the Patriot Act went too far, too fast," Romero added.

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/Safe...06&MX=1212&H=1

For more on the ACLU's campaign to Keep America Safe AND Free, go to:

http://www.aclu.org/safeandfree)

Would you expect anything less from Bush?

Would you expect a different statement from the ACLU?

These people would criticize any Republican for anything, even admitting that the sky is blue.

They've actually critized Democrats administrations as well.

Are there any of their points that you dispute?

I'm basing my conclusions on a broad experience starting in college and media reports.

If you're willing to allow time for further research I can probably discuss a few, but they wont' get posted in a lightning-fast, up-to-the second fashion.

--add

They've also supported the Greek Sytem by supporting The Freedom of Speech and Association on Campus.

Sure, always loved to engaged in debates.

Sounds good--got any sources to back that up? Seriously, if the ACLU has done something that doesn't disparage mainstream Republicans for their "freedom of speech" I'd love to hear it.

(This will take a while, you know. I'm getting off of a break and back to the job......)

;)

--add

I thought you meant about the Patriot Act. If its about the ACLU, how can we base the debate on? I guess we can see how many case has been started or party to by the ACLU. Then we can correlate the answer by which party was in power. I dunno if I actually want to do it. Maybe when I'm at work, I could get some of the interns to do it, since they're busy surfing the internet anyway.

I think you know that I meant about the ACLU in general. Otherwise, you wouldn't have mentioned their alleged support of the Greek system. ;)

The discussion could get involved - but you said you like debate, so if you're up for it....

:)

adduncan...

you miss the point of the ACLU. They're allegiance is to the Constitution of the United States. They would defend your right to practice your religion, your right to associate freely, regardless of your political views.

I actually think that they recently defended two young children who were prohibited by their school from saying personal private prayer.

Does the ACLU seem to target the republican party more? sure, but it's only because of the actions they take that try to violate the Constitution and more specifically the Bill of Rights.

However, that does not lessen the importance of the ACLU, as this country needs someone to ask the hard questions, some group to support those who others won't, some organization that fights to prevent the descreation of the foundation of our country.

The other great thing about the ACLU is that they are able to look past their own personal feelings to hammer home the importance of equal application to all. They will support the right of a NeoNazi group to assemble just as much as they will oppose mandatory prayer in school. That to me is exemplerary of being principle centered , focused on the bigger picture than your personal values.

Betarulz.....

I'm well aware of the standard ACLU party line. "We support the Constitution."

Uh huh. I have my doubts.

Given that the US Constitution is a "living" document open to interpretation (at least that's how it's accepted) I question the ACLU's interpretations.

If you saw my above posts, you'll note I was looking for concrete examples, something I can look up. And that this kind of discussion could take at least days, given it takes time to track down the info.

So you say. I dont' think this is the case, and I'm entitled to say so. But at least I'm willing to re-examine my opinion to see if it holds true. Are you?


Maybe I do, maybe I don't. I'll make that decision for myself, thanx. Being a free thinker, I like to decide for myself what I do and dont' get.
;)

--add

Anyways, moving on away from ACLU talk. I find this rather scary. Who writes Bush's speeches?!

If we seperate out the difference between politically conservative and socially conservative it gives a clearer view.

A True political conservative should be a staunch defender of the Bill of Rights, in fact i am not sure you can be a real conservative if that isn't so.

In that case the ACLU is a conservative organization.

Social conservatism is different. Social conservatism is more about say community values than over arching principles found in a document.

So a social conservative thinks you have the right to excercise your free speech so long as it doesn't conflict too much with their world view.

A political conservative just thinks you have the right to excercise your right to free speech without much judging of the content.

Would you agree that might be an important distinction? Because otherwise the labels don't make a lot of sense. There are a lot of true political conservatives that are now sponsoring bills to limit the Patriot Act.

add,

Only we can see if the ACLU is biased toward the Democrats is to quantify the amount of courts they are partied to or have started. From the courts which they are parties to, we then can see how many of these cases are against which administration. Then, we can quantifily see if the ACLU is biassed toward the Democrats or that thesis is wrong.

Too bad it's the weekend. I can tell the interns to do something instead of browing the net.

Thank you, James. I agree.

I often don't agree with the ACLU, but in this case, I think they're right on. I've said before that the Patriot Act is the most dangerous infringement of our Consitutional Rights in memory.