Act Now Before Congress Expands the
Patriot Act
Congress is rushing to vote on a bill next week to
make the Patriot Act permanent, without including meaningful reforms to
prevent the abuse of its expanded secret search and surveillance
powers. Among other things, the Patriot Act gave the government
easier access to your personal records without reasonable suspicion
that you committed a crime or that there is any connection between you
and a foreign terrorist.
Click
here to urge your members of Congress to oppose this rushed extension
of the Patriot Act.
The bill to be considered next week will make
permanent the parts of the Patriot Act that Congress initially intended
to expire. For example, it would make permanent the most unwise
and intrusive provisions of the Patriot Act, such as those that give
the government access to your medical, library, financial and other
personal records, without any requirement that the federal government
demonstrate that there are any facts connecting records about you to a
foreign terrorist.
America
needs your help now if our basic constitutional freedoms are to be
preserved. Please click here to urge your elected officials not
to make the Patriot Act permanent and to enact common sense fixes to
the law to bring it in line with the Constitution.
This battle over reauthorization and expansion is
the culmination of years of work by the ACLU, its members and
freedom-loving Americans of every political stripe. If there were
ever a time for you to speak out for reforming the excessive and
intrusive parts of this legislation, that time is now.
Unless we can defeat this reauthorization or
modify it, the chances for meaningful reforms to the Patriot Act this
year will be slim. Or none.
In the days just after the 9/11 attacks, Congress
was reluctant to deny the Bush administration any of the new
surveillance and investigative powers it demanded.
But now, four years later, it is clear we need to
apply the test suggested by the 9/11 Commission to those provisions of
the Patriot Act that are set to expire. First, has the
administration proved that they actually and significantly increase our
security? Second, if so, do they contain safeguards to protect
our liberties and prevent abuse?
The 16 expiring provisions of the Patriot Act were
not properly vetted the first time, and included unwarranted
expansions of federal power, yet some in Congress are poised to
make them permanent with no real corrections. If they succeed, extreme
provisions like Section 215 -- which gives the FBI broad access to your
personal records without individual suspicion, probable cause or any
meaningful ability to challenge the secret court order that allows this
access -- will forever be a fixture of our laws.
Click
here to urge your members of Congress to reform the Patriot Act.
Remind them you are part of a growing movement, among both
conservatives and progressives, in favor of common sense fixes to the
Patriot Act like those contained in the Security and Freedom
Enhancement (SAFE) Act.
http://action.aclu.org/julypatriotactvote
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