House Votes To Make Patriot Act Permanent

“People willing to give up freedom for a little safety, deserve neither freedom nor safety.” — Benjamin Franklin.

With the recent bombings in London and with continuing terror threats in the United States, there is no surprise that the House of Representatives voted yesterday (257-171) to renew the expiring provisions of the USA Patriot Act and to make almost all of these provisions permanent.

The two provisions that will be allowed to expire will remain in place for another decade.

One of these is the controversial regulation that gives investigators the power to keep track of anyone’s library records and bookstore purchases.

While this might not seem like too much of an inconvenience to many people who think that if they are not breaking the law, they will be likely left alone by the government, one should keep in mind that no book available in American libraries violates any law.

If any publication contained illegal or top secret content, it would simply be banned from being accessed by the general public, period.

That said, if an individual were to borrow a specific number of books from his or her local library, and these perfectly accessible books raised red flags, this person could raise some suspicions among law enforcement.

As a result, even individuals with no criminal records could face some level of investigation provided that they borrow, say, books on city maps one month and on the history of explosives three months later, despite how many other books of different genres they have also checked out.

This provision also covers medical and business records, allowing for investigators to access these.

The second provision that could die after ten years is the one that allows for federal agents to use roving wiretaps on suspects, rather than bugging specific phone lines. It also allows for agents to investigate suspects’ internet usage.

I should point out that while I believe in individual freedom first and foremost, I do understand the reasoning behind some Patriot Act provisions. After all, without increased investigation of the activities of suspected terrorists, many innocents could continue to die in senseless, bloody attacks.

Still, the part of me that holds the Bill of Rights as an almost religious text is the same part of me that cringes when I think about the nearly absolute power given to the government in investigating citizens without what used to be considered adequate reasons to do so.

Remember, the Patriot Act was born in a chaotic post-9/11 climate.

This was a time when a number of polls showed that a majority of Americans surveyed felt that Muslim- and Arab-Americans should expect fewer civil liberties than Americans of other religions and ethnic backgrounds.

Disturbingly, according to a nationwide poll conducted by Cornell University last year, nearly half of Americans surveyed still felt this way about Muslim-Americans.

Another Cornell poll showed that 90 percent of respondents felt in 2002 that another terrorist attack would occur within the united states within another year, while this number dropped to 37 percent in the aforementioned 2004 survey.

All 16 of the Patriot Act provisions in question are still set to expire Dec. 31 after their four-year sunset period unless the Senate can agree with the House’s decision. They are still working on their own version of the Act to be renewed.