ACLU Says That Patriot Act Has Been Misused, Extent Unknown Because of Government Stonewalling
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK -- The American Civil Liberties Union today countered the Bush administration's frequent claim that the USA Patriot Act should be made permanent, saying that, at a minimum, the law has been misused. The ACLU also criticized the excessive secrecy surrounding the law, which makes it impossible to find out the extent of its misuse or abuse.
Moreover, the ACLU called the administration's frequent claim that the law is not being abused a ""red herring."" Not only are the law's provisions enforced in secret, but the law itself violates the Constitution. It weakens judicial review and other crucial checks and balances in the government's surveillance and investigative powers. That, in and of itself, justifies a narrowing of the law, the ACLU said.
""The Bush administration stonewalled us when we asked for information about prisoner abuses in Iraq and Afghanistan, which we now know to have been ongoing and serious,"" said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. ""Unfortunately, the Bush administration continues to deny every reasonable request for information on how the Patriot Act is being used.""
The ACLU's Romero directly called on the Bush administration to finally disclose information showing just how the law has been used - or abused. The ACLU has filed half a dozen FOIA requests and has challenged in four lawsuits key parts of the law that limit checks and balances in the government's surveillance and investigative powers. It has also testified and written about the civil liberties problems in the Patriot Act more than any other group in the nation.
The ACLU's concern peaked over the 2004 New Year's holiday when the Las Vegas Review-Journal confirmed that the FBI had ham-handedly used so-called ""national security letters"" to seize the travel and hotel records of over 300,000 visitors to the city. The bureau did so without any actual intelligence suggesting an imminent attack in Las Vegas. National security letter authority was expanded by the Patriot Act and a 2003 intelligence spending bill to allow agents to seize credit, business and communications records without the assent of a judge or grand jury, let alone a showing of criminal probable cause.
The ACLU's comments come in response to speeches given over the past several days by Vice President Dick Cheney, former Republican National Committee chairman Mark Racicot and Cheney advisor Mary Matalin. In their remarks, they quote Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who mischaracterized an ACLU e-mail message last November when she said that the ACLU could not provide her with any evidence of abuse.
The ACLU e-mail actually said that because the Patriot Act was being implemented under the strictest secrecy, no outside group could know whether the law was being abused. It also noted that at the press conference introducing a bill to narrow parts of the Patriot Act, original co-sponsor Larry Craig, a conservative Republican Senator from Idaho, said the potential for abuse was an entirely legitimate reason for reform.
""Senator Dianne Feinstein mischaracterized an ACLU e-mail at a Congressional hearing last year,"" said Laura W. Murphy, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. ""While the Bush-Cheney administration is using her remarks as partisan fodder, it refuses to provide the information she, other members and the ACLU have been requesting for many months that would show how the Patriot Act is being used.""
The ACLU's e-mail to Senator Feinstein is posted on-line at: /node/22927
For more information on the Patriot Act, see: /patriot
Learn More About the Issues in This Press Release
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
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VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.