[ OUR OPINION ]
Restore civil liberties
curbed by Patriot Act
THE ISSUE
Attorney General John Ashcroft has begun a cross-country trip to seek support for maintaining the USA Patriot Act.ATTORNEY General John Ashcroft has begun a 12-stop trip from Philadelphia to Salt Lake City aimed at reversing the growing opposition to the USA Patriot Act, the hastily approved law aimed at beefing up law-enforcement powers following Sept. 11, 2001. However, people are coming to realize that the Patriot Act is so invasive of their civil liberties as to be downright un-American. Ashcroft's call for continued infringement of rights should be rejected.
CORRECTION
Saturday, Aug. 23, 2003>> U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie was absent when the House of Representatives voted 357-66 on Oct. 24, 2001, to approve the USA Patriot Act. An editorial on Page A12 on Wednesday said incorrectly that he voted against passage.
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin strives to make its news report fair and accurate. If you have a question or comment about news coverage, call Editor Frank Bridgewater at 529-4791 or email him at fbridgewater@starbulletin.com.
Congress approved the law as a temporary measure. Most members did not take time until later to read its 342 pages and learn about the civil rights that were being sacrificed to combat terrorism. By now, the legislators should have come to the conclusion that America can be both safe and free.
Hawaii is not on Ashcroft's itinerary, but U.S. Attorney Ed Kubo in Hawaii and the 93 other U.S. attorneys across the country are being encouraged to hold town hall-style meetings to stress the law's benefits in fighting terrorism. The message is not likely to be received well in Hawaii.
The Hawaii Legislature is among three in the country to have approved resolutions denouncing the Patriot Act. The City Council has included Honolulu among 152 communities that also have given it thumbs down. Rep. Neil Abercrombie was among only 66 members of the House who voted against its enactment nearly two years ago.
Displeasure with the government's invasion of people's privacy also is growing in Congress. The Senate unanimously agreed in July to deny funding for a domestic computer surveillance system in the Pentagon. Later in the month, the House voted by a bipartisan 309 to 118 to repeal a part of the Patriot Act that allowed federal agents to conduct "sneak and peek" searches of homes, seizing certain types of property and monitoring computers without notifying the subject of the search.
Following talk of a Patriot Act II to expand government power even further, Ashcroft may have his hands full trying to salvage the current law by seeking repeal of so-called sunset provisions. The law was intended to provide the government temporary tools, but he wants them on a permanent basis.
The Patriot Act provides Big Brother access to citizens' medical, financial and educational records with little judicial oversight. Authorities can conduct criminal investigations without probable cause of a crime on the premise of "intelligence purposes." Authorities can search bookstore and library records to discover a person's reading habits.
Non-citizens can be jailed and denied assistance by an attorney for up to six months without being charged with a crime. The Justice Department has detained and interrogated thousands of Arab and South Asian immigrants for weeks or months, refusing to divulge their names and barring the media and public from attending immigration hearings.
