Difference between revisions of "Talk:Patriot Act"

Revision as of 21:16, August 31, 2007

Not only was the following obviously a direct uncited quotation, a Yahoo! search revealed it to be from wikipedia! You'd think the Patriot Act page would be as closely followed as the page on evolution or unicorns!!

On March 9, 2007, a Justice Department audit found that the FBI had "improperly and, in some cases, illegally used the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information" about United States citizens. [1]

On June 15, 2007, following an internal audit finding that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1000 times, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates ordered the agency to begin turning over thousands of pages of documents related to the agency's national security letters program.[2]

On April 6, 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the FBI over the USA PATRIOT Act's authority to demand that a business hand over records that may contain private financial or business information that is not pertinent to an ongoing investigation. The specific action in question was the request of the FBI for the account information for users of an Internet service provider.

Citing possible secrecy provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Justice prevented the ACLU from releasing the text of a countersuit for three weeks. [4] After judicial and congressional oversight, sections of the countersuit that did not violate secrecy rules of the USA PATRIOT Act were released.

The lawsuit filed by the ACLU was dropped on October 27, 2006. ACLU stated it is withdrawing the lawsuit because of improvements to the law. "While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration's most reckless policies," Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU.

In June 2005, the United States House of Representatives voted to repeal the Patriot Act provision that allows federal agents to examine people's book-reading habits at public libraries and bookstores as part of terrorism investigations.[5]

Jazzman831 17:58, 8 July 2007 (EDT)

Can you specifiy what the difference is between "the Bush administration's most reckless policies," and a Law past by the Legislative Branch. The above appears to be little more than twisted, veiled, and distorted criticism of the Bush administration. If the Bush administration were not enforcing a law passed by the Congress, that would be grounds for legitimate criticism. RobS 12:53, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

I take no responsibility for the content in the above statement. It was copied from Wikipedia onto this article and all I did was remove it from our page. I believe that part about the Bush administration has also since been removed from the Wikipedia article. Even so, I wouldn't get too riled up about the comment; it's so non specific Ms. Beeson really could have been talking about anything. Jazzman831 15:24, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Good job. If it wasn't so subtle, this would probably be a good example for Bias in Wikipedia, but it would take more words to explain the subtlelty than the subtlelty itself. 16:16, 9 July 2007 (EDT)

Entering homes

Cut from article:

The act took away civil liberties law enforcement may enter a persons place of business or home without a warrant. We all know without a warrent it is unconstitutional to enter someones private property. Also the owner doesnt have to know about the search or invasion of his/her home or business

This needs references. What is your source? --Ed Poor ^Talk 14:21, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

As much as I dislike the Patriot Act, that quotation is either vandalism or a misunderstanding of how the act works. The Act allows, under very specific circumstances, so-called "sneak and peek" warrants, which are exactly as they sound. Law enforcement does need a warrant, but the suspect doesn't know about the search (until a certain time after the fact). These are performed when notifying the subject of the warrant could seriously hamper the investigation.

Later tonight (too burnt out from school right this moment) I will integrate the research paper I did on the Patriot Act last semester into this article. For now, the above explanation should suffice. JazzMan 16:21, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

Correct name

I think this should this be moved to Patriot Act (for capitalization purposes) or USA PATRIOT Act (for complete name purposes). To me it makes more sense to have the full article at its correct name and then make Patriot act a redirect. Opinions? Jinkas 16:47, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

• I'm confused.....didn't you feel the movement? :p --şŷŝôρ-₮K^{Ṣρёаќǃ} 16:50, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

Smooth work, TK my man. Jinkas 16:51, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

<edit conflict> I vote for USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, which is technically it's full name. However, this link is really ugly, and most people won't know to use it. I'm not sure what our priorities are (or what theys should be). If we want clarity, we should stick with what we have; if we want technical correctness, we should move it to the most correct form. (Well technically Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 is the most correct, but that just breaches some boundaries of sensible practicality!!) JazzMan 16:55, 31 August 2007 (EDT)

• Usually the guideline would be accuracy coupled with common usage of the subject used for searching. "Patriot Act" would seem to me to be the common use. --şŷŝôρ-₮K^{Ṣρёаќǃ} 17:15, 31 August 2007 (EDT)