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Justice Department Details Patriot Act CasesThe Department of Justice submitted to Congress July 13 a 29-page report detailing cases in which the USA Patriot Act was used, with claims that the antiterrorism law played a key role in bringing 179 convictions or guilty pleas.“This report is an unprecedented compilation of dozens of real-life cases from across the country in which the FBI and other law-enforcement officials have used the tools of the Patriot Act to protect America’s families and communities and even to save lives,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said in the July 14 Washington Post. But some viewed the action—which came less than a week after the House narrowly defeated an effort to block funding for Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the Justice Department to conduct searches of library and bookstore records—as an attempt by the Bush administration to discourage members of Congress from weakening the controversial act, the Associated Press reported July 13. Key sections of the act are set to expire at the end of 2005. “This report is intended to deflect the unanswered questions and to slow down growing congressional and public support to reform the Patriot Act,” said Laura W. Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office. It “is troubling not only in what it says, but in what it doesn’t say,” she said, noting that the report “contains no mention whatsoever of some of the sections that Americans find most objectionable,” including Sections 215 and 505. Posted July 16, 2004. |
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