Orwellian Bush Admin: On Privacy Rights

[RedGlitter]

Bush faces fight on privacy rights

A powerful Democrat vows to put post-9/11 policies under greater scrutiny

Dec. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM

TIM HARPER

WASHINGTON BUREAU



WASHINGTON—A Bush administration accused of flouting the law, eroding basic privacy and human-rights laws and zealously collecting secret data on Americans and visitors is heading for a collision with a new Democrat-controlled Congress.

The incoming Democratic chair of a powerful Senate committee served notice yesterday he will push back against a White House that has launched a wiretapping program "outside the law" and has been compiling information on everyone who enters the country, including Canadians, to assess them as terror risks.

"We can't be lulled into a sense of false comfort when it comes to our national security just because we're not being attacked every day," said Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy.

"But we also can't be lulled into parking our rights and liberty in some kind of a blind trust."

He said January will usher in an era of "restoration, repair and renewal" after a period of virtually unchecked presidential powers following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The 66-year-old six-term senator said as chair of the Senate judiciary committee, he will summon government officials to determine why they circumvented Congress in establishing the so-called Automated Targeting System, a data-mining program that assigns a "terrorist score" to all arrivals in this country based on information ranging from your cellphone number, to your credit-card data, to your seating preference on your flight.

"(This administration) has systematically eroded Americans' privacy rights," he said.

"It's brazenly refused to answer the legitimate oversight questions of the people's duly elected representatives.

"It has acted outside the law to wiretap Americans without warrants — outside the law.

"It's created data banks and dossiers on law-abiding Americans, without following the law and without first seeking legal authorization."

Some U.S. legislators and privacy advocates say they believe the homeland security department broke a law when it continued to develop the program despite a funding ban on such projects instituted by Congress.

Under the targeting system, the government retains records on travellers for up to 40 years and can share the data with foreign governments, law enforcement agencies or private employees, but it denies average citizens access to the data.

Leahy said the last Republican-controlled Congress marked an "unfortunate chapter" in history because it allowed the Bush-Cheney administration to run roughshod over the U.S. constitution and legal and human rights without proper oversight. Leahy takes over the judiciary committee from Pennsylvania Republican Arlen Specter, who also butted heads with the administration over the wiretapping issue.

Leahy said his committee will go after war profiteers in Iraq, push the FBI to stop spying on anti-war protestors, stop the Bush administration from further weakening freedom-of-information legislation and stand up for whistle-blowers.

He said the government has muzzled scientists who want to speak out about global warming, reclassified documents to make them secret and is "explicitly hostile" to the public's right to know. He will also establish a subcommittee on human rights to study laws dealing with torture and prisoners' rights.

Leahy said his committee will try to revise a hastily written law that stripped the right of terror detainees to challenge their detention in U.S. courts and gives the Bush administration wide latitude in their treatment.

"It was a squandered opportunity to write a good law with enforcement guidelines for fighting and winning the war on terror without sacrificing American values," he said.

Leahy has been a fierce critic of new security regulations planned for land crossings between Canada and the U.S., and co-sponsored an amendment to push the starting date back past Jan. 1, 2008. He also called a feasibility study of a security fence on the northern border "boneheaded" and was one of the first U.S. legislators to speak up in opposition to the plight of Maher Arar and the program of rendition — sending terrorism suspects to countries where they might face torture.

He said he would call Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to his committee soon after the new Congress convenes.

"And I am not prepared to accept answers of, `I can't talk about that,' or `We'll get back to you,' because, of course, they never get back to us," he said.

Two-thirds of the U.S. public believes the FBI and other agencies intruded on the privacy of Americans as part of counter-terrorism investigations, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty-two per cent said they favoured congressional hearings on how the Bush administration spied on Americans.