Reading the Patriot Act
Much of the most important information about the Patriot Act cannot be found in books. For example, there’s the report out from the Electronic Frontier Foundation just a few weeks ago resulting from a search through a huge stack of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. That search led the EFF to conclusion that the Patriot Act has been violated by FBI agents conducting illegal searches and seizures in tens of thousands of separate incidents.
Then there’s the research done by senators Dick Durbin and Russ Feingold - indicating that the worst spy powers of the Patriot Act are almost never used to combat terrorism at all. Only one fraction of one percent of the time are those powers used to spy on people suspected of any connection to any alleged terrorist conspiracy. Over 99 percent of the time, the Patriot Act is used to conduct extraordinary searches and seizures against other people, often American citizens living in the USA.
You won’t find anything about the upcoming protest against the Patriot Act in these books either. The protest demanding repeal of the Patriot Act will be taking place on March 12, 2011 in Washington, D.C., right in front of the U.S. Capitol Building where Congress meets. It’s taking place in reaction to passage of a bill extending the most abusive Patriot Act powers, without any reform at all.
For a foundational understanding of what the Patriot Act is, and the kind of extraordinary, unconstitutional surveillance of the American people it allows, the following reading list of books on the Patriot Act is a good place to start.
- Refuge Of A Scoundrel, by Herbert N. Foerstel
- How Would A Patriot Act?, by Glenn Greenwald
- Misuse of Patriot Act Powers
- How Patriotic Is The Patriot Act?, by Amitai Etzioni
