Reform the PATRIOT Act by supporting the JUSTICE Act

In the past few weeks, two bills emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee that would reauthorize some provisions of the PATRIOT Act set to expire this year, while instituting long overdue limits on others. The Bill of Rights Defense Committee encourages you to call your senators to request that they support the JUSTICE Act.

Introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) on Constitution Day, the JUSTICE Act offers extensive protections for individual privacy and liberty interests. Beyond introducing needed limits on PATRIOT Act provisions, it also revisits portions of the FISA Amendments Act enacted over widespread objections from liberty and privacy advocates.

Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) introduced an alternative bill, the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act, with the support of Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Ted Kaufman (D-DE). While Leahy's bill includes some important improvements to PATRIOT Act provisions, its protections for privacy, oversight, and accountability do not go as far as the JUSTICE Act to protect Americans' rights and prevent government abuses.

The JUSTICE Act's reforms include:

More effective checks on government requests for personal records, including judicial review and requirements that surveillance targets be connected to a security threat;
Restrictions on "sneak and peek" searches to limit their use to the national security arena;
Limits on "John Doe" roving wiretaps to prevent their overbroad use as a dragnet authority;
Changes to the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, such as repealing telecom immunity, preventing "bulk collection" of the international communications, and prohibiting "reverse targeting" of law-abiding Americans.
Stronger oversight of national security letters, which government reports show have been widely abused.

The JUSTICE Act recognizes that the PATRIOT Act provisions set to expire this year are merely the tip of an iceberg; broader reforms are necessary to curb government abuses and protect the rights of innocent Americans. Contact your senators today to urge their support for the reforms included in the JUSTICE Act.

Don't stop there: join the People's Campaign for the Constitution and raise your voice in your community and with like-minded others across the country. And stay tuned: BORDC will soon release a model ordinance limiting domestic spying by local law enforcement agencies for consideration by city councils across the country. The ordinance will offer an opportunity for local activism to help reframe the supposed choice between liberty and security. Local debates on the ordinance may also help inform Congress as it considers needed national reforms.

In solidarity,

Shahid Buttar
Executive Director

Bill of Rights Defense Committee
8 Bridge St., Suite A
Northampton, MA 01060
www.bordc.org
info@bordc.org
Telephone: 413-582-0110
Fax: 413-582-0116