2 posts tagged “liberty”

The good news is that certain provisions of the U.S. Patriot act have been ruled unconstitutional today.

From an article in the New York Times here .

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — A federal judge in Oregon ruled Wednesday that crucial parts of the USA Patriot Act were not constitutional because they allowed federal surveillance and searches of Americans without demonstrating probable cause.

The ruling by Judge Anne L. Aiken of Federal District Court in Portland was in the case of Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer in Portland who was arrested and jailed after the Federal Bureau of Investigation mistakenly linked him to the Madrid train bombings in March 2004.

“For over 200 years, this nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success,” Judge Aiken’s opinion said in finding violations of the Fourth Amendment prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure. “A shift to a nation based on extraconstitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill advised.”

Yet what bothered me was that this only protects U.S. citizens and not those who live in other established democracies with independent judiciaries. Yet upon further research I see that Britain (and perhaps other democracies) has no such legal concept as the right to privacy. The British government can search and eavesdrop at will. The British magazine The Economist has a very good article on this entitled Learning to Live with Big Brother which examines this threat to liberty in both the U.S. and the U.K.

Britain has long permitted the “warrantless” eavesdropping of its citizens (only the home secretary's authorization is required), and few people appear to mind. What does seem to worry people is the sheer volume of information now being kept on them and the degree to which it is being made accessible to an ever wider group of individuals and agencies. The government is now developing the world's first national children's database for every child under 18. The National Health Service database, already the biggest of its kind in Europe, will eventually hold the medical records of all 53m people in England and Wales.

Even more controversial is Britain's National Identity Register, due to hold up to 49 different items on everyone living in the country. From 2009, everybody is to be issued with a “smart” biometric ID card, linked to the national register, which will be required for access to public services such as doctors' surgeries, unemployment offices, libraries and the like—leaving a new, readily traceable, electronic data-trail. America plans a similar system, with a string of personal data held on a new “smart” national driver's license that would double up as an ID.

The key idea behind the concept of liberty is individual control and responsibility. Having any external group, some possibly hostile, able to access your movement and personal data without your permission takes away control over oneself and thus erodes personal liberty. How can any international agreements be made regarding this if many (so called) democracies do not have an internal right to privacy?

EDIT: This link gives the communications intercept laws of various nations. Yet this information is not always clear as to whether the issued warrants must be approved by an independent judge to show probable cause.

This article from Time magazine's May 28, 2007 edition gives the best shortest account of this episode that I have come across. It can be viewed here at time.com and I reproduce it below:

In Washington divided government loosens lips; narratives that might never have been told play out as sworn testimony. Some witnesses encase their truths in leaden prose. Not so James Comey, a former Deputy Attorney General, who unspooled a vivid tale in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the night in March 2004 when he raced to the hospital to prevent two top White House aides from taking advantage of his critically ill boss, John Ashcroft, in a dispute over the Administration's secret domestic eavesdropping program. Comey was acting Attorney General while Ashcroft was incapacitated by pancreatitis. Like his boss, Comey had come to believe that President George W. Bush's surveillance program was illegal. The White House wanted it renewed. Comey refused. And so who turned up at Ashcroft's bedside with pen and paper in search of the Attorney General's signature? White House counsel Alberto Gonzales.

Summoning his strength, Ashcroft lifted his head from his pillow, affirmed his support for Comey and refused Gonzales' request. Facing the threat of a mass resignation by senior law-enforcement officials, including Ashcroft, Comey and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Bush finessed a compromise that ultimately addressed the Justice Department's concern about the surveillance programs. The weeks of recent hearings launched by Gonzales' firing of eight U.S. Attorneys have pried mountains of discovery from the Administration about the dismissals, but Comey's recounting of that night offered a glimpse into the drama of dissent that took place long before Gonzales met his current troubles. It's tempting to find comfort in the fact that off-camera, at least, these powerful men had been so passionately divided over issues of law and liberty. And Bush did ultimately yield to Ashcroft, Comey and Mueller. But just eight months later, the President chose Gonzales to be Ashcroft's successor. The lessons of that night--namely, that political fealty could go too far--went unheeded. Three years later, even Republicans are demanding that Gonzales resign. Said Comey in earlier testimony about the damage done: "I don't know [of] any way you can get the department's reputation back."

So Bush in his power grab wanted some one spineless in the post of Attorney General so he appointed Gonzales. I must also say that my opinion of Ashcroft has gone up. This seems to tie in with the U.S. attorney firings which I posted about here.