Maryland Community Newspapers Online
As Congress reviews extension of the Patriot Act, Marylanders must demand that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer ensure that final legislation corrects the act's grant of unconstitutional and unchecked powers to spy on innocent Americans.
The Patriot Act was rushed — largely unread — through Congress days after 9/11. Americans expressed their outrage at the Patriot Act by passing over 400 anti-Patriot Act resolutions in localities across the country, including in Prince George's County.
The recently introduced USA Patriot Amendments Act (HR 3845) offers the best possibility this year for real Patriot Act reform. It addresses abuse of the national security letter statute, under which approximately 50,000 of these "national security letters" are issued every year, along with a gag order that forbids recipients from disclosing the letters to anyone.
However, this bill needs improvement. It must curtail the secret sweep of innocent people into terrorist databases and intrusive terrorist investigations through the "library records provision." And it needs to end the criminalization of humanitarian aid in good faith to war torn countries by fixing the "material support" provision.
Marylanders can change the course of Patriot Act reform nationally by demanding that Representative Hoyer and all of our congressional delegation use its chance to finally right past Patriot Act wrongs.
Susan Goering is executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland.