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United and Strengthening America (USA) Act

Retroactive Bills Are Very Dangerous Ronald M. Jacobs, of the University of Vermont, sent me an email declaring that Under Senate Bill 1510, now being considered in the Senate as an Anti-terrorism act, An entire 501C3 organization or other organization, including its members, can have their assets seized for supporting bodily acts or international causes that the U.S. Secretary of State may deem terrorist activity. Political activities that were legal prior to S.1510 may "RETROACTIVELY" be deemed terrorist activity by U.S. Government. Participants and supporters may be charged with terrorist and other offenses. S.1510 "RETROACTIVELY" abolishes the "Statue of Limitations" for many past offenses where no one was injured. After passage of S.1510, any past offense that can be broadly alleged to have put someone "at risk" may be used by federal and state prosecutors to charge a citizen with a terrorist act - even 30 years after the Statute of Limitations period had already passed. Government will have no difficulty manufacturing evidence to prosecute citizens once Constitutional safeguards against passing Retroactive Laws are abolished after passage of S.1510. No "innocent owner defense" allowed against Asset Forfeiture when, after passage of S 1510, U.S. Government agencies will be able to seize assets of citizens, 501C3 and other organizations and their members without ever disclosing the evidence against their property. Government need only allege that disclosing such evidence may compromise National security and/or an ongoing investigation. S 1510 provides for paying "unnamed informants huge rewards" resulting from arrests and forfeited assets. It is hard to believe any organization or citizen could ever recover their assets once they are seized by a government agency in the name of National Security. That may include a citizen's home in which an informant secretly alleges someone said the wrong thing. UNDERCOVER ACTIVITIES- Notwithstanding any provision of State law, including disciplinary rules, statutes, regulations, constitutional provisions, or case law, a Government attorney may, for the purpose of enforcing Federal law, provide legal advice, authorization, concurrence, direction, or supervision on conducting undercover activities, and any attorney employed as an investigator or other law enforcement agent by the Department of Justice who is not authorized to represent the United States in criminal or civil law enforcement litigation or to supervise such proceedings may participate in such activities, even though such activities may require the use of deceit or misrepresentation, where such activities are consistent with Federal law. ADMISSIBILITY OF EVIDENCE- No violation of any disciplinary, ethical, or professional conduct rule shall be construed to permit the exclusion of otherwise admissible evidence in any Federal criminal proceedings". Gumby Cascadia put out an email claiming, "this bill is similar to the one Adolf Hitler pushed through the Reichstag after the Reichstag fire in the early 1930's. German Jews, horrified by the chaos in Germany after the fire, supported Hitler's legislation - then found he could (and planned to) use it against them." Gumby consider this the "legislation (worse) than the Sedition Laws of the 1790's, later declared unconstitutional and leading to the end of John Adams' presidency. Understand! Under the law as now written, you and anyone connected with any organization - 501(c)(3), church, Rotary, any organization - can be snagged under this legislation. Lifting the Statute of Limitations means that you could have your home and other assets seized if you were a member of an organization that supported, for example, Leonard Peltier, or sent food or medicine to Cuba, or even protested against nukes in the '60s - and the U.S.G. decided that that organization was then or is now in any way associated with someone or some organization that is somehow connected to a 'terrorist organization.' " Facinated by the claims, I emailed a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Jim Jeffords. I stated that the "Vermont Mobilization for Global Justice, which is stationed here in Burlington has emailed me about the alledged 'Uniting and Strengthening America (USA) Act' (S.1510), a bill that would permit government officials to abandon normal standards of due process and criminal evidence. Understandably, they are concerned about this bill. The part of their statement that most intregued me was, "The government must not be given the authority to spy on its own people. The wiretapping proposals in the Senate bill sound a common theme: they minimize the role of a judge in ensuring that law enforcement wiretapping is conducted legally and with proper justification. Further, other provisions would allow the government access to sensitive information about U.S. citizens and residents without having to show evidence of a crime. Security and civil liberties do not have to be at odds so long as the checks and balances that have guarded against the excesses of the Executive branch remain in place." Could you enlighted me about this bill?"

Senator Leahy's Response October 11, 2001 Mr. Clyde Moore Burlington Web Magazine P. O. Box 8565 Burlington, Vermont 05402-8565 Dear Mr. Moore: Thank you for contacting me about the anti-terrorism legislation being introduced in the Senate. I appreciate hearing your views. On October 4, 2001, I was pleased to introduce with the Majority Leader, Senator Daschle, as well as the Minority Leader, Senator Lott, Senator Hatch and Senator Shelby, the United and Strengthening America, or USA, Act, S. 1510. This is not the bill that I, or any of the sponsors, would have written if compromise was unnecessary. We have worked tirelessly with the Bush Administration to refine and supplement many of the initial proposals that were made, and the Administration has, in turn, accepted a number of the practical steps I had originally proposed to improve our security on the Northern Border, assist our Federal, state and local law enforcement officers and provide generous compensation to the victims of terrorist acts and the public safety officers who gave their lives to protect ours. The USA Act also provides important checks on the proposed expansion of government powers. In negotiations with the Administration, I have done my best to strike a reasonable balance between the need to address the threat of terrorism, which we all keenly feel at the present time, and the need to protect our constitutional freedoms. It is important to preserve national unity in this time of crisis and to move the legislative process forward. The result of our labors still leaves room for improvement. Even after the Senate passes judgment on this bill, the debate will not be finished. We will have to consider the important judgments made by the House Judiciary Committee in the version of the legislation making its way through the House. Moreover, I predict that some of these provisions will face difficult tests in the courts and that we in Congress will have to revisit these issues at some time in the future when, as we all devoutly hope, the present crisis has passed. I also intend as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to exercise careful oversight of how the Department of Justice, the FBI and other executive branch agencies are using the newly found powers that this bill will give them. Again, thank you for contacting me. Please keep in touch. Please visit my home page at http://www.senate.gov/~leahy/

Responses may be emailed to editor@burlingtonwebmagazine.com or posted on the Burlington Open Forum

Why I Voted “No” on the House Anti-Terrorism Bill By Bernie Sanders OCT 18: In a statement today, Congressman Bernie Sanders outlined his reasons for voting against the House Anti-Terrorism bill. Sanders said, I voted against this legislation because it was written in the dark of night and only distributed to the House moments before its consideration. That is not how the Democratic process is supposed to work. The fact of the matter is that virtually no Member of Congress knows exactly what is in this very important piece of legislation. The Washington Post in its October 16, 2001 editorial is absolutely right: The House Republican leadership made a mockery of the normal legislative process last week in forcing a vote on a major anti-terrorism bill that had been anonymously written only the night before and that not even most members of the Judiciary Committee had had more than a fleeting chance to read. The bill has enormous implications for civil liberties, on which it arguably infringes in a number of serious ways while conferring additional powers on law enforcement officials to combat terrorism. Days after the vote, no one knows the extent of the infringement, save that there is some. Some parts of the bill are worthy; it is not clear that others are even needed. The contents have not been subject to serious hearings or other searching examination. I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and I am concerned that voting for this legislation would fundamentally violate that oath. There have been periods in our nation's history when civil liberties have taken a back seat to what appeared at the time to be legitimate threats to our national security including McCarthyism, the Alien and Sedition Act and the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. There are key provisions of this House Anti-Terrorism Bill that would undermine Civil Liberties" The Civil Liberties that Congressman Bernie Sanders is concerned about are: The bill would allow the government to enter your home, office or other private place and conduct a search, photograph, or download your computer files without notifying you until later. This is not restricted to possible terrorists, but it could affect anyone living in the United States. This provision was rejected by the Congress twice last year because it was misguided and overbroad. The bill would allow the government to use roving wiretaps of suspected criminals and would allow the government to listen to conversations after the suspect is finished with his/her phone calls. For example, if a person is suspected of being a marijuana dealer and uses a pay phone at a Pizza Hut to make a phone call, law enforcement could wiretap that phone. However, after that person is finished making the phone call, law enforcement could continue to listen to other conversations on that same phone line of people that are not suspected of committing any crime at all. The bill has a definition of “domestic terrorism” that is so broad that it could allow the federal government to prosecute political protestors who disagree with the WTO, NAFTA, etc. The bill would allow the disclosure of grand jury information to the CIA, NSA, Secret Service and military without judicial review and with no limits on how these agencies could use that information. The original bill that passed the House Judiciary Committee 36-0 (Sensenbrenner-Conyers) included a sunset provision of 2 years so that Congress could decide after that period if these provisions went to far or didn’t go far enough. The bill that passed the House extended this sunset provision to 5 years. The Senate has no sunset provision at all. The Senate included anti-money laundering provisions in its bill. The House did not include these provisions. The Sensenbrenner/Conyers bi-partisan bill included a provision to allow the Deputy Inspector General at the Justice Department to monitor these new law enforcement powers to make sure that they weren't being abused. The bill that passed the House didn't include these provisions.

Sander's "NO" Vote By Dwinell and Sternberg While Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) and Jim Jeffords (I-Vermont) joined their colleagues in overwhelmingly approving an anti-terrorism bill, Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) was one of only 70 some congressmen to give the bill a nay vote. Despite the fact that his vote was out of sync with virtually the entire U.S. Senate and the Vermont delegation, Sanders's "no" vote received virtually no attention from the Vermont media Sanders's rationale was not enough to dissuade 129 Democrats who voted with 207 Republicans for the bill. Only 3 Republicans voted against it along with 75 left-wing Democrats and Sanders James Dwinell and Libby Sternberg are editors of the conservative Dwinell-Sternberg Report, which is published weekly by JDLS Publishing, LLC. Portions of the Dwinell-Sternberg Report may be reprinted with attribution.

We Did Ask By Tim Dodd of WKDR radio I wanted to let you know we DID ask Sanders about his terrorism bill vote. The bill that passed the House was very different from the bill that passed the Senate, apparently. In fact, a Sanders spokesperson said he actually voted FOR the bill that passed the Senate, and, he voted for another bill that was close. So, of three anti-terrorism bills brought up in the House, Sanders voted for two of them, one of which was exactly the bill that passed the Senate.

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