The USA Patriot Act
...xpands terrorism laws to include domestic terrorism”, such as political organizations like Greenpeace. They worried that these “peaceful groups” would be subject to surveillance, wiretapping, harassment, and criminal action for political advocacy. The Life and Liberty’s answer to this myth is the Act is limited to domestic terrorism that breaks criminal laws, endangering human life. Organizations cannot be targeted without breaking the law. Clearly, if you are not doing anything wrong, then you are less likely to be targeted for an investigation. Another myth created y the ACLU is the library habits of ordinary Americans. They claim that all libraries have become the target of government surveillance, calling this monitoring “odious and unnecessary”. This instilled in America’s minds that the federal government (a.k.a., Big Brother) was watching their every move in what they are reading and what websites they are looking at. Life and Liberty’s response says terrorism investigators have no interest in the lives of ordinary Americans. The Patriot Act still protects Americans’ First Amendment. The reason for the new change is that historically terrorists have used libraries to plan and carry out threats to national security, since it was so easy to remain hidden. A former public defender, Andrew J. O’Conner, 40, was arrested on February 13, by the Secret Service agents in Albuquerque, N.M. He was in the St. John’s College Library using the computer’s internet service to talk in chat rooms. Mr. O’Conner was accused of making threatening remarks about the President. His reason for being targeted by the FBI is because of his one-time involvement in a pro-Palestinian group in Boulder, Colorado. After being questioned for five hours, he was released, saying that he is going to sue the Secret Service and anyone else involved in the investigatio...