Two forums held at Princeton Public Library.
By: Jennifer Potash
A federal law passed in the days following Sept. 11 granting additional surveillance and investigative powers to law enforcement agencies raises serious civil-liberty concerns, according to speakers at a pair of recent forums.
The Patriot Act was the subject of two meetings at the Princeton Public Library the first May 14 and the second Tuesday with speakers from the legal, legislative and academic realms taking part. Both events attracted standing-room-only crowds.
Officially called the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, the Patriot Act expands the reach of secret warrants for foreign intelligence and terrorism investigations, and allows for surveillance of more telephone, cellphone and e-mail records.
Many of the speakers at the two forums pointed out that while the act was approved in the six weeks following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many of the provisions have long been sought by some in the law enforcement community and conservative politicians.
The Patriot Act also revises the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by reducing the level of judicial review necessary to authorize national security wiretaps, such as those targeted at suspected spies, said Grayson Barber, a Princeton Township-based civil-liberties attorney. The key change is that the added level of oversight and scrutiny usually associated with federal wiretaps is removed, she said.
Also, applications for these warrants often occur before a secret court in the Justice Department, making it virtually impossible to later contest or appeal them, Ms. Barber said.
Frederick Hitz, director of the Project on International Intelligence at Princeton University and a former inspector-general of the CIA, said the FISA court was instrumental in the Aldrich Ames spy case, involving a CIA employee and Soviet spy sentenced in 1994 for acts of treason committed during the 1980s.
But he is also wary of a CIA or FBI with over-reaching investigative powers. "I do not think the country needs to go down that road again," he said.
Challenges to the Patriot Act are now emerging in the federal courts.
Ms. Barber said two recent cases illustrate differing views on the Patriot Act. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that immigration hearings in Michigan, home to one of the largest Middle Eastern populations in the country, should not be closed to the public. Yet the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in a case originating in New Jersey, held that immigration hearings could be closed.
And the issue is unlikely to be resolved soon, as the U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to take up an appeal in the New Jersey case, said Peter Tu, an intellectual property attorney who is active in the American Civil Liberties Union’s New Jersey chapter. Mr. Tu, a Princeton Township resident, spoke at the Tuesday forum.
The Patriot Act, by requiring registration of all Middle Eastern male noncitizens, allowing secret deportations and holding noncitizens without charges or access to lawyers, alienates other Americans of Middle Eastern descent from helping with the war on terrorism, said Steven Traylor, a Princeton-based immigration attorney.
"To my knowledge, they’ve never found any terrorists," Mr. Traylor said.
The Patriot Act does contain sunset clauses for some of its provisions meaning that they would expire on a designated date but there was a recent push by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) to get rid of these clauses.
The so-called Patriot Act II, whose existence was leaked to the press in January, further erodes Freedom of Information Act provisions and revokes an American’s citizenship if that person was connected to a terrorist organization, Ms. Barber said.
The Princeton Public Library’s Web site contains a page with links related to the Patriot Act at www.princeton.lib.nj.us.

