{"id":1881,"date":"2003-10-26T12:23:19","date_gmt":"2003-10-27T04:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/10\/26\/bushs-plans-to-expand-the-patriot-act\/"},"modified":"2019-12-06T10:13:46","modified_gmt":"2019-12-06T18:13:46","slug":"bushs-plans-to-expand-the-patriot-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2003\/10\/26\/bushs-plans-to-expand-the-patriot-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush&#039;s plans to expand the Patriot Act"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:13044,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.sptimes.com\\\/2003\\\/10\\\/26\\\/Columns\\\/No_pause_in_Patriot_A.shtml&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:13045,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.talkleft.com\\\/archives\\\/004718.html&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;},{&quot;id&quot;:13046,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com\\\/2003_10_26_atrios_archive.html#106718811099895710&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/web-wp.archive.org\\\/web\\\/20080215203543\\\/http:\\\/\\\/atrios.blogspot.com:80\\\/2003_10_26_atrios_archive.html&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-03-12 05:05:52&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 12:38:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200}],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:{&quot;date&quot;:&quot;2026-04-07 12:38:57&quot;,&quot;http_code&quot;:200},&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>President Bush doesn&#8217;t think the current Patriot Act is good enough. In an attempt to &#8220;close loopholes&#8221; in the original legislation, he&#8217;s proposed three very frightning changes, examined here by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sptimes.com\/2003\/10\/26\/Columns\/No_pause_in_Patriot_A.shtml\" title=\"St. Petersburg Times: No pause in Patriot Act pounding\">Robyn Blummer of the St.\u00a0Petersburg Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  Bush wants three additional powers from Congress.<\/p>\n<p>  First, he wants to give the Justice Department the authority to confiscate records and compel testimony without review by a court or grand jury.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  Second, Bush wants to chip away at the right to bail. &#8230;he wants passage of the &#8220;Pretrial Detention and Lifetime Supervision of Terrorists Act of 2003,&#8221; a bill that would keep people accused of a whole range of new crimes behind bars pending trial by making those crimes presumptively &#8220;no bond&#8221; offenses.<\/p>\n<p>  &#91;&#8230;&#93;<\/p>\n<p>  And third, Bush wants to expand the reach of the federal death penalty by making it applicable to &#8220;domestic terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  Under the Patriot Act, the crime of &#8220;domestic terrorism&#8221; couldn&#8217;t be more broadly written. Any criminal act intended to influence the government through &#8220;intimidation or coercion&#8221; involving &#8220;dangerous acts&#8221; qualifies. Aggressive protesters of all stripes from Greenpeace activists to abortion foes could easily fall within this definition, opening the door for politically motivated executions.<\/p>\n<p>  Bush also wants the death penalty for those convicted of providing &#8220;material support for terrorism,&#8221; a law that can be violated even when people think they are giving money to a charity and don&#8217;t know the group is a designated terrorist organization.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Put simply, Bush wants to finalize the process of turning America into a police state, where the slightest suspicion of dissent could land you in jail without bail, and possibly on death row.<\/p>\n<p>(via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.talkleft.com\/archives\/004718.html\" title=\"Patriot Act Wishlist\">TalkLeft<\/a>, via <a href=\"http:\/\/atrios.blogspot.com\/2003_10_26_atrios_archive.html#106718811099895710\" title=\"Patriot Plus\">Atrios<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Bush doesn&#8217;t think the current Patriot Act is good enough. In an attempt to &#8216;close loopholes&#8217; in the original legislation, he&#8217;s proposed three very frightning changes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2042],"tags":[14],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}