Repeal the Patriot Act!

For several years I have avoided using my credit card for general shopping after I read that some if not all corporations compile the information, not only of all sorts of personal data required to obtain the credit card in the first place, but the information as to what I purchased. Although I certainly didn’t purchase any suspicious items, I personally resented my privacy being invaded in such a manner.

Consequently I find the whoop-de-do over the intelligence services collecting phone number data, but not listening to the actual content of the phone calls or listing the name of the caller, as a tad curious.  Any request to access the phone information from an individual must go through the FISA court, just as getting a warrant from a judge to search your home or possessions is required.  The law enforcement agency must prove sufficient probable cause to the judge in order to obtain the warrant.  The same applies to the FISA court to get a warrant to find out the name of the person whose telephone number is suspect.

And I have no problem with intelligence agencies reviewing the internet sites wherein people post personal data or anything else that they really shouldn’t, such as any criminal activity.  If someone is dumb enough to post this stuff, they need to have their postings reviewed!

I do have a problem, sort of, with collecting people’s Google, or other search site questions.  Because of this blog I have searched for all sorts of information which could be “linked” together to prove almost anything, I suppose.  And I have a major problem with the fact that these surveillance programs have been classified.  The information that is obtained probably should be classified for several reasons, but the system itself should be as transparent as is possible.  As an example, why should having to go to the FISA court to get a warrant be included in the classified information?  This certainly doesn’t pose a problem anywhere.  There are probably many other facts in this system that could be declassified.

My greatest problem with this emphasis on the need for surveillance to “save” us from a terror attack is that in the past 15 years, there have been only about 5,000 deaths from Al Qaeda-type terrorist attacks in the United States.  Just since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been about 5,000 gun deaths in the United States.  My question is why aren’t the intelligence agencies as hysterical over the gun deaths as we are over a terrorist attack?  If gun control remains the same as it is now, think of the number of gun deaths there will be in 15 years.  In any case, the people who die from a terrorist attack or from gun violence are just as dead.

In my opinion this whole terrorist scare started with The Patriot Act.  I didn’t like it when it was passed, I haven’t liked it during the time it has been in existence, and I sincerely wish that Congress would repeal it.  And after that repeal, all of our domestic surveillance efforts should receive a thorough review, not only by Congress, but by Constitutional lawyers from some of our major Universities from both the West and East coasts. 

So, my new mantra is:  Repeal The Patriot Act!