Controversial Patriot Act power now overwhelmingly used in drug investigations | Hacker News Reader

Controversial Patriot Act power now overwhelmingly used in drug investigations

washingtonpost.com

303 points001sky47 comments

There's a case before the SCOTUS right now that was argued back in October that has to do with something similar, where "forgotten law" (the police officer allegedly forgot what the law was for a broken tail light and pulled the person over anyway) led to a traffic stop, which led to a cursory search of the vehicle, which led to the discovery of a substantial amount of cocaine (relatively speaking). While one might argue that the court could easily rule for the government in this case given that the defendant consented to the secondary search (perhaps out of ignorance of the law), what's troubling for me in this related case is the government's position outright: namely, that it doesn't matter if the police officer does or does not know the law as long as a stop is "reasonable." To me that sounds like a pretty awful precedent to set. My law professor loved to ask us, somewhat condescendingly and to paraphrase John Adams, "are we a Nation of men, or are we a Nation of laws?"

Indeed.

[1]http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2014/2014_13_604

From the police actions and ruling in this case, I'd say the answer is neither.

Thankfully the Court hasn't ruled on it yet. Probably looking for a June opinion release. Given the precedent set in Riley v. California [1] (cellphone warrant case) I think the personality of the court is inclined to agree that police do in fact need a legal justification to pull someone over. I was more concerned that the Federal Government was arguing to the contrary.

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-132_8l9c.pdf

I really do not understand why some people argue that slippery slope arguments are fallacious. If there is no compelling force and no oversight that prevents an organization from doing something then by entropy alone you would expect that it will eventually be done, much less when there is a huge incentive to use it because it requires less work and red tape.

Slippery slope arguments aren't necessarily fallacious. Their quality depends on how strong of a case you can build for why/how <initial-event> will lead to <predicted-stopping-point> rather than <alternative-stopping-points>.

EDIT: Don't know why I'm being downvoted. Wikipedia seems to back me up here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope).

You're being downvoted because there's a certain passive-aggressive subset who'd rather take the easy way out and just suppress an opinion they disagree with by pushing it into graytext territory than attempt to do the constructive thing and type out a thoughtful response to it.

Anyway, you're correct that slippery slope arguments aren't necessarily fallacious. A well-crafted one which demonstrates that sliding down the slope is inevitable can be quite compelling. One that I've always thought was particularly impressive is the line of reasoning that the political philosopher Robert Nozick employed in his book Anarchy, State, and Utopia to argue that an anarchist political system would not be viable.

Maybe it's just me, but I feel like people are increasingly using phrases that put wikipedia in the 'source' category.

this isn't a slippery slope, there wasn't a progressive increase in power, the powers were granted (mostly) at once.

the powers were granted due to reason X, but not restricted to reason X. So now they are being used for reason Y.

you could even go so far as to argue they're still used with their original and beautifully nebulous intent: national security

Most of the "fallacy" categorizations of arguments are BS, I'd say just ignore them.

You would say that, drinking cold tea and all.

ad hominem

Well, arguments of the form 'if we allow X then we must also allow Y' is a fallacy in the strict sense that it does not follow with logical necessity when X and Y are different things. While if you accept the premises that say X leads to Y and Y leads to Z, then it does follow logically that X leads to Z.

The word 'fallacy' is often used as synonym for 'wrong' but that is misleading.

Just as powers granted for terrorism are, and will continue to be used for more mundane crimes. History has shown us that the technologies and tactics deployed on the battlefield will be be brought home, and be be deployed against the civilian population.

And civil asset forfeiture was supposed to be just for fighting drug dealers but now being used in all sorts of cases [1]. Governments and other organizations will use all of the powers given to them and then some. The populace will continue to be deceived by the classic divide and conquer for as long as people allow it. The courts don't seem to be stepping up to the plate on these laws which seem very unconstitutional on the face of it from my naive standpoint.

[1] http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/10/06/john_oliver_o...

Another example of why legislating in a fit of passion is generally a bad idea.

I'm going to be cynical here and suggest that there was no emotion involved for the legislators themselves - they knew the consequences from the beginning. They wait for constituents to become emotional and irrational to push through shitty legislation.

You're assuming that the power-grab of government is all-encompassing, and that all parties collude equally. I doubt this is true.

Even congressmen are human, and at least some were caught up in the emotion.

Cynically (and I expect downvotes) I even imagine Bush caught up emotionally, as old-school Cold War vets Cheney and Rumsfeld finally saw a chance to pounce on popular fervor to increase executive power. Perhaps I'm wrong, but history seems on my side.

If you consider the account of what happened surrounding the passing of the post-9/11 legislation as given here[0] factual, it was very much transported on emotion.

Sure, the original concept wasn't new, but I'm fairly certain the emotional landscape at the time was intentionally used as a vehicle to pass these kinds of laws.

The saddest part is that many people who did pay attention at the time were fully aware of where this would go and were criticised or ridiculed at the time. My first thought upon learning of the PATRIOT Act was that it's a creepy name for a bill that permanently erodes civil rights and protections, but apparently most people thought it was okay because A) it has a name you can't possibly argue with (being considered un-patriotic in the aftermath of 9/11 would have been outrageous) and B) it's only for dealing with terrorism anyway.

Kinda reminds me of the Internet censorship bill our politicians in Germany tried to pass some years ago. It was only to be used to restrict access to child pornography, of course. Because if there's one thing that's easier to rally people against than terrorism, it's child abuse. And who can argue with combating child abuse?

[0]: http://www.radiolab.org/story/60-words/

I am sure our democratic system will sort this sort abuse out right away...but in reality most people in this country won't bat an eye at issues like this or mass incarceration unfortunately

My sarcasm meter exploded.

*Cynicism

*+Irony

This doesn't help either....

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/prison-black-laws-...

Wow, if I'm reading this right, this seems like evidence of widespread (possibly sub-conscious) racism.

I'm so surprised I fell over.

Not sure if sarcastic...

Of courses there's widespread (systemic) racism. And sub-conscious only in the sense that people don't care to speak about it, because they know it alright.

I think people are conscious of things such as the disproportionate African-American incarceration rates but rather feel powerless to change that fact

You sound as if that's a surprise to you.

As an outsider the ubiquitous racism in American culture seems obvious. It's just become political correct to not actually speak about it.

I mean, it's not like Americans are rounding up brown people in lynch mobs anymore (or at least not as frequently), but that most racists today don't outright try to kill the people they despise doesn't mean they're not racists anymore.

Please capitalize PATRIOT. It's a tacky initialism, not the word "Patriot".

+1. The full acronym is USA PATRIOT, which, every time I read it, causes me to throw up in my mouth a little bit.

So far from protecting the actual ideals the US claims to stand for.

As a German, every time I hear Americans openly embrace unquestioning patriotism (or equate patriotism with blind loyalty to the government -- and no, conservatives ragging about the "nanny state" and questioning Obama's nationality or religion don't count if you also sport "Support Our Troops" bumper stickers and pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth), I cringe a bit.

Over the years I've learned to pay less attention to it, but especially with Bush the rhetoric was exactly the kind that rang all the alarm bells. Every time I see a new president be elected into office my only thought is "Please don't become Hitler".

If there's anything scarier than the US, it's the US at war. And since 9/11, the US is de-facto perpetually at war.

> We were assured at the time that this was an essential law enforcement tool that would be used only to protect the country from terrorism.

This describes much more than just the "sneak and peek" power.

Oops. If true, the utter betrayal of government over the governed. At least in a fascist state, you know you're going to get screwed. Well, I think we can all agree now this is proof positive everything Snowden has said is completely valid.

No state (today) would openly admit to that label.

Snowden's revelations came too late to garner a big enough reaction from the populace in my opinion

Well, we can't really know everything he said is valid (he might be mistaken or deceived, for example) but certainly some of it is. But one doesn't need Snowden to know government will expand its powers if allowed to do so. You don't need Snowden, you just need a good history book and a bit of thinking. Snowden revelations showed how bad exactly it has gotten. But you could predict that it's going to get bad just because the government has been given wide powers and no substantial control over them. There's no way it would not go bad, it always does.

Prior to Snowden's 'revelations' I was accused of being a tin-foil hatter wherever I expressed my opinion on government spying. Not so much now.

> At least in a fascist state, you know you're going to get screwed.

Lots of people know this about our state, but most of them get dismissed as radicals.

Reminds me of this scene form The Departed (great film):

> Patriot Act. I love it! I love it! I love it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdqEuLhlexY

I knew this would happen because the majority of Federal drug cases are charged as conspiracy under the Rico Act of 1985.

Destruction of Wisdom in USA - healthy, wealthy and wise.

similar pattern to destrution of HEALTH by the health care system. How so? BIG PHARMA and the BIG HOSPITAL Chains make kill all anti-biotics. This wiipes out ALL bacteria including the friendly ones and it lead to SUIPER bacteria like MRSA, superbugs, etc.

Most of the doctors are cowards and go with the herd, so for any small illness, the patient gets a KILL DOSAGE OF Anti-biiotics.

allegedly most of the law enforcemtn are 'somewhat cowards' and go with the herd, so for nonviolent weed usage, etc, the CRIMINAL THAT IS THE USA CITIZEN gets a KILL DOSAGE of Anti-Terror indictments via the BIG Pharma factory of the Patriot Act.

Since our political leaders in Congress have almost NO programming skills and flunked out of statistics class and it appears thtey are too LAZY TO EVEN READ THE BILLS of potential law,

this comes as no surprise.

summary conclusion: the housing bubble destroyed the wealth and the tax structure that sends manufacturers to China. wealth destroyed - check.

the provisional rush through of dangerous pills destroyed the health

health destroyed - check

the 'patriot act' and other civil forfeiture acts is destroying the WISDOM.

wisdom destroying in progress - aided and abetted by the Comcast 'Net Neutrality'. Tracking direct usage by 'electric meters' will DESTROY reddit.com, Hacker news, and other

OPEN PUBLIC COMMONS.

The Drug WARS continue as 1.) we learned nothing from Prohibition and the rise of organized crime 2.) Vietnam War spread drugs using the military

3.)Iran-Contragate Scandal

4.)destruction of the Colombia Drug Cartel in order to promote the power of the Mexican Drug Cartel and the rise of human smuggling

aka illegal aliens.

5.) small import export business is a bystander CASUALTY OF THE DRUG WAR. Any anonymous tip and your goods are seized via the power of snooping on your communications.

6.) HERE IS THE LOOPHOLE OF THE :PATRIOT ACT. Mexican Leader El Chapo Guzman is a 3rd grade dropout.

He also knows that the great USA has supercomputers and mnay fine cryptographers on Hacker news.

So, maybe the carrier pigeons and birds are used to carry messages?

thus, anti-aircraft gun batteries should be set up at the border.

GOOD BY Canadian geese flying south. This will also provide plenty FREE food meals for the law enforcement after proper legal procedures.

Please, bird and animal lovers (especially FEMALES) do not flame me!

To those who don't like the use of this law, I think this is OK. Here's why: You live in a democracy where the popular opinion decides who's in power. You agree that's a good idea because you aren't moving to an authoritarian or libertarian country or voting to change the system. The popular opinion allowed this law, so you should accept that it's the right one according to the system. Of course there will always be a minority which doesn't like each law, and you happen to be a member of that minority in this case.

If it does become a bigger problem that affects the majority, they'll eventually decide to vote it out. Until then, it's nothing to worry about. This is the self-stabilizing effect of democracy. There can be small problems, but not big Syria-scale problems.

It's just part of the cost of sharing your country with people who think differently from you. If you really strongly believe the law is being used for "bad" purposes, the bad people are the voters who first allowed it, and after seeing it happen, continued to re-elect the same politicians that passed this law. Those are the people you should be complaining about - the two wolves voting on what's for dinner.

You might say those majority voters are ignorant and it's not their fault. No, they are taking action which you believe is wrong, so they are doing something wrong. If they aren't competent to decide who to vote for, they're being negligent by doing it recklessly.

PS I live in an authoritarian country where imagining the police have some restrictions on their power is only a fantasy. Your police at least do still have some restrictions, and they always will as long as you have a democracy.

> You live in a democracy where the popular opinion decides who's in power....The popular opinion allowed this law, so you should accept that it's the right one according to the system.

No. This is a Republic. Our elected representatives built and instituted this law in a power grab while the country was reeling from a terror attack.

> Of course there will always be a minority which doesn't like each law, and you happen to be a member of that minority in this case.

See the ^.

> If it does become a bigger problem that affects the majority, they'll eventually decide to vote it out. Until then, it's nothing to worry about. This is the self-stabilizing effect of democracy.

No, this is how democracies drift into authoritarianism.

I could go on, but it seems you're getting awfully relativistic, legally and ethically speaking.

> If it does become a bigger problem that affects the majority, they'll eventually decide to vote it out.

Slight problem with that. Candidate Obama promised to repeal the Patriot Act. People voted for him. He was elected. It has not been repealed.

To be fair, there are a lot of other promises he didn't hold. It's unfair to focus on that one in particular.

>To those who don't like the use of this law, I think this is OK. Here's why: You live in a democracy where the popular opinion decides who's in power.

And the colossal naivety begins right here...

> the popular opinion decides who's in power.

Nope: a bunch of marginal (and mostly rural) constituencies "decide" who's "in power" (which is not actual power but rather arbitrating positions between lobbies, anyway). Everybody else is just an extra.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com