The Patriot Act


Book Description

Examines six controversial essays that debate the issue of the Patriot Act, and includes model essays, sidebar notes and guided exercises.




The War On Our Freedoms


Book Description

In each generation, for different reasons, America witnesses a tug of war between the instinct to suppress and the instinct for openness. Today, with the perception of a mortal threat from terrorists, the instinct to suppress is in the ascendancy. Part of the reason for this is the trauma that our country experienced on September 11, 2001, and part of the reason is that the people who are in charge of our government are inclined to use the suppression of information as a management strategy. Rather than waiting ten or fifteen years to point out what's wrong with the current rush to limit civil liberties in the name of "national security," these essays by top thinkers, scholars, journalists, and historians lift the veil on what is happening and why the implications are dangerous and disturbing and ultimately destructive of American values and ideals. Without our even being aware, the judiciary is being undermined, the press is being intimidated, racial profiling is rampant, and our privacy is being invaded. The "war on our freedoms " is just as real as the "war on terror " -- and, in the end, just as dangerous.




Terrorist Material Support


Book Description

There are 2 fed. material support statutes have been at the heart of the Justice Dept¿s. terrorist prosecution efforts. One provision outlaws providing material support for the commission of certain designated offenses that might be committed by terrorists. The other outlaws providing material support to certain terrorist org. They share a common definition of the term ¿material support,¿ some aspects of which have come under constitutional attack. Contents of this report: (1) Introduction; (2) Background; (3) Support of Designated Terrorist Org.: Attempt, Conspiracy, Aiding and Abetting; Material Support; Other Constitutional Challenges; Terrorist Org.; Consequences of Charge or Conviction; Extraterritorial Jurisdiction; Civil Actions; (4) Support of Terrorism.




The Right to Privacy


Book Description

Reproduction of the original: The Right to Privacy by Samuel D. Warren, Louis D. Brandeis




United States Code


Book Description




The NSA Report


Book Description

The official report that has shaped the international debate about NSA surveillance "We cannot discount the risk, in light of the lessons of our own history, that at some point in the future, high-level government officials will decide that this massive database of extraordinarily sensitive private information is there for the plucking. Americans must never make the mistake of wholly 'trusting' our public officials."—The NSA Report This is the official report that is helping shape the international debate about the unprecedented surveillance activities of the National Security Agency. Commissioned by President Obama following disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward J. Snowden, and written by a preeminent group of intelligence and legal experts, the report examines the extent of NSA programs and calls for dozens of urgent and practical reforms. The result is a blueprint showing how the government can reaffirm its commitment to privacy and civil liberties—without compromising national security.




Report from the Field


Book Description




Report on the Telephone Records Program Conducted Under Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act and on the Operations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court


Book Description

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) is an independent bipartisan agency within the executive branch established by the Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007. The Board is comprised of four part-time members and a full-time chairman, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. On June 5, 2013, the British newspaper The Guardian published the first of a series of articles based on unauthorized disclosures of classified documents by Edward Snowden, a contractor for the National Security Agency ("NSA"). The article described an NSA program to collect millions of telephone records, including records about purely domestic calls. Over the course of the next several days, there were additional articles regarding this program as well as another NSA program referred to in leaked documents as "PRISM." These disclosures caused a great deal of concern both over the extent to which they damaged national security and over the nature and scope of the surveillance programs they purported to reveal. In response to the congressional and presidential requests, the Board immediately initiated a study of the 215 and 702 programs and the operation of the FISA court. This Report contains the results of the Board's 215 program study as well as our analysis and recommendations regarding the FISC's operation.




Policing Methamphetamine


Book Description

In its steady march across the United States, methamphetamine has become, to quote former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, OC the most dangerous drug in America.OCO As a result, there has been a concerted effort at the local level to root out the methamphetamine problem by identifying the people at its sourceOCothose known or suspected to be involved with methamphetamine. Government-sponsored anti-methamphetamine legislation has enhanced these local efforts, formally and informally encouraging rural residents to identify meth offenders in their communities. Policing Methamphetamine shows what happens in everyday lifeOCoand to everyday lifeOCowhen methamphetamine becomes an object of collective concern. Drawing on interviews with users, police officers, judges, and parents and friends of addicts in one West Virginia town, William Garriott finds that this overriding effort to confront the problem changed the character of the community as well as the role of law in creating and maintaining social order. Ultimately, this work addresses the impact of methamphetamine and, more generally, the war on drugs, on everyday life in the United States.




Congressional Record


Book Description