While most provisions of the PATRIOT ACT are in harmony with the Constitution, why can't we have a public discussion about which provisions are not and why?
A few years ago, the right of privacy was discovered to be almost absolute when it came to a woman's womb. Indeed the issue of the status of the unborn child is so "private" that the Supreme Court declared the child to be her private property to dispose of as she pleases, until she allows it to be born.
Conversely over that same time span, a series of laws such as the Orwellian-named Bank Secrecy Act, have operated hand-in-glove with the PATRIOT ACT to totally destroy other aspects of personal privacy. You could say that outside of sexual matters, the word "private" now really means "transparent to government".
So, someone may ask how it affects everyone? It means for example that everyone with a bank account is now under continual scoring of every transaction and mandatory reporting of anything out of the ordinary, as the bank defines it. This concept stands the 4th Amendment on its ear.
But such data goes begging for energetic bureaucrats and it won't be long for the bank scoring data to be matched against income tax filings to "increase the level of compliance".
I recently ran into this mindset at the bank when I deposited a check that was slightly more than $10,000. On a whim, I asked if I could just have the cash. The teller gave me a real odd look. I then asked if, after handing me the cash, if I changed my mind and put the cash right back into my account, would she have to fill out a Suspicious Activity Report? Of course!
Just try to get your bank to tell you what activity will trigger their reporting your activities to the government. They will tell you they can't. So, thanks to these laws, you can trigger a criminal investigation or flagging of your account totally by accident.
Of course, all this is for our own good. Never mind that the 9/11 hijackers had triggered SAR reports that the government did not follow up on, that is after another department let them into the country on clearly faulty visa applications.
see:
http://www.ffiec.gov/ffiecinfobase/resources/info_sec/fdi-12_cfr_353_suspicious_activ_reports.pd.pdf
On another "feature" of the PATRIOT ACT, anytime a government bureau can grant itself a way to circumvent your privacy by simply giving itself permission, look out. If anyone thinks that bureaucrats remember every word of their oath of office, just remember how several bureaus ran amok at Waco.
But one objectionable provision allows secret searches. It is just a matter of time before a federal agent conducting one of these searches in the dark of night runs into a homeowner who acts to protect his property from this lurking intruder. If the agent is killed, will the homeowner be charged with his death? If the agent kills the homeowner, can his estate file a wrongful death lawsuit against the government?
From the article:
In return for the convenience of zipping through toll booths, you need to have in your car a wireless device. This tag contains information about your account, permitting E-ZPass to deduct the necessary toll - and to note when your car whisked through that particular toll booth. E-ZPass is "voluntary," too...
...but I have a dollar bill in my wallet that says, "THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE"....yet this dollar bill cannot be used for some exits off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You must turn over your privacy to use an exit on a road for which your tax dollars are already being spent.
But the point is well taken...you can choose not to use OnStar, but you can't choose to avoid the PATRIOT ACT's privacy violations.