"Business groups want to limit Patriot Act"

[dbeach]

a breath of fresh air

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/06/business_groups_want_to_limit_patriot_act/

Business groups want to limit Patriot Act


The business groups complained to Congress on Wednesday that the Patriot Act makes it too easy for the government to get confidential business records. That put them at odds with one of President Bush's top priorities -- the unfettered extension of the law passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Confidential files -- records about our customers or our employees, as well as our trade secrets and other proprietary information -- can too easily be obtained and disseminated under investigative powers expanded by the Patriot Act," six business groups wrote in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. "These new powers lack sufficient checks and balances."

Finally, they endorsed Senate amendments that would provide the first "meaningful right to challenge the (Patriot Act court) order when the order is unreasonable, oppressive or seeks privileged information" and the right to challenge the existing permanent gag order covering document demands made under the act.

While calling the Patriot Act "an important tool that has helped keep our country safe," the groups expressed concern over "the expensive and time-consuming burden that compliance with document requests from the government places upon affected businesses." Other signers were The Financial Services Roundtable and Business Civil Liberties Inc.

[tonkatoy57]

1. Strange Bedfellows and all that....

If there is one group that could scuttle Son of Patriot Act it's Big Bidness.

I know and you know that the concern isn't for their employees and customers privacy it's their own butts they want to cover. Anything that makes it easier to discover corporate malfeasance is taboo to them.

It's hard to get into bed with Big Bidness so if it helps, just think of it as a mercy fuck.

[dbeach]

3. THAT IS TOO RICH .LOL

God help us..do these bigbushnes ceos actualy..God can't even think of it..

[electropop]

2. Great catch!

I've passed it along to a Congressional candidate who wanted to talk about it without sounding like a flaming leftie.

[seemslikeadream]

4. Thanks dbeach and Merry Fitzmas to you

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said the administration prefers the House bill and objects to some of these new restrictions in the Senate version. The differences are to be resolved in a Senate-House conference.

Specifically, the groups endorsed a Senate provision that would require federal agents to provide to a court that sits in secret to issue Patriot Act warrants a statement of facts showing "some linkage between the records sought and an individual suspected of being a terrorist or spy."

Currently the government merely has to certify it is conducting an authorized investigation without providing any facts connecting the records to actual suspects.

Going beyond even the Senate bill, the groups said that provision requiring a factual linkage also should be added to a separate Patriot Act section which allows agents to gather business records of financial institutions by issuing a "national security letter" without any court approval.

[nonny]

5. No privacy anymore

"Confidential files -- records about our customers or our employees, as well as our trade secrets and other proprietary information -- can too easily be obtained and disseminated under investigative powers expanded by the Patriot Act,"

They want to track everything about us!

Business records -- employees and customers
Library records -- hey why are you reading that book!
Cars with their GPS
Cell phones
Printers embed a code on the paper to trace it to printer ID#
Did I hear about new laptops having hardware to record every keystroke & send it somewhere?
And then there are the CHIPS

:hide:

[earth mom]

6. Shouldn't Congress ALREADY be working to limit the Patriot Act?

Now that they've read it that is...since we all know they didn't read any of it BEFORE it was passed!

:argh: