Word: patrioteer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...personal liberty, clashes have been breaking out around the country over where to draw the line. Librarians are alerting visitors that their Internet surfing or book borrowing may be monitored by the government. Nearly 100 towns and counties, plus the state of Hawaii, have passed resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that greatly expanded federal powers to conduct the war on terrorism...
...Calif., has gone further, passing an ordinance that requires city officials to decline to assist in investigations carried out under the powers of the act. David Meserve, the city council member who drafted the ordinance, says it was a pre-emptive strike in case the feds, using the Patriot Act as their legal authority, ever ask local police to serve a search warrant or order town record keepers to hand over tax records. "My oath of office is to uphold the Constitution," says Meserve. "The Patriot Act is unconstitutional...
...fast, says Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh, who had a large part in shaping the USA Patriot Act. "Security is the means by which we achieve our fundamental freedoms." Dinh rejects the idea that the Justice Department is doing a balancing act because, he says, the department is making sure that no civil liberties are violated. "It is especially in this war, where our enemies are attacking the very foundations of our liberties," he says, "that we must be particularly vigilant about protecting those liberties...
...early April, Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby organized a special information and discussion meeting addressing faculty fears that the USA PATRIOT Act and related legislation threatened to stifle their academic freedom...
Limitations on who may participate in sensitive research, established in the wake of Sept. 11 through the USA PATRIOT Act and Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, also requires researchers working on biological agents and toxins to undergo FBI scrutiny and forbids foreign scholars from certain nations—such as Iran, Iraq, Cuba, and North Korea—from participating in research on biological agents...