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Wow, I had no idea that the Patriot Act was so misunderstood. Regarding the CNN article: judging from only the AP's (one-sided) report, it looks like either the journalist is attributing the Patriot Act too much power or law enforcement is jumping the gun. While the Patriot Act was intended to target terrorism, many of its provisions are desperately needed in combating crime in other areas, like the ability to "wiretap" e-mail headers. The government, however, cannot look at the contents (making it weaker than traditional wiretapping). Because of this, some of those provisions are being made into a new law, the VICTORY Act, which targets drug trafficking. Citing the Patriot Act in order to use those provisions is probably jumping the gun, but nonetheless certain provisions of the Patriot Act are (and should be) applicable to areas outside fighting terrorism.
You have to realize that many people are under the impression that the Patriot Act is the government's ticket to a police state. It isn't. Patriot II, for example, allows the FBI to get a "roving wiretap" on a cellular telephone from any district court in the country. Sound extreme? No. It's simply a reflection of technology: traditional phones don't move. Under the current legislation, if the FBI has a warrant for a wiretap on a cellular telephone in one district, the instant that phone moves into another district, the FBI must get a new warrant. For tracking drug runners, this is a needless hindrance (Patriot II is supposed to merge the Patriot and Victory Acts into a single bill).
I have my own theories for why the Patriot Act is so misunderstood, but I'll refrain. Instead, I'll point out that the out of 272 complaints (that are applicable to the Patriot Act) received at the Inspector General's Office, only 34 were deemed credible. The last I checked, 4 cases were decided, with 2 being valid and the other 2 being thrown out. According to the Justice Department, over 1000 complaints filed against the Patriot Act didn't actually apply to it, and were redirected appropriately. Unfortunately, for many people the Patriot Act is still some vague horrific bogeyman. That is not to say that the Patriot Act can't be abused (as those 2 cases proved), just that people are too quick to attribute anything and everything as an abuse of the Patriort Act.
-- Alvin
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