Council takes on Patriot Act   [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

If critics of the USA Patriot Act are correct, the Fairbanks City Council may have spent more time pondering a...     Read More

The Bill of Rights wins with the Lawless team   [Fairbanks BORDC]

During this past weekend Mike Lawless, carrying a copy of the Bill of Rights in his pocket and the Fairbanks...     Read More

Proposal rebukes Patriot Act   [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

JUNEAU—Inspired by a resolution passed by the Fairbanks City Council, Senate Minority Leader Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, is working on a...     Read More

House Takes Stand Against Patriot Act   [Santa Fe New Mexican]

By an overwhelming vote, the House on Monday passed legislation putting the state on record as opposing many provisions of...     Read More

Santa Fe Police Detain Library Patron   [American Libraries]

A St. John’s College Library visit by a former public defender was abruptly interrupted February 13 when city police officers...     Read More

Librarians try to alter Patriot Act   [San Francisco Chronicle]

Along with the usual reminders to hold the noise down and pay overdue fines, library patrons in Santa Cruz are...     Read More

Red Alert for Bill of Rights!   [The Village Voice]

The Justice Department ... seems to be running amok ... This agency right now is the biggest threat to personal...     Read More

Portland case could put to test Patriot Act   [Oregon Statesman Journal]

PORTLAND — The government’s expanded spying powers under the USA Patriot Act could face their first test in open court...     Read More

Judge Rejects Challenge to FBI Spy Powers   [U.K. Guardian Unlimited]

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - The FBI does not have to explain why it applied for search warrants to bug homes...     Read More

DOJ Drafts Sweeping Expansion of the UPA   [The Center for Public Integrity]

(WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2003) -- The Bush Administration is preparing a bold, comprehensive sequel to the USA Patriot Act passed...     Read More

Ashcroft Out of Control   [The Village Voice]

Many of the new security measures proposed by our government in the name of fighting the "war on terror" are...     Read More

It was a good day for the 6th Amendment   [NorthJersey.com]

Score one for the 6th Amendment. U.S. District Judge Michael Mukasey ruled on Tuesday that the government must allow lawyers...     Read More

Supreme Court Justice Scalia Bans Media   [Common Dreams News Center]

CLEVELAND—Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has banned broadcast media from an appearance Wednesday where he will receive an award for...     Read More

Court stiff-arms privacy challenge   [Los Angeles Times]

WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Monday turned away a preliminary challenge to the government's expanded powers to wiretap and search people...     Read More

Ashcroft: Criticism of DOJ "aiding terrorists"   [Declan McCullagh's Politech]

The Washington Post yesterday said in an editorial:  >Mr. Ashcroft may not like the criticism. But his job...     Read More

Group raises funds to send delegate to Juneau   [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

A fundraising campaign began in an upstairs room at University Community Presbyterian Church Sunday when a woman whipped out a...     Read More

Ex-Intel VP Fights for Detainee   [Wired.com]

Friends of an Intel programmer who is being held in a federal prison can't help but shake their heads in...     Read More

House Judiciary Chairman Hesitant on UPA II   [FOX News]

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration's plans to expand a post-Sept. 11 anti-terrorism law face resistance from a powerful House Republican...     Read More

Local Officials Rise Up to Defy The Patriot Act   [The Washington Post]

ARCATA, Calif. — This North Coast city may look sweet -- old, low-to-the-ground buildings, town square with a bronze statue...     Read More

GOP calls for wider powers to track citizens   [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

WASHINGTON — With the war on terrorism lagging behind the war in Iraq, Republicans in Congress and the White House...     Read More

Libraries Rally Against USA Patriot Act   [FOX News]

PATERSON, N.J.—Librarians across the country are rising up against the USA Patriot Act, shredding records and making other attempts to...     Read More

Conservatives Rise for the Bill of Rights!   [The Village Voice]

A significant development in the movement to resist the Ashcroft-Bush dismembering of the Bill of Rights is the growing coalition...     Read More

Chief Architect of Patriot Act to Quit

By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times (website)
5/14/2003

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is losing another key foot soldier in its war on terrorism.

Viet Dinh, the chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, the controversial post-Sept. 11 legislation that greatly expanded law enforcement agencies' powers to track terrorists, submitted his resignation to the White House on Tuesday, an administration official said.

Dinh, 35, plans to return to teaching at Georgetown University's law school. His resignation, which officials are expected to formally announce today, is effective May 31.

The planned departure comes as Michael Chertoff, the department's criminal division chief, is about to be confirmed by the Senate for a federal appellate judgeship in New Jersey. Chertoff is expected to leave the Justice Department next month.

That means the department is losing two of its most visible proponents in its legal attack on terrorists. They will be leaving as the department has considered a sequel to the Patriot Act, news of which has triggered criticism from civil liberties groups.

A number of other key officials have left recently as well. Jay Bybee, head of the legal-counsel office, the department's internal arbiter of legal questions ranging from the jurisdiction of military tribunals to the exigencies of sentencing corporate defendants, became a federal judge in March.

John Yoo, a Bybee deputy who has served as the office's international law and national security expert, announced recently that he was returning to teach at UC Berkeley's law school.

Both Berkeley and Georgetown grant leave to faculty members who accept public service positions, with the proviso that they return within about two years.

Dinh, the assistant attorney general for legal policy, turned a traditionally low-profile operation into a kind of internal think tank with broad influence. Since his confirmation two years ago this month, his office has played an increasingly important role in formulating policy on a wide swath of topics, including gun control, cyber-pornography and the vetting of federal judicial nominees.

But the Patriot Act got Dinh the most attention. It was embraced by conservatives and reviled by the left, which felt that his views ran roughshod over the Constitution.

His ascent to power was made even more remarkable by his personal journey — a boat refugee from Vietnam who attended high school in Orange County, graduated from Harvard University and its law school and clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

His Patriot Act expanded the authority of government to conduct secret surveillance and searches of citizens and enhanced its powers to detain noncitizens as well as freeze the assets of charities suspected of bankrolling terror groups.

In a bit of vindication, a special federal court last year upheld a provision of the law authorizing closer coordination between government crime-fighters and intelligence agents.

In February, a watchdog group publicized an internal Justice Department memo mentioning that officials were considering a follow-up to the act, dubbed "Patriot Act II."

The draft document included proposals to nullify existing consent decrees against state law-enforcement agencies and allow the government to keep secret information about people detained as part of a terrorism investigation. Justice officials have described the paper as a work in progress that could be discarded.

President Bush recently said he would nominate Chris Wray, a top aide to Deputy Atty. Gen. Larry Thompson and a former federal prosecutor in Atlanta, to succeed Chertoff. Bush also said he would nominate Jack Goldsmith, a University of Chicago law professor, to succeed Bybee.

Close

Fighting the Patriot Act—Now It's Alaska!   [CounterPunch.org]

The Bush Administration and Attorney General John Ashcroft may have been able to pull a fast one in the wake...     Read More

Town criminalizes compliance with Patriot Act   [CNN]

ARCATA, California (AP) — More than 100 cities and one state have passed resolutions condemning the USA Patriot Act, saying...     Read More

Senate passes resolution questioning Patriot Act   [Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

JUNEAU—The state Senate passed a resolution late Tuesday expressing concern over the federal USA Patriot Act, an antiterrorism measure passed...     Read More

Alaska Passes Anti-Patriot Act Resolution   [ABC News]

May 23—Alaska has joined a growing national rebellion against the USA Patriot Act, voting to oppose the massive federal anti-terrorism...     Read More

Anti-Terror Power Used Broadly   [The Washington Post]

The Justice Department has used many of the anti-terrorism powers granted in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks...     Read More

Ashcroft Defied on City Hall Steps   [The Village Voice]

"As New Yorkers living in the city most affected by September 11, we acknowledge the need to protect our safety,...     Read More

US threatens mass expulsions   [BBC News]

More than 13,000 Arab and Muslim men in the US are facing deportation after co-operating with post-11 September anti-terror measures,...     Read More

Patriot Act of 2001 casts wide net   [The Washington Post]

Long-sought details have begun to emerge from the Justice Department on how anti-terrorist provisions of the USA Patriot Act were...     Read More

N.J. Judge Unseals Transcript In Terror Case   [The Washington Post]

PATERSON, N.J., June 24—Mohamed Atriss spent six months here in the Passaic County Jail based on accusations by county prosecutors...     Read More

Report on UPA Alleges Civil Rights Violations   [The New York Times]

WASHINGTON, July 20—A report by internal investigators at the Justice Department has identified dozens of recent cases in which department...     Read More

House Takes Aim at Patriot Act Secret Searches   [Reuters]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to roll back a key provision, which allows the government...     Read More

Toughen Patriot Act, attorney general says   [Anchorage Daily News]

United States Attorney General John Ashcroft told federal and local officials Monday the USA Patriot Act should be expanded, not...     Read More

War on Terrorism Increasingly Used in War on Drugs   [Drug Policy Alliance]

A Watauga County prosecutor is using a law intended to combat terrorism to fight the spread of methamphetamine laboratories in...     Read More

Justice Department Opposes "Sneak and Peek" Ban   [The Washington Post]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)—The U.S. Justice Department on Friday opposed a bid to ban the government from conducting secret "sneak and peek"...     Read More

A tiny town shouts "Whoa!" to Patriot Act   [The Seattle Times]

TONASKET, Okanogan County—If this is a hotbed of sedition, they're hiding it pretty well. In fact, the most suspicious group...     Read More