A patriot should be offended by provisions of Patriot Act

A Washington Post report on an innocuous sounding instrument -- national security letters -- came just in time to give pause to the representatives and senators putting the finishing touches on a conference committee version of the USA Patriot Act extension.
National security letters are actually rather nasty documents, which manage to trample on not one, but two, amendments in the Bill of Rights. NSLs permit the government to snoop into the private lives of citizens, thus doing dishonor to the Fourth Amendment, and prohibit anyone -- a banker, librarian, employer -- from telling the citizen that he's been snooped on, thus violating the First Amendment.
NSLs are creatures of the Patriot Act, an ill-advised piece of legislation that was jammed through Congress in haste following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And like so much that was in the Patriot Act, they should be reined in. But the House shows no inclination to do so, and the Senate has been only a bit more willing to admit some of the errors of its ways.
Going too far
National security letters are a perfect example of how the Patriot Act reached too far in a misguided effort to make Americans feel they should trade some of their freedoms for a feeling of security.
Since the 1970s, government agents have had the right to secretly inspect the records of suspected foreign agents on issuance of a national security letter in connection with espionage and terrorism investigations.
The Patriot Act broadened the coverage of the letters to include everyone and the criteria for issuing an NSL was reduced to information "sought for" or "relevant" to a national security investigation.
The NSL allows the FBI and other investigators to secretly inspect financial records, business dealings, telephone calls, who sent and received e-mails, Web sites visited, Internet searches conducted -- basically all the target's personal data.
The NSLs are not subject to approval by a judge, grand jury or prosecutor, only the government agency that wants to do the peeking.
If, say, a bank or library or Internet service provider receives an NSL, the recipient is forbidden to disclose that fact and the gag order remains theoretically in perpetuity.
We would hope that Congress intended for a document that gave government agents such broad power to be used sparingly. Obviously, NSLs are subject to abuse, given that it is virtually impossible for the average citizen to ever even find out that his or her privacy had been invaded.
Big numbers
But The Post reported that the FBI is issuing more than 30,000 NSLs a year. And that figure doesn't include all the FBI's NSLs or those issued by the Pentagon and other government agencies.
Even more disturbing, the Justice Department has shown itself in the last four years eager to find ways of using investigative freedoms included in the Patriot Act in other investigations, including those involving organized crime.
Congress is rushing to renew the Patriot Act by Dec. 31. The NSLs are a permanent part of the Patriot Act, unlike 16 other provisions that must be renewed periodically.
The idea that hundreds of thousands of Americans could be subject to secret searches authorized by NSLs -- and that anyone who happens to find out about an NSL and decides to talk about it is subject to prosecution -- should make any member of Congress rethink his or her enthusiasm for the misnamed Patriot Act.