Oct 6th, 2009
Posted by Michelle Richardson, ACLU Legislative Counsel at 12:09am	Keep America Safe & Free, Surveillance, USA PATRIOT Act

Ensuring JUSTICE In Patriot Act Reauthorization

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

On Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to wrap up its markup and vote on the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act. The committee started its discussion last week, debating and voting on amendments that either improved or worsened an already watered-down bill.

It’s likely that most of you are familiar with the Patriot Act but just in case – the voluminous and complex bill was rushed through Congress just 45 days after 9/11 with little debate and gave sweeping and invasive powers to the government, including the ability to access your medical records, tax records and to search your home only letting you know after the fact. Three provisions of the Patriot Act are due for reauthorization by the end of the year and Congress is just now getting to it so, sense of irony intact, the legislation will certainly be rushed and the debate will likely be minimal.

The bill being marked up by the committee is a so-called ‘compromise’ bill offered by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and is not the bill the ACLU endorsed. We endorsed a bill introduced by Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) called the JUSTICE Act, which would have inserted rigorous civil liberties safeguards into the Patriot Act as well as several other overly broad surveillance laws including, the FISA Amendments Act.

Senators Feingold and Durbin are seeking to have JUSTICE Act provisions added as amendments to the committee’s base bill and succeeded last week in adding language that would shorten the time period on the infamous “sneak and peek” provision, which allows law enforcement agencies to delay giving notice when they conduct a search (you can thank Senator Feingold for introducing the amendment by tweeting a message here and Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)for voting for it by tweeting a message here).

The rest of the committee needs to know that you’re as committed to reforming the Patriot Act as Senators Feingold and Durbin. There’s still time before Thursday for you to contact your Senators’ offices urging them to vote to add any JUSTICE Act amendments to the bill next markup. Among the most important things they should do is make sure that national security letters can no longer be issued to collect the private communication, financial and credit records of people who have no ties to terrorism.

These are the Democratic committee members who, in concert with all of their Republican colleagues, voted against adding  modest privacy protections that would have reined in the infamous “library records provision” and  need to hear from you: Senators Leahy (D-VT), Kohl (D-WI), Feinstein (D-CA), Schumer (D-NY), Kaufman (D-DE, Klobuchar (D-MN), Franken (D-MN) and Whitehouse (D-RI). These Senators need a reminder that Americans are actually pretty interested in keeping our Fourth Amendment rights.

And make sure to call Senators Specter and Cardin to thank them for supporting Feingold’s important amendment last Thursday and urge them to keep supporting the Constitution.  Call these Senators on the Judiciary Committee and tell them to protect your privacy this Thursday and vote for JUSTICE Act amendments that will truly reform the Patriot Act.

Permalink |	Keep America Safe & Free, Surveillance, USA PATRIOT Act

1. Bonnie Says:
   Oct 7th, 2009 at 6:24am

   Will the Justice Act stop surveillance of innocent Americans deprived of due process of law?

   Visit my web site theintrovertspeaks.com

   Organized Gang Stalking

   It's happening all over the United States. It's happening here in San Diego County. It's called organized gang stalking and there is no law against it. The phenomena was first noted by a German industrial psychologist, Dr. Heinz Leymann. He noted that a group of people would target an individual to force the individual out of the workplace and he called what they did "mobbing." Authors Noa Zanolli, Ruth Distler Schwartz, and Gail Pursell have described how it works in their book, Mobbing - U.S.A. Emotional Abuse in the Workplace. Whether taking place in the workplace or in the community, mobbing, as it is called when it happens in a workplace, or organized gang stalking, as it is called when it happens in the community, involves a kind of psychological torture whose goal is to drive the target out or to neutralize the
   target.
   In the community it often works by sensitizing the target to a stimulus all of the organized gang stalkers use. The stimulus is often an everyday thing - for instance, the color "red." The thing that makes the stimulus so aversive is the frequency with which it occurs. A group of 20 or 30 or 50 or more of organized gang stalkers might be involved in harassing the target, so the target is continuously harassed with the same stimulus, but by different individuals. Every time the target enters or leaves his or her home, for instance, an organized gang stalker will be there with something red on. The target's routines are ascertained. Neighbors - afraid of being gang stalked themselves - might alert the gang stalkers when the target is leaving his or her home. When the target walks on the beach, three or four gang stalkers wearing red might be there. When the target opens his or her blinds in the morning, the first thing he or she will see is a person wearing red. Organized gang stalkers typically try to be there on entrances or exits of the target, so that when the target comes out of a store, the first thing he or she sees will be a gang stalker in red. It is the frequency of the stimulus that makes it so aversive and the isolation of the target. Gang stalkers often target people without support systems.
   The target's property might have trash thrown on it. There will be car alarms set off if the target tries to take a walk or the beeping of horns. The gang stalkers often use noise to try to deprive the target of sleep. A program of "touchless torture" is set up by the organized gang stalkers in 24/7 harassment. The organized gang stalking might go on for years.

   GANG STALKING

   Primary targets are “women, minorities, dissidents, whistle blowers.”

   Tactics include:

   Telling lies about a target.

   Surveillance of the targets movements by the gang stalkers. Gang stalkers use red cars, red trucks, wear/carry red.

   Enlistment of neighbors to join in the harassment, an attempt to try to isolate
   the target.

   Increase in noise in the vicinity of the target’s home. Noise used for harassment timed to disrupt the target’s life, when he/she leaves her home, goes into her yard.

   The use of dogs to intimidate – running up at the target – jumping out of car windows.

   Hammering used for harassment.

   Wrong numbers to target’s telephone.

   Dumping garbage on target’s property.

   Exiting or Entering at the same time the target exits or enters her/his home for the purpose of harassment.

   Psychological tactics where ordinary everyday items are repetitively used to create a doublebind. Open garage doors, lawn mowers left on front lawns – repetively used by gang stalkers to attract the target’s notice (where to notice and report such everything things makes the target sound crazy – the intent of gang stalkers).

   Damage to property of target.

   Honking of horns.

   Vehicles stopping and standing in front of target’s home especially when he/she enters/exits.

   Shining lights in target’s home.

   The purpose of this organized gang stalking is to neutralize the target.

   To make the target appear unstable and to discredit the target in the larger community.

   To alienate and marginalize the target from the larger community.

   To use tactics that leave no evidence for prosecution.

   WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:

   You can help restore Constitutional protections by writing to your legislators found at www.Congress.org and asking them to:

   1. to reinstate anti-COINTELPRO regulations and make it illegal for the FBI to monitor and conduct surveillance of religious and political groups without evidence of wrongdoing

   2. create mechanisms of oversight over fusion centers that return Constitutional protections to American citizens

   3. establish codes of ethics for police and firemen to prevent harassment of citizens using organized gang stalking tactics with consequences for violations

   4. put "limitations on the ability of police departments to conduct surveillance of First Amendment Activity in the absence of criminal activity, a mechanism for persons to discover if police have been monitoring them, and a framework for reviewing and auditing intelligence files by a neutral third party"

   5. make the person who initiates organized gang stalking against another person guilty of a hate crime

   6. ask Congress to hold hearings on watch lists which already contain the names of 1.1 million Americans to put a stop to the growth of privacy invasive lists

   7. tell Congress to stop the abuse of the states secret doctrine to hide government misconduct

   8. tell lawmakers to stop police from using GPS to track American citizens without first getting a warrant

   9. tell Congress to review U.S. surveillance law to stop the expansion of government authority to conduct domestic surveillance without evidence of wrongdoing

   10. tell your representatives you want a Department of Civil Liberties to protect your rights under the Constitution

   TELL CONGRESS TO STOP THE UNAMERICAN ACTIVITY OF ORGANIZED
   GANG STALKING. TO RESTORE DUE PROCESS OF LAW AND THE CHECKS
   AND BALANCES ON POWER OUR FOREFATHERS PUT IN PLACE TO
   PROTECT OUR LIBERTY.

   For a thorough understanding of what is going on go to my web site at: theintrovertspeaks.com.

   For further information read the book: Bridging The Gap by GmB Bailey available from

2. Ronnie Edwards Says:
   Oct 7th, 2009 at 8:23pm

   There are extremes to any introduced legislation; however, I think the only people that would fear some of the provisions of the Patriot Act would be citizens of suspious backgrounds.

3. John Doe Says:
   Oct 9th, 2009 at 8:48pm

   The aclu should disband on your own because when you get to your maker, you will be checked about the same as lawers, you people are full of it and you know it, all you do is cost us the public money in taxes not helping us in any way, so get lost and quit stealing money from the gov. and us the public. I would write more about you but truly you are not worth it:

4. anon nurse Says:
   Oct 10th, 2009 at 3:00pm

   Ronnie wrote: "I think the only people that would fear some of the provisions of the Patriot Act would be citizens of suspious (sic) backgrounds."

   We all need to fear what's going on.

   Read Bonnie's comment because she's got it right. And the activities that she describes are apparently on the rise.

   Those in power refuse to investigate, even though they're charged with protecting us. That no one will help is an outrage.

   The phenomenon is real(though, admittedly, unbelievable). It's also criminal, even though it may be technically legal, given certain Patriot Act provisions.

   It sounds "crazy", which is precisely why it works. And good, law-abiding people are being targeted and victimized.

5. roald Says:
   Oct 12th, 2009 at 12:22pm

   Ronnie, I respectfully disagree. Benjamin Franklin, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

6. ass hiole Says:
   Oct 12th, 2009 at 10:50pm

   you guys suck ,,,,,,,,,,aclu =assholes communists losers underlings , there will come a day when you need your asses backed up and WE THE People WONT BE there for you

7. Jeremy Says:
   Oct 13th, 2009 at 9:21am

   Bonnie, thanks for speaking up, but it gets worse than what you've experienced. The "nonlethal" weapons being deployed in Iraq are also being used against targets in a 24/7 campaign of torture.

   I've been overtly stalked since 2005.

8. Anonymous Says:
   Nov 7th, 2009 at 3:32pm

   Thanks all the non trolls and fanatics, gang stalkilng is a very real hate crime. ask anyone in ny ny about aa gangstalking on w. houston midnight group, e12th st workshop . well on days when i was there several girls with blackberries would appear wearing the same colors and using signals called "anchors". they want to condition u to relax when u see one color and get scared or angry when u see another. new people would signal with them they use cocaine and go to aa . several were in my building one day doing cocaine saying oh no we gotta go to aa. i know ,i heard them and saw them, they would say things u mentioned earlier on a cell phone in the day, they use "hand" signals repeating for the aa meeting time hr. the same 5 or 6 signals and scratches on the same area , also on sun . on 2nd ave clean and dry meeting and some VA hosptital meetings.they say are u crazy are u on crack when u ask them what they are doing. they love it when they can involve the other members to look at u if they didnt notice the signals. i never knew i would fear something called the patriot act. i am now in asia. i had gangstalkers at my doorstep when i walked out for 2 yrs , on thompkins sq park,they try here in asia .they use st theater to discredit u 24/7 noise , they staged murders in my basement and outside my window i was on the ground floor . i was getting very close to a breakdown. they want u to be locked up so they can continue to torture u there. the white super was told to go away for two wks. then one super spanish threw some them out they had talked him into letting them stay there.one tenant was ron zimmerman from long island he does the noise with girls from long island for landlords. the landlord said alot of really strange things are going to start happening to u now. i had already been gangstalked by these people who think they are agents for 2 or more yrs. please go to flickr.com look up gangstalkers . u will see the fr speaking ones used here in asia.the internet helps people that are targeted.go to utube some people become very religious i cant blame them . i voted for Obama and will again i hope he can help us all.

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