SELECTIVE REFORMS OVERDUE TO PATRIOT ACT PROVISIONS

Responsible civil libertarians recognize that some provisions of the
Patriot Act are necessary in waging war against terrorists.
Regrettably, the Bush administration and other hard-core defenders of
the act seem unwilling to concede that any of its provisions
overreach. Indeed, you assert that the act's "most important" role may
simply be to "remove the legal barriers that used to forbid
information sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies"
("Patriot Acting Out," Review & Outlook, Jan. 22). Sharing
information, we are told, "used to be a federal offense."

Well, not quite. More than a year ago, an appellate court created by
the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) issued its first
and only opinion. The court's three-judge panel held, among other
things, that the original 1978 FISA statute permitted federal agencies
to share information whether obtained under a terrorist warrant or a
standard criminal warrant. So sharing information hasn't been a
federal crime for more than a quarter of a century.

But the Justice Department hasn't merely shared information. It has
exploited the newly relaxed standards under the Patriot Act to obtain
warrants for investigations that are primarily criminal rather than
terror-related. In a recent report to Congress, Justice Department
officials admit that Patriot powers have been used for crimes
unrelated to terrorism, including drug violations, credit card fraud,
bank theft and kidnapping. That is not why the Patriot Act was passed.
Repeal? That would be unwise. But selective reforms are overdue.

Robert A. Levy Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies Cato Institute
Washington