LAKE WORTH, Florida - April 3, 2011 - Marie Zwicker, a Quaker and a registered nurse, recalls discovering in 2005 that she and friends of hers were covertly infiltrated and listed in a government database as potential terrorists.
They belonged to a group called the Truth Project, which distributes information to high schoolers about the small print on military enlistment agreements "so they can make informed decisions about their futures."
The group, which also offers alternatives to enlistment, was listed in a database called TALON - Threat and Local Observation Notice - which is used by law enforcement agencies responsible for homeland security. The database expanded with Congress' passage of the USA PATRIOT Act weeks after the events of September 11, 2011.
"It surprised me to find we were listed and it also didn't surprise me, given the paranoia in the country after 9/11," Zwicker said.
Three provisions of the controversial USA PATRIOT Act were due to expire February 28. But Congress extended those measures until May 27 while subcommittees consider possible changes
"If those provisions are allowed to expire, that will significantly hamper ongoing investigations," said Michael Mahaffey, spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, who voted for the extension in February. Rooney belongs to the House Judiciary Committee, which will review the measures.
The provisions give law enforcement agents expanded powers to connect wiretaps and collect library records and private documents. They also allow agents to conduct covert surveillance of people who aren't U.S. citizens even if they are not affiliated with foreign governments or terrorist organizations.
Civil rights watchdogs, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the measures lack "proper and fundamental privacy safeguards." Truth Project members agree.
"Those provisions should be allowed to expire," former Truth Project President Rick Hersh said. "In fact, they should go even further and kill the USA PATRIOT Act entirely. Right now they can do illegal searches and seizures and violate the Fourth Amendment at any time. Let's get back to the Constitution, or at least get closer than we are with the USA PATRIOT Act."
Zwicker added, "The USA PATRIOT Act was introduced supposedly as a means to increase our security. But we don't get security by destroying the principles on which this country was founded."
The Truth Project members believe an unidentified man who attended one of their meetings in November 2004 sent the e-mail to the FBI that won them the unwanted and unwarranted notoriety. The Pentagon later apologized.
The ACLU says another USA PATRIOT Act provision that is not expiring this year but needs to be reformed is the National Security Letter provision, which expands the FBI's ability to demand private customer records from Internet service providers.
According to the ACLU, government agents can do so without prior judicial approval and can impose gag orders on the providers.
The Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General has more than once criticized the FBI for misusing the provision.
Michelle Richardson, legislative counsel of the ACLU, said her organization hopes Democrats in Congress will join with a new crop of libertarian Republicans elected last year to narrow the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act."
