The Patriot Act, passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, has earned a critical eye over its provision that allows investigators to conduct searches and delay notification to*suspects if officials believe it would jeopardize the investigation. The law also authorizes nationwide search warrants for terrorism investigations, including for e-mail records, computer billing records and Internet use.

Quoting such figures as former Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, Ashcroft says the new tools provided by the act are well grounded in the Constitution and have been vital to preventing terrorist attacks.

"We have used the tools provided in the Patriot Act to fulfill our first responsibility to protect the American people. We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil," Ashcroft said in a speech in Boise, Idaho, last month.

"We have used these tools to save innocent American lives. We have used these tools to provide the security that ensures liberty," he said.



Out of 535 members of Congress, 455 voted in favor of the Patriot Act following the terrorist attacks of September 11.

Part of the Patriot Act included a law enforcement tool called “sneak and peek,” which allows officials to execute a search warrant without the prior knowledge of the individual to be searched. It was okay in the fervor after September 11, but it’s not okay now.

Apparently Congress did not realize that AG Ashcroft did not discover or invent something new, but that “sneak and peek” had been around legally since the Supreme Court upheld the practice in 1979. But now it’s John Ashcroft’s fault.

The purpose of “sneak and peek” being in the Patriot Act is to catch terrorists before they terrorize. In fact, the Patriot Act narrows the use of “sneak and peek” by putting into law when such an action is permissible.

They now claim that “sneak and peek” violates our rights. Forget about the rights of people who fly in airliners or are otherwise caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when terrorists decide to carry out their heinous plans.

During all of the hand wringing over the Patriot Act, much of the wailing has been about proposals that never made it into the law. I don’t even care if John Ashcroft himself is hiding in the bushes in my front yard so long as he doesn’t trample my plants. But the point is, he is not in the bushes (the Democrats love those Bush puns) and he will not be hiding in the bushes because I don’t behave as described in the law.

I’m a “slippery slope” kind of guy, and I worry about abuse of power by the government. So long as law enforcement discerns those who break the law from those who do not, then we law-abiding folks have nothing to worry about. Have we not considered that every single day, long before the Patriot Act, law enforcement has made such distinctions? Bad guys and those suspected of being bad guys get treated one way, good guys get treated another.

By Brian W. Peterson