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November 2003

Show Us Your Money The USA PATRIOT Act lets the feds spy on your finances. But does it help catch terrorists? John Berlau

"This is really a bill which, if enacted into law, will be [a longer] step in the direction of stopping terrorism than any other we have had before this Congress in a long time," one of the bill's sponsors declared. The legislation authorized broad surveillance of financial transactions, bypassing the Fourth Amendment's normal protections against "unreasonable searches and seizures" by requiring businesses to collect and share information with the government. After the measure passed and was signed into law, the debate was far from over. The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics continued to rail against the law as an unnecessary breach of privacy. "Under the act and regulations the reports go forward to the investigative or prosecuting agency...without notice to the customer," one civil libertarian wrote. "Delivery of the records without the requisite hearing of probable cause breaches the Fourth Amendment....! am not yet ready to agree that America is so possessed with evil that we must level all constitutional

http://www.reason.com/0311/fe.jb.show.shtml

12/15/2003