Patriot Act used for political purposes

Did you know New York's former Gov. Eliot Spitzer never would have been caught hiring a prostitute if not for the Patriot Act?

Newsweek reports that this is because the Idiot Act gives the Treasury Department almost limitless authority to require banks to look for and report certain types of transactions. Banks face tough penalties for noncompliance. So the banks began setting up powerful software to sift through transactions to rat out in "suspicious activity reports." The data is then stored on an IRS computer that can be accessed by law enforcement all over the country.

I'd like to see the warrant for this, don't you? These are in effect government searches involving transactions you expect to be private, so the Constitution says a warrant and reasonable suspicion are needed. The Patriot Act is a statute that has only been in force for 6 years, and the Constitution reigns supreme over statutes from any era.

Let's clear the air once and for all: The Idiot Act wasn't written for the purpose of fighting terrorism. If it was, why wasn't it around years ago? It was written to allow common government harassment.

A factor that the banks and the Treasury Department use to determine who to rat out is whether the customer is a "politically exposed person." This list now reportedly includes American public officials who the government deems to be "troublesome."

Eliot Spitzer made enemies. His consumer protection efforts didn't sit well with Corporate America. When he was New York Attorney General, greedy corporate groups ranked Spitzer in the top 3 most aggravating in the whole country. If there's any American politician who the government wanted to keep a close eye on just for political reasons, Spitzer had to be near the top of the list, because he had been mentioned as a possible national political candidate and was more effective at fighting corporate greed than most other potential national contenders.

So the fix was in. This ought to silence Bush's Movementarians who keep defending the Patriot Act as a tool to fight terrorism. I don't think the Patriot Act has ever caught a terrorist or prevented a terrorist act. But it has caught politicians hiring prostitutes. Wow, color me impressed.

Politicians who don't run afoul of the Bushist order simply aren't caught. I bet there's more than one current Republican member of Congress who at this very moment is doing the exact same thing Spitzer did. I'd wager my entire life savings on it. But they'll never be caught, because they're not a "politically exposed person", so the Treasury Department isn't watching them.

Unintended consequences, my ass. The government intended all along to catch someone like Spitzer in a scandal like this. I also don't think it was something Spitzer should have resigned over, especially because "Diaper Dave" Vitter didn't resign (even though Vitter's party is more sanctimonious about telling everyone else how to live).

Time is running out for the 110th Congress to follow through on the voters' mandate to repeal the Idiot Act.

(Source: http://www.newsweek.com/id/123489)