While the country has been distracted by war talk, massive snowstorms and the Columbia disaster, the Department of Justice has been preparing the second installment of the USA Patriot Act, its latest assault on civil liberties.

Officially titled The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, Patriot II is the latest effort by President George W. Bush to roll back civil liberties and expand the security powers of the government. The bill greatly reduces the role of federal courts in overseeing wiretapping and other surveillance and includes provisions to limit the amount of information that reaches the public.

The most frightening part of Patriot II is the broad new powers it gives the government to target individuals and organizations for surveillance and detainment. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft have already moved in that direction by declaring citizens like Jose Padilla to be "enemy combatants" who do not have the right to trial or even consultation with an attorney. Patriot II takes this further by allowing the government to declare individuals to be "foreign powers."

What qualifies a person to be a foreign power? According to Patriot II, besides terrorist activity, any activity that aids a foreign power, whether that activity is illegal, qualifies a person as an "agent of a foreign power." Because a person or group can be a foreign power, this means that membership in an organization or association with an individual alone can be enough to make one a terrorist.

Bush has already demonstrated his willingness to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens as enemy combatants; it is likely that the same courtesy would be extended to "foreign power" individuals. Under Patriot II, it would be illegal for the government to disclose any information about detainees through Freedom of Information Act requests until the detainee is indicted on criminal charges.

Since these prisoners are unlikely to ever receive a trial, the point is moot. This is tantamount to creating a secret judicial system. The government could detain a person indefinitely and refuse to ever disclose whom it is holding, leaving anguished families to search in vain for disappeared daughters and sons. Many fascist dictatorships in Latin America used this tactic during the '80s, and some mothers are still searching for their children.

Patriot II also includes breathtaking expansion of the government's power to spy on citizens. In most cases, when a person is targeted for electronic surveillance, such as phone wiretapping, a court has to approve the surveillance and then review the approval after a certain period of time, usually every 30 to 90 days. The Patriot Act and Patriot II make it easier for the government to receive this approval. Patriot II lengthens the time period between the reviews of surveillance orders in many cases to 120 days to a year.

Because the designation of "foreign power" makes it much easier to acquire a surveillance order in the first place, this extension of the time between reviews effectively eliminates the role of the court system in surveillance. These limitations were imposed to correct the abuses of the FBI in spying on leftist organizations in the '50s and '60s.

In addition, Patriot II terminates most local law enforcement "consent decrees" dating before Sept. 11, 2001. Consent decrees were agreements by local police not to spy on organizations within their jurisdictions. The New York Police were especially notorious for spying, and in New York and many other cities, police would spy on civil rights groups and leftist organizations. By terminating these decrees in the name of the war on terror, it will allow a resumption of unrestricted spying activities.

Of course, no piece of major legislation would be complete without a cloaked handout to industry. Environmental Protection Agency regulations require companies that use hazardous chemicals to publish worst-case scenario reports that show what effect a release of these chemicals would have on local communities. Under Patriot II, access to these reports by citizens would be greatly restricted, ostensibly to keep the information out of terrorists' hands. In reality, it prevents local residents from knowing what dangers lurk in nearby factories.

Patriot II has not yet gone before Congress for consideration, but a draft was submitted to House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Vice President Dick Cheney in early January. Department of Justice officials are now clamoring to assure the public that this is only a draft and is not the final document. The first Patriot Act was passed while Americans were distracted by the Sept. 11 attacks and the newly launched war on Afghanistan; citizens must be vigilant that Patriot II does not slip through Congress during the upcoming war on Iraq.

Brian White is a student at Temple University and the news editor at Temple News. For the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, go to www.publicintegrity.org. If you would like to respond to this Slant or have one of your own (850 words), contact Howard Altman, City Paper executive editor, 123 Chestnut St., third floor, Phila., PA 19106 or e-mail altman@citypaper.net.