Freedom of Speech

The USA PATRIOT Act section 802 defines domestic terrorism so broadly that it could apply to an individual exercising his or her freedom of speech, expression, and assembly through acts of civil disobedience. The Department of Justice has not revealed how it is using section 802.

In June 2004, Buffalo, New York, artist Steve Kurtz was detained by law enforcement and had his home searched by FBI agents. Despite finding only harmless substances, which Kurtz uses in his politically motivated art projects, the FBI proceeded with a Grand Jury hearing to decide whether to indict Kurtz under the USA PATRIOT Act's biological agents provision. On June 29th, Kurtz's bio-terrorism related charges (USA PATRIOT Act section 817) were dropped.

Also pitting the USA PATRIOT Act against the First Amendment, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, a Saudi computer science doctoral student in Idaho, was charged with providing material support to terrorist groups (USA PATRIOT Act section 805) by being a webmaster. A jury acquitted al-Hussayen of all terrorism-related charges in June of 2004, and prosecutors subsequently dropped all remaining charges. "More Below"

Moreover, Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act permits the FBI to seek records from bookstores and libraries of books that a person has purchased or read, or of his or her activities on a library's computer. This change puts people at risk for exercising their free speech rights to read, recommend, or discuss a book, to write an email, or to participate in a chat room, and thus could have the effect of chilling constitutionally protected speech. It also denies booksellers and library personnel the free speech right to inform anyone, including an attorney, that the FBI has asked for someone's reading list. For more information, go to the Reader Privacy web site.

Finally, the Justice Department frequently uses Section 805 of the USA PATRIOT Act, "Material Support for Terrorism," to imply that a person has some link to terrorism. In several cases, including that of the Lackawanna Six, it has made threats in order to obtain guilty pleas. Georgetown Law Professor David Cole's May 5, 2004, testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary explains that in many cases, those who have been charged with "material support" have done nothing more sinister than to exercise their first amendment right to freedom of speech or freedom of association.