As seen at Volokh,, the Washington Post has an article today discussing ACLU opposition to a provision of the Patriot Act renewal proposal that hasn’t previously garnered much media attention.
The American Civil Liberties Union raised objections yesterday to a little-noticed provision of the latest version of the USA Patriot Act bill, arguing that it would give the Secret Service wider latitude to charge protesters accused of disrupting major events including political conventions and the Olympics.
The Secret Service is authorized to charge suspects with breaching security or disruptive behavior at National Special Security Events, but only if the president or another person under the protection of the service is in attendance, according to a legislative summary.
The bill adds language prohibiting people from “willfully and knowingly” entering a restricted area “where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting.” The measure also applies to security breaches “in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance,” according to the bill.
The language as described in the WaPo article seems innocuous enough. However, considering some of the stories of mass roundups in New York City during the Republican Convention in 2004 (and ridiculously low conviction rate resulting therefrom)… perhaps the ACLU has reason to be worried about this provision.