While the United states Armed Forces (private mercenaries) are in Afghanistan, Djibouti, Iraq, the Philippines and west Africa defending “all freedom-loving people everywhere in the world,” Republican (fascist/socialist) President George W. Bush signs the signs the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act, easing the restrictions on warrantless “sneak and peek” search, but ostensibly imposing greater legislative and judicial oversight.  The act requires the president to periodically report to CONgress on how the Federal Bureau of Investigation is using the information it gathers from secret entry of homes, computers, et cetera.  And it creates the U.s. Secret Service Uniformed Division, within the Department of Homeland Security, which has the power to “make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States. …”

       NOTE: Bush signed this act with great pomp and fanfare, but upon returning to the Oval Office he issued a signing statement explaining that he was not going to comply with the CONgressional oversight provisions, and that he will assert his prerogative to withhold information from CONgress that “could impair foreign relations [or] national security.”

       [restored 2/11/2024] Thanks to Jim Lorenz, Chuck McGlawn and Bill Holmes for this entry.