The Son of Patriot Act and the Revenge on Democracy

ABSTRACT Patrick Bateman to be the incarnation of a proto-typical Empire citizen. He is Vampire's Empire's dream come true: Maximising his score in the top-of-the-line investment banking league, celebrating his determination to partake and push through the game at maximum speed-too fast to be determined by any reference system-always on the verge of disintegration. Quite literally, he cannot change his mind. Nobody can. Yet, from this point of view, he pursues every option to bring about change. Just like a whole generation of super-hero managers, an attitude change is not feasible because the confession of failure is not an option. Vanity, to please ones mirror image, remains a driving desire. Affiliation? In October 2001, one month after the 9-11 attack, the Bush administration forced through Congress an assault on civil liberties perversely titled the USA Patriot (a surreal acronym for Uniting & Strengthening America Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act). Exploiting the new climate of fear, the Bush team claimed that a free nation must give way to a secure nation. From the offices of a stolen Presidency, we now have neither. The Patriot Act violates numerous constitutional rights, such as the First Amendment right to free speech and freedom of assembly, the Fourth Amendment right to be secure from unreasonable search and seizures, and the Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights to basic protections during criminal proceedings. Among other things, the Bush administration arrogated to government the power to demand from librarians and bookstores lists of material checked out or purchased, to undertake clandestine sneak and peek operations in homes and workplaces, to monitor citizen communications by phone or the Internet, and to detain foreigners indefinitely without legal counsel. In the new Surveillance State, all government agencies can collect and share information on anyone without judicial review, as the office minimizes the information citizens can collect on it and corporations through Freedom of Information requests. Perhaps most alarmingly, the Patriot Act created a new legal category of domestic terrorist that is defined broadly enough to have a chilling effect on free speech and political activity. Casting its dragnet across the land, the Patriot Act states that the crime of domestic occurs when a person's action appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population [or] to influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion. Interestingly, through this new form of citizen coercion the Patriot Act falls under its own definition and by logic should annul itself. Instead, civil disobedience and virtually any protest activity meets the definition of terrorism and could easily land one on the radar screen of the state. In a the role of citizens precisely is to influence government policy, but now this is considered coercion and so in Bushspeak, citizen = terrorist. In the era of the Patriot Act, the branch of government usurps ever more power, and thereby destroys the checks and balances among the three branches of government crucial for the functioning of liberal democracy, such as it is. When the branch makes important legal and policy decisions, Congress often is ignored and the courts are stripped of independent review and decision-making power. Consequently, one can expect more state repression and less accountability to Congress, the courts, and citizens alike. As stated by the Center For Constitutional Rights in their Erosion of Civil Liberties in the Post 9/11 Era report, Executive Order and agency regulations violate the laws of the U.S. Constitution, the laws of the United States, and international and humanitarian law. As a result, the war on terror is largely being conducted by fiat and the constitutional liberties of both citizens and non-citizens alike have been seriously compromised. …