The California State Senate Office of Research examined the USA PATRIOT Act & assoc. Fed. powers that the gov't. acquired to protect the country against domestic terrorism following the attacks of 9/11. The office has looked at these issues from the perspective of members of Muslim communities in CA. The office discovered that a broad cross-section of these communities find the force of these new powers to be aimed against Muslims innocent of any connection to terrorist acts or known terrorist intentions. Contents: The PATRIOT Act -- An Overview; Selected Patriot Act Sections; The Roundup of Muslim Immigrants; Fed. Enforcement & the CA Connection: State & Local Issues; Foreign Students & Scholars; Conclusion; Stories; US-VISIT Fact Sheet.

Much has been written about the USA Patriot Act, and the controversy that surrounds this far-reaching legislation has also generated a great deal of confusion and uncertainty about its impact and importance in the war on terrorism. As Professor Kam C. Wong notes in this important contribution to the literature: "There is little scholarly research on the legislation, implementation and impact of the Act". Undoubtedly, few Americans are actually aware of most of the details in the Act, or its implications in a free society. The events of September 11, 2001 in attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon prompted a unique response by Congress in passing a series of wide reaching laws, expanding the powers of law enforcement and the judiciary. Of particular concern to many are the requirements of public and private organisations to provide information in connection with homeland security that is considered intrusive and in violation of privacy rights. Ultimately, it will be many years before the actual impact of the Patriot Act can be assessed. In this new and important book, Professor Wong provides a critical analysis of the legislation and its capacity for abuse.

Within six weeks of 9/11, in a nation gripped by fear and hatred, Congress overwhelmingly approved the USA PATRIOT Act, drafted in secret by the Department of Justice. There was almost no debate, and few in Congress were given more than a few hours to read the 342-page document. In America's Unpatriotic Acts, award-winning journalist and university professor Walter M. Brasch looks not just at the effects of the PATRIOT Act upon the nation, but also at the innumerable civil rights violations conducted in the United States, as well as by the United States in foreign countries during the three years following 9/11.

Tracing the history of government intrusions on Constitutional rights in response to threats from abroad, Cole and Dempsey warn that a society in which civil liberties are sacrificed in the name of national security is in fact less secure than one in which they are upheld. A new chapter includes a discussion of domestic spying, preventive detention, the many court challenges to post-9/11 abuses, implementation of the PATRIOT ACT, and efforts to reestablish the checks and balances left behind in the rush to strengthen governmental powers.

The local-level and international contributors of Shifting Positionalities encompass particular common themes through in-depth social science research in an effort to understand the meanings of the reformulation of state discourses and practices in this post-9/11 era. Current conjunctions between sexual, racial and ethnic identities—and the surveillance practices of those identities—calls for a thorough examination of the multiple and usually unexpected meaning-making practices adapted by individuals. Far from being predictable, the latter speaks to the possibility of individuals and communities utilizing techniques of actively resisting—as opposed to passively embracing—the policing of their daily lives. Shifting Positionalities: The Local and International Geo-Politics of Surveillance and Policing addresses surveillance and policing as practices and sites that speak to the various ways in which bio-power, displacement and resistance converge to constitute particular subjectivities across borders.

Tracing the history of government intrusions on Constitutional rights in response to threats from abroad, Cole and Dempsey warn that a society in which civil liberties are sacrificed in the name of national security is in fact less secure than one in which they are upheld. A new chapter includes a discussion of domestic spying, preventive detention, the many court challenges to post-9/11 abuses, implementation of the Patriot Act, and efforts to reestablish the checks and balances left behind in the rush to strengthen governmental powers.