Center Research drives Patriot Act amendedment
July 2007 For Immediate release: Patriot Act to be Amended
(ACPA-Atlanta) The Atlanta Centre for Policy Analysis today expressed reservations about a new proposal under the immigration reform bill to extend the provisions of the Patriot Act to cover Immigrants who become US Citizens.
The current Patriot act allows the government to suspend the constitutional rights of US citizens when they deem it necessary . However it had an unintended loophole- it could only be applied to US born citizens and not to citizens who immigrated and later became US citizens.
Legal Loophole
Because US citizenship is granted at birth under the 14th amendment of the Constitution, immigrants who became citizens could claim that they were not subject to the amendment in the first place and thus could not have their Constitutional Rights eliminated under the Patriot Act.
A test case was being pursued by Youssf Iyooll a Yemeni native turned citizen who was being held in a South Carolina Brig in non-combatant status. The authorities realizing the impending legal embarrassment dropped charges against him and replaced them with regular criminal charges, basically the old fashioned way whereby US Citizens were allowed trial by Jury and the right to present evidence in their own favor.
An Appaling Vista
The appalling vista of the Executive Branch having to grant constitutional rights to a detainee will be fixed by the proposed amendment which is expected to pass.
However Atlanta Centre Director Ronald Pecorry stated "By taking away constitutional rights and creating a parallel legal system, we are destroying our way of life more insidiously than Osama and his bombs ever could have hoped. Instead of tinkering with this bad law, we should abolish it".
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