The Patriot Act is ruining our country. I'm ashamed that Dick Durbin recently defended the Patriot Act. Doesn't he have more sense than that?
The ACLU parses the definition of domestic terrorist, and finds it to be alarmingly open-ended. If the government calls you a terrorist, you are one, and suddenly your civil liberties don't exist anymore, poof. Your assets and your organization's assets can be seized, even before there is any trial, and if you cannot afford a lawyer, tough. None will be provided.
American Civil Liberties Union : How the USA PATRIOT Act redefines “Domestic Terrorism”
Section 802 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Pub. L. No. 107-52) expanded the definition of terrorism to cover “domestic,” as opposed to international, terrorism. A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act “dangerous to human life” that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to: (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping. Additionally, the acts have to occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States and if they do not, may be regarded as international terrorism.Section 802 does not create a new crime of domestic terrorism. However, it does expand the type of conduct that the government can investigate when it is investigating “terrorism.” The USA PATRIOT Act expanded governmental powers to investigate terrorism, and some of these powers are applicable to domestic terrorism.
The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and WTO protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.
(h/t) and Cory Doctorow adds:
In a chilling analysis of the PATRIOT Act, the ACLU points out that the new definition of “domestic terrorist” redefines any US criminal as a terrorist, exempt from due process and an open trial. .... “Terrorism” is now officially meaningless: as far as the PATRIOT Act is concerned, if you do anything the government doesn't like, you're a terrorist. When you put it that way, it seems even less likely that we'll win the “war on terrorism.”
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