Well .. I don't agree with Bob Barr and all his "groups".
If anybody can show me EVEN ONE CASE WHERE SOMEONE HAS LOST THEIR CIVIL LIBERTIES - I'm all ears.
Until then .. I have only one small nit-picky thing I'm not sure about .. and that the search warrant without a judge's order. However, I found out by reading some of the text - that this expansion is only for AN ALREADY DOCUMENTED JUDGE APPROVED SEARCH WARRANT. In other words - a judge has to have already approved an initial warrant - before the police agency could expand the warrent (without having to get further approval) to include things like computer systems. And .. after looking at the computers - if they find suspicious email addresses .. they might need to check them out quickly before the hard drive is removed or destroyed.
From what I understand it would also include searching any new location which might have resulted from the initial search.
That is important .. because when you have made a house search .. and you discover there is another location .. you want to be able to go IMMEDIATELY and search the other location before the suspect has an opportunity to contact anyone to clean out the place.
And .. say the police find a ledger with a list of other locations involved in the crime - it would be imperative to be able to do a massive search of ALL the other locations at one time.
And that they lost them because of some provision of the Patriot Act that is demonstrably at odds with the Bill of Rights. It isn't going to happen. Moreover, there is a ton of disinformation about the Patriot Act. You already mentioned some of it.
Joseph Padilla.