Congress & Legislation : Patriot Act authorizes antitrust wiretaps Posted by smoliva on 2006/3/10 0:37:26 (807 reads)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Friday, March 10, 2006
Arlington, Virginia—This week, President Bush signed several amendments to the Patriot Act that gives federal prosecutors the power to spy on businesses during antitrust investigations. Although antitrust does not related to the Patriot Act’s stated goal to “deter and punish terrorist acts,” Republican congressional leaders abandoned a previous proposal to consider the antitrust provision separately.
Section 113 of the Patriot Act amendments, H.R. 3199, adds the Sherman Antitrust Act to a list of “predicate offenses” that enable the Justice Department to wiretap phone lines and bug private buildings. Such wiretaps and bugs would have to be authorized by a federal judge.
The antitrust wiretap provision was not included in H.R. 3199—or its Senate counterpart, S. 1389—during initial votes by either house of Congress. Instead, the antitrust language was added during a December 8, 2005, meeting of House and Senate conferees who were reconciling differences in the two Patriot Act bills. The final conference report was passed six days later by the House and approved by the Senate earlier this month.
The conference report said that Section 113 “adds new ‘wiretap predicates’ . . . which relate to crimes of terrorism.” There was no other discussion or debate regarding the antitrust wiretap provision in the Congressional Record.
In October 2005, the Senate unanimously passed S. 443, a bill that contained the same language as the antitrust wiretap provision later added to the Patriot Act bill. The House referred S. 443 to its Judiciary Committee, which never held hearings or otherwise considered the measure. Several Judiciary Committee members—including chairman F. James Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Republican—participated in the Patriot Act conference committee.
Because the Sherman Act is vaguely worded and does not distinguish between criminal and civil violations, the Patriot Act amendments constitute a de facto expansion of criminal antitrust liability. Cases that have been treated as civil matters by the Justice Department (or administrative matters by the Federal Trade Commission) may now be prosecuted as criminal violations. For example, had the DOJ possessed wiretap powers during its investigation of Microsoft Corporation, prosecutors could have bugged Microsoft offices and spied on the company’s product development meetings in order to develop a criminal “monopolization” case.
And an article published this week by CFO.com noted that corporate trade secrets would likely be compromised by antitrust-related wiretaps. “Trade secrets might be picked up on tape inadvertently and then made part of the public record in connection with an indictment,” said the article written by Marie Leone.
Skip Oliva, president of the Voluntary Trade Council, said Congress sent a dangerous message by equating antitrust violations with terrorist acts. “The original Patriot Act was passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The law gave prosecutors new powers, because Congress believed that would help thwart future attacks. Granting the Antitrust Division the unrestricted power to spy on every business in America has nothing to do with fighting terrorism. Quite the contrary, it hands unelected, unaccountable prosecutors the power to terrorize the American economy.”
Oliva said there was no justification for granting the DOJ wiretap authority in antitrust cases. “The Antitrust Division currently wins over 95% of its criminal cases, almost exclusively through plea bargains. Jury trials are rare in antitrust, and this means that there is virtually no public or judicial scrutiny of Antitrust Division activities. Wiretap authority will encourage more prosecutions and pleas. Antitrust policy will be driven further out of the public’s eye, leaving prosecutors broad policymaking powers over every sector of the U.S. economy, including health care, energy, and technology.”
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For more information contact Skip Oliva at (703) 740-8409 or smoliva@voluntarytrade.org. The CFO.com article cited in this release can be viewed at http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/5600289?f=home_featured.
This seems as plain as the nose on my face. Don't do anything illegal and you have nothing to worry about.
Duh!
COULD bug boards?.. Somebody just fell off the turnip truck..
Musta hurt..
I've said it before and I'll say it again.
If the 'rats had proposed anything remotely like "The Patriot Act" most of the folks on FR would be hopping mad and denouncing such an act.
Since Bush did it most here think it is OK.
It is NOT OK! No matter who did it.