One of the odd things about debates over the Patriot Act is that even its harshest informed critics actually only oppose a very small part of the Act; the overwhelming majority of the statute is uncontroversial among the fairly small number of people who understand what’s in it. As best I can tell, this has been a well-kept secret for the last 3+ years mostly for tactical reasons: If you want to get the public very worried about a topic to help advance your cause in future legislative debates, you can’t very well admit that your objections are actually quite limited.
In light of that, it’s good to see that ACLU President Nadine Strossen apparently has admitted that the ACLU approves of more that 90% of the Patriot Act. As live-blogged at Ex Parte, from a recent address by Nadine Strossen at the annual Federalist Society student symposium: “[ACLU President Nadine Strossen] notes that the ACLU only has a few objections [to the Patriot Act, covering] about 12 of the 160 elements of the Patriot Act.” While it’s too early to know whether this live-blogged report is exactly accurate, note that the statement echoes the view of ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero in early 2004 that “much of the Patriot Act is neutral legislation for civil liberties,” and that only “about a dozen provisions” are objectionable to him. If anyone has a transcript of Strossen’s remarks or a video, please send it on to okerr [at] law.gwu.edu.
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