Civil Liberties

Eliot Spitzer is a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) and not only in the way you might think. Section 312 of the Patriot Act requires US financial institutions to monitor all accounts for suspicious activities and handle all PEPs with greater scruitiny. In Spitzer’s case, his own bank had labeled him a PEP and was tracking his
financial transactions more closely than those of a “typical” customer.

One of our readers tipped us to this piece at CommonDreams.org.

It seems that Ann Wright, a New York peace activist who was invited by six members of the Canadian Parliament to serve as a panelist at event titled “Peacebuilders Without Borders: Challenging the Post-0/11 Canada-US Security Agenda,” was denied entry into Canada on two separate occasions because:

An important challenge to parts of the federal “Patriot Act’ will be heard in Portland on Septmeber 10, 2007, by federal district judge Ann Aiken. In late November 2006 the federal government agreed to pay $2 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer wrongly jailed because of a completely unverified supposed “link” to the 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid. Mayfield’s home and law office were secretly entered without warrants, files breached, photos taken. His young children were terrrified.