A provision in the "Patriot Act" creates a new federal police force with power to violate the Bill of Rights. You might think that this cannot be true as you have not read about it in newspapers or heard it discussed by talking heads on TV.
Go to House Report 109-333 USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 reads:
"There is hereby created and established a permanent police force, to be known as the ’United States Secret Service Uniformed Division’."
This new federal police force is "subject to the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security."
The new police are empowered to "make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony."
The new police are assigned a variety of jurisdictions, including "an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance" (SENS).
"A special event of national significance" is neither defined nor does it require the presence of a "protected person" such as the president in order to trigger it. Thus, the administration, and perhaps the police themselves, can place the SENS designation on any event. Once a SENS designation is placed on an event, the new federal police are empowered to keep out and to arrest people at their discretion.
The language conveys enormous discretionary and arbitrary powers. What is "an offense against the United States"? What are "reasonable grounds"?
It is extremely difficult to hold even local police forces accountable. Who is going to hold accountable a federal police protected by Homeland Security and the president?
UPDATE:
Via Glenn Reynolds, I learn that Dr. Roberts' claims have been "fact-checked" by Stuart Buck. Just so. They have, and I yield the point to Mr. Buck: much of what is proposed in this bill already exists. That's quite true.
Still, I stand by my "slippery slope" argument, which I think is quite relevant here. We already have quite a number of militarized federal police forces, a few of which have murdered people -- the FBI at Ruby Ridge, ATF/FBI at Waco, and someone from "Justice" who kidnapped Elian Gonzalez in Miami. This deserves more scrutiny than just "fact-checking" and "oh, we're already doing this."