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IU Prof To Boycott Indy Airport, Protest Against Patriot Act's Reaffirmation

Dan Paluska
/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sixmilliondollardan/3382932556

An Indiana University sociology professor will spend the next month campaigning to kill the USA Patriot Act, after she says her personal liberties were violated because of it.

Christine Von Der Haar says she and a friend from Greece were detained at Indianapolis International Airport and Customs and Border Control agents told the pair it was because the government had been monitoring e-mails between the two.

Both were eventually released without further incident, but Von Der Haar threatened legal action against the federal government and eventually won an out-of-court settlement for her trouble.

Provisions of the 14-year old law are set to expire on June first if they’re not re-certified by Congress. Von Der Haar says she’ll spend the intervening days telling the government it needs to operate more in the open.

Many of the bill’s provisions – including one allowing the government unlimited access to track electronic communications without first obtaining a warrant – were set to expire just four years after the bill’s 2001 passage, but have been extended in the years since.

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