On Oct. 24, 2001, the U.S. government enacted the Patriot Act “to deter and punish terrorist acts in the United States and around the world, to enhance law enforcement investigatory tools, and for other purposes.”

Two years later, a chief architect of the Patriot Act, a former top assistant to Attorney General John Ashcroft and a former CIA inspector general, are voicing concern over certain aspects of the law.

Simply put, the government under President Bush has taken the Patriot Act too far and applied it to too many cases not tied to terrorist activity.

For example, Jose Padilla, a Brooklyn-born U.S. citizen, was arrested May 8, 2002, at a Chicago airport after flying in from Zurich, Pakistan. He was initially taken to New York and detained as a “material witness.”

A month later, Ashcroft announced the government determined he was involved in a plot to explode a dirty bomb. Padilla was taken to a South Carolina military prison and has been held since then without access to a lawyer.

Regardless of the crime, it is U.S. law and tradition that those accused of a crime be subjected to a fair and unbiased judicial review and the privilege of access to a lawyer.

In the Padilla case, the government has denied him these two basic rights afforded to every U.S. citizen.

Viet Dinh, the principal intellectual force behind the Patriot Act, said he believed the president had the unquestioned authority to detain persons during wartime, even on American soil.

However, Dinh said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that he believes the government’s case in holding Padilla is flawed and unlikely to survive court review.

John Kerry said in a speech held on the ISU campus earlier this week that “Bush used the Patriot Act in a way that was never intended and for things that have nothing to do with terrorism.”

Kerry also cited a report by the Justice Department’s inspector general, who said 762 Arab and Muslim noncitizens have been detained despite a lack of evidence against them.

Improving security in public transportation and keeping some records on visitors to our country is one thing, but letting the government in on our phone conversations or allowing them access to highly personal medical, financial, mental health and student records with minimal judicial oversight — which the Patriot Act allows — is pushing it too far.

As Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”