[Cross-posted at For the Record]

The USA-PATRIOT Act renewal calls for the creation of a national uniformed police force:

"A permanent police force, to be known as the ‘United States Secret
Service Uniformed Division,’" 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."

UPDATE: Professor Leiter calls my attention to the following commentary:

A provision in the "PATRIOT Act" creates a new federal police force
with the 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 <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/R?cp109:FLD010:@1(hr333)>  and check it out for yourself. Sec. 605 <http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/cpquery/?&dbname=cp109&sid=cp109lxkwK&refer=&r_n=hr333.109&item=&sel=TOC_208072&>  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 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"?

You can bet the Alito/Roberts court will rule that it is whatever the executive branch says.

The obvious purpose of the act is to prevent demonstrations at
Bush/Cheney events. However, nothing in the language limits the police
powers from being used only in this way. Like every law in the U.S.,
this law also will be expansively interpreted and abused. It has dire
implications for freedom of association and First Amendment rights. We
can take for granted that the new federal police will be used to
suppress dissent and to break up opposition. The Brownshirts are now
arming themselves with a Gestapo.

Many naïve Americans will write to me to explain that this new
provision in the reauthorization of the "PATRIOT Act" is necessary to
protect the president and other high officials from terrorists or from
harm at the hands of angry demonstrators: "No one else will have
anything to fear." Some will accuse me of being an alarmist, and others
will say that it is unpatriotic to doubt the law’s good intentions.

Americans will write such nonsense despite the fact that the
president and foreign dignitaries are already provided superb
protection by the Secret Service. The naïve will not comprehend that
the president cannot be endangered by demonstrators at SENS at which
the president is not present. For many Americans, the light refuses to
turn on.

In Nazi Germany, did no one but Jews have anything to fear from the Gestapo?

By Stalin’s time, Lenin and Trotsky had eliminated all members of
the "oppressor class," but that did not stop Stalin from sending
millions of "enemies of the people" to the Gulag.

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?