America Must Not Bend
I am not talking about military action. I am talking about the very fabric of our nation: our Constitution and Bill of Rights. We do need to respond to the heinous crime perpetrated on innocent American civilians. We need to bring the perpetrators to justice. We need to make the world see that, friend or foe, the same fate awaits them all if we are complacent about hatred and terrorism, intolerance and violence.
But what we do not need to do is become what our enemy wants. As the evidence ultimately points to Islamic extremists, we must realize that their goal is no less than the destruction of our very way of life. That we cannot allow. There is a disturbing wind in the air, one that says we must sacrifice in order to achieve vengeance. That is exactly what we must not do. We must not give up one single civil liberty, even in the name of the fight, or the terrorists have won. They are the narrow minded, totalitarian, intolerant extremists who have judged us and found us too liberal. Some inconvenience, especially in the name of security, especially at airports, we can all accede to. Invasion of our privacy and curtailing of our freedom of speech, we cannot.
Yet there are those in the government, and in the press, who say we may need to accept less privacy, more censorship, in order to survive. To that I would ask, do we want to survive that way? Do we want to turn into a nation of cowards that allow ourselves to be herded and commanded? Or will we proudly speak our minds and show our patriotism in the best way we can, by championing tolerance and liberty.
Threats to our liberties:
*Another serious blow to democracy in America as we have known has taken place. The first injury came on December 12, 2000, when five members of the Supreme Court violated theirs oaths and stepped into the arena of partisan politics to select the next president of the United States. The next great blow came on October 26, 2001, when recipient of those justices generosity, George W. Bush, signed into law the USA PATRIOT Act. This law goes far beyond what is warranted to track terrorists and threatens any person that the government deems suspicious for virtually any reason. Many who claimed to be concerned about the bill's far-reaching expansion of power cited the "sunset provision" as the reassuring reason they decided to vote in favor, including Senator Patrick Leahy who initially opposed the bill. But the December 2005 expiration date applies to only a small portion of these expanded powers. Police will have the permanent ability to conduct Internet surveillance without a court order in some circumstances, secretly search homes and offices without notifying the owner, and share confidential grand jury information with the CIA. Let's review the provisions of this law:
-- Permits the Attorney General to incarcerate or detain non-citizens based on mere suspicion, and to deny re-admission to the U.S. of non-citizens (including lawful permanent residents) for engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment.
-- Minimizes judicial supervision of telephone and Internet surveillance by law enforcement authorities in anti-terrorism investigations AND in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism.
-- Expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches, again in anti-terrorism investigations AND in routine criminal investigations unrelated to terrorism. This means that law enforcement authorities can enter and search an individual’s home without presenting a warrant or in any way informing the subject of the search.
-- Gives the Attorney General and the Secretary of State the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and to block any non-citizen who belongs to them from entering the country.
-- Makes the payment of membership dues to political organizations a deportable offense.
-- Grants the FBI broad access to sensitive medical, financial, mental health, and educational records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime and without a court order.
-- Will lead to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes and use of intelligence authorities to by-pass probable cause requirements in criminal cases.
-- Puts the CIA and other intelligence agencies back in the business of spying on Americans by giving the Director of Central Intelligence the authority to identify priority targets for intelligence surveillance in the United States.
-- Allows searches of highly personal financial records without notice and without judicial review based on a very low standard that does not require probable cause of a crime or even relevancy to an ongoing terrorism investigation.
-- Allows student records to be searched based on a very low standard of relevancy to an investigation.
-- Creates a broad new definition of "domestic terrorism" that could target people who engage in acts of political protest and subject them to wiretapping and enhanced penalties.
In the wake of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (by extremist Islamic terrorists) and the Oklahoma City federal building bombing (by right wing domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh), the Clinton administration backed the 1996 Antiterrorism Act. It was a remarkably similar set of provisions as the new law, although some of the powers now enacted were taken out at that time. Conservative Republicans and civil liberties groups alike opposed many facets of the law, creating a coalition of strange bedfellows which now seems to have dissolved. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, defended the measure, saying: "I don't know anybody in this country who is afraid of their law enforcement people at this time. They are afraid of terrorism." Think again, Mr. Hatch.
Justice Department operatives couldn't wait for the antiterrorism act to pass so they could start invading people's privacy. Expansion of the Carnivore internet snooper is anticipated within days of the bill's passage, despite major implications for indiscriminately gathering private data unrelated to any investigative purpose. Language in the bill was left intentionally vague with respect to guidelines for usage of the various statues. Furthermore, there are few if any guidelines about when secret searches should be used.
*The House and Senate have now passed
the Anti-Terrorism Bill. The bill expands the FBI's wiretapping and electronic surveillance authority
and imposes stronger penalties for harboring or financing terrorists. It also redefines what terrorist acts are and increases the punishment for them.
The sunshine provision was left in but expanded to 4 years. Just IN CASE
the next president is a Democrat of course. Wouldn't some EVIL LIBERAL to
have all that unprecedented power! The provisions for detaining immigrants
is especially troubling in light of reports that a Pakistani national being held
after September 11, but cleared of any involvement in the terrorist attacks, but
continued to be jailed for "immigration violations", has died in
jail. Attorney
General John Ashcroft cannot wait to implement his new powers to use massive
detentions and aggressive prosecution, and to "use
pending anti-terrorism legislation to unleash broad surveillance and searches on suspected
terrorists and their associates and will not shrink from using minor crimes or immigration violations to hold people in jail or deport them."
*Attorney General John Ashcroft wishes to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act. He has instructed his agencies to " `carefully consider'' things like threats to national security and the effectiveness of law enforcement. Ashcroft also said that agencies that legitimately turn down requests made under the Freedom of Information Act will have the backing of the Justice Department." The Bush administration has also been trying to decrease access of the press to information by stonewalling at press conferences and by simply classifying everything as classified.
*Feingold's amendments to the USA bill were all defeated and this terrible assault on our liberties was passed by the Senate.
*The Senate has introduced its own version of the antiterrorism bill, under the equally awful name, the Uniting and Strengthening of America (USA) Act, S.1510. This version is even worse than the one in the House. The bill includes the following provisions: indefinite detention of noncitizens; minimal judicial oversight of Internet and telephone surveillance; expanded ability for the government to conduct secret searches; grant the Attorney General the power to designate domestic and foreign terrorists groups and allow broad deportation capabilities; grant the FBI broad access to business records without evidence of a crime; allow large scale investigations of American citizens for "intelliegence" purposes. The Senate bill has no "sunset provision", meaning it will enact a permanent loss of civil liberties. In a disappointing display of knee-bending to the White House, Majority leader Tom Daschle and Judiciary chairman Patrick Leahy are urging the swift passage of the bill with no debate! Fortunately, Senator Russ Feingold, chairman of the Constitutional subcommittee, has objected to the streamlined procedures, saying: "But it is also crucial that civil liberties in this country be preserved, otherwise I'm afraid that terror will win this battle without firing a shot." Feingold wants to add amendments that would Feingold's amendments would eliminate a provision in the bill that would allow police to secretly search suspects' homes, narrow a provision that allows federal officials to wiretap telephones, keep the FBI from being able to access Americans' personal records, and clarify the federal government's ability to wiretap computers.
*The House has passed a version of Ashcroft's Wish List, with the way-too-cute moniker, the PATRIOT Act. It allows: detention of foreigners for up to 7 days without being charged (Ashcroft wanted indefinite detention); expanded wiretap capabilities and greater ease in obtaining wiretaps for any intelligence with "significant purpose"; allow law enforcement to retrieve emails and other electronic communications; removes the statute of limitations on number of terrorist acts, and expand definitions of terrorism to include advice to or support of terrorist organizations, as well as a broad list of other crimes; information sharing between intelligence and criminal investigators. It drops allowances for information gathered overseas by methods that violate US law, the ability to search a suspect's house without their knowledge, and release of student's records to authorities.
*The government has authorized the expansion the use of Carnivore by the FBI, a program that allows authorities to intercept any individual person email communications without their knowledge. This system has been defeated in court as violating the right to privacy. While it technically requires a court order, as a wire tap does, it is nearly impossible to monitor the FBI's use of the system.
*The search engine GoTo.com, has decided to remove certain websites from its listings, citing the terrorist attack as its justification. What criteria they are using to judge which sites "may be offensive to some" is unclear, but liberal political sites have been among those censored.
*Attorney General John Ashcroft has asked for broad and sweeping expansion of the FBI's powers of surveillance, included wire tapping, cell phone call interception, tracking of financial transactions and racial profiling of foreigners. Congress is proposing antiterrorism legislation and the appointment of an antiterrorism czar. This is starting to sound uncannily like the War on Drugs. It is being openly admitted that such measures will potentially endanger privacy protections and civil liberties. Americans are being judged as supportive of these measures given the enormity of this week's tragedy, but for how long? How many innocent people will be targeted and how many unjustly accused before the people begin to understand the price paid? The facts appear to point to the reality that many of the suicide bombers were already known to the FBI and CIA, and that they purchased their plane tickets in their own names, mostly via the internet. Intelligence agencies had access to this knowledge under existing laws. Intelligence agencies had repeated warnings of the imminent attack on major American landmarks, from a variety of sources. And yet they were not able to accurately predict and thwart these actions. Incidentally, when Janet Reno tried to get this kind of additional surveillance power in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, guess who was her biggest critic? That's right, John Ashcroft.
*Congress is considering requiring everyone (citizens and noncitizens) to carry national identification cards. These cards might contain birth date and place, social security number, address, fingerprints, travel records, retinal scans, and who knows what else.
*While we shouldn't be surprised to hear these sentiments from one of the Felonious Five that handed the election to GW, Sandra Day O'Connor stated in a speech: "we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country." Especially with your cabal's help in suspending the Constitution, right Sandra? How long before you declare GW Dictator For Life? Then you and all your tired cronies can retire secure in the knowledge you'll be replaced with equally fascist-minded compatriots.
*Hours after the tragic attack on our nation, Trent Lott stated that Americans would need to give up some civil liberties now, in order to achieve security.