"Uniting & Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism" ...what that f***?

Sixteen days after my 20th birthday, on October 26, 2001, President Bush forced the "USA PATRIOT Act" through congress...there was virtually no debate. The PATRIOT Act easily constitutes the largest and most unprecedented threat to American freedom and civil liberties since Jim Crow laws were common place.

Thanks to President Bush, and under the supervision of fanatic evangelical Attorney General John Ashcroft, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies can; search your highly private medical, financial, mental health and student records, access your library records, search your home while you are away and even confiscate your property, place political organizations under surveillance, wiretapping, harassment and take criminal action for political advocacy and investigate American citizens for criminal matters without probably cause if they say it's for "intelligence purposes."

In addition, the PATRIOT Act allows non-citizens to be jailed based on exercising free speech. Their jail terms may be indefinite in six month increments without judicial review. Since this blog has recently made bullets a tradition, here are the amendments to the U.S. Constitution the PATRIOT Act blatantly violates:

▪First Amendment - Freedom of religion, speech, assembly and the press
▪Fourth Amendment - Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures
▪Fifth Amendment - No person to be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process
▪Sixth Amendment - Right to speedy public trial by an impartial jury, right to be informed of the facts of the accusation, right to confront witnesses and have the assistance of counsel
▪Eighth Amendment - No excessive bail or cruel and unusual punishment
▪Fourteenth Amendment - All persons (citizens and non-citizens...that includes the "animals" referred to in the "My 2 Cents" blog) within the U.S. are entitled to due process and the equal protection of the law

Since the PATRIOT Act was enacted 8,000 Arab and South Asian immigrants have been interrogated because of their religion or ethnic background and not because of actual wrongdoing. Thousands of men, mostly of Arab and South Asian origin, have been held in secretive federal custody sometimes without any charges filed against them.

Also, the government is allowed to monitor communications between federal detainees and their lawyers, destroying the attorney client privilege and threatening the right to counsel. On top of that, new Attorney General guidelines allow federal spying on religious and political organizations and individuals without having evidence of wrongdoing. And American citizens suspected of terrorism are being held indefinitely in military custody without being charged and without access to lawyers.

More than 300 states and municipalities have voiced opposition to the PATRIOT Act and just under 100 local police and sheriff departments have refused to aid the federal government in the execution of PATRIOT Act-permitted actions.

Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

In eroding our civil liberties through the "USA PATRIOT Act," President Bush has taken our freedom while making us no safer and no better protected against terrorism. We can't allow President Bush's and General Ashcroft's fear and scare-mongering to strip us of our most important principals.

The United States of America was founded on freedom, liberty and civil rights. We have struggled for over two centuries ensuring those rights for all Americans and all humans. We have a long way to go yet and as a society, and Americans, we can't allow the short sided, ethnocentric and discriminatory PATRIOT Act to impede our progress.

Now lets wait for the conservatives out there to badmouth Benjamin Franklin.