“Terrorists win when the fear of them induces us to destroy the rights that make us free.” Those were the words of one victim of post-9/11 anti-terrorism hysteria to a Congressional committee on Wednesday. So we got national security letters, a terrorist surveillance program, and probably many other programs, but instead of stopping terrorists, these programs have targeted ordinary Americans.
Now the Bush administration wants even more power to secretly spy on Americans who have done nothing wrong, further destroying American liberty.
This administration tells us that “terrorists hate our freedom.” Yet, it seems that this administration hates our freedom even more, for it’s hell bent on destroying it. Do we have to destroy freedom to save it from terrorists?
The truth is that U.S. government agencies had all the information they needed to detect and stop the September 11, 2001, attacks. That they failed to do so is not because they didn’t have the power to spy on ordinary Americans without warrants or reason that the administration demanded and received and now wants more of.
“What we need is a smaller, more streamlined government that can actually focus on protecting us,” says Jim Babka, president of Downsize DC. Instead, the government “has run off in a thousand different directions, assuming new powers, and creating new thickets of bureaucracy.”
Several organizations I can personally vouch for, such as Downsize DC, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Liberty Coalition, along with several other organizations, have come together to create Stop Illegal Spying, a web site where ordinary Americans can take action and urge their Members of Congress not to expand the President’s power to spy on innocent Americans, to investigate thoroughly the National Security Agency’s terrorist surveillance program, and to find ways to prevent abuses of power in the future.
You should also consider joining Downsize DC and urging Congress to pass the Read the Bills Act, which would prevent Congress from passing bills it hasn’t actually read, the way the Patriot Act was passed.
(Hat tip: EFF)
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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John Moore
Apr 15, 2007
Would Congress even read a draft of a bill that forces it to do its job?
Very funny! :
Ray
Apr 16, 2007
Certainly the government had all the information. Frankly I can’t see one justification for the additional police powers. I love the claim that they can’t get a warrant for wiretapping because it is too complicated and the burden of evidence is to great. That says a lot given what the law says.
#1 They can tap for I believe 72 hours without a warrant.
#2 They can use what they find in this 72 hours as justification for the warrant.
#3 In general search warrants have a pretty low thrush hold of required proof. Basically you have to prove that there is a better than even chance that there is a minor chance that there is evidence which can be gathered and specify what that evidence is.
#4 While applications for warrants are pretty long documents, they are in fact basically boilerplate documents. One I helped prepare was about thirty pages, about one paragraph’s worth of information (well a long paragraph but certainly less than a page) was actually unique. Three pages of this document actually simply specified that the location to be searched was in fact in the United States as defined in one additional page. Now this is where maybe we need some form of law change where this could be entered as data and the boiler plate stuff assumed.
I suspect that the real reason for the need for these additional laws is that a little like Nixon’s administration or maybe even to a much greater level the Bush administration sees a “need” to “protect” us from those who disagree with them. How soon we forget that the break ins which started the process which lead to his resignation were part just the kind of “national security” investigation which Bush says we now need.
That said I don’t know that we can get to hard of the government for not figuring out this plot. A friend of mine once pointed out that intelligence is not like the model of doing a puzzle. Instead it is like you take 500 1000 piece puzzles and mix all the parts together, and then from that set of pieces you remove half the pieces, and now you have to solve one specific puzzle by being given one piece and being told to find the rest of the puzzle. Not an easy task, and no wonder they sometime fail.
Verbos
Apr 17, 2007
I believe the public is extremely naive about how effective government investigation is and has been for many years. Case in point: During Vietnam, I was in, let’s say advanced weapons systems, not to be too specific for my own sake. I required a high level Top Secret clearance. After the investigation I was interviewed on their findings. They knew things my own mother did not know, let alone any of my friends. How? Now all they want is a legal way to use their data and make it instantly available to the right people. Get a grip, this is not a new thing. The attack on liberty has been slowly hacking away for a century or more. We must agree not to disagree on this issue and resolve our differences after we have won back our liberty!
Jun 11, 2007
Supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation - Homeland Stupidity