Devildogg4ever
08-31-03, 07:36 AM
By PENNY TEAL
Published on 8/31/2003
Opposition to the USA Patriot Act has reached such a high level that Attorney General John Ashcroft has had to launch a road show to defend it. In June he met with editors and media executives in Aspen, Colo., to solicit their assistance in “portraying accurately” the act, which places unprecedented restrictions on the rights and freedoms of people in this country — both citizens and noncitizens. The Justice Department has also asked that law enforcement officials write commentaries supporting the act.
Unfortunately, the arguments used by the Justice Department fail to convince. That is partly because many are deceptive, if not outright lies; and partly because the manipulation of fears and the lack of self-consistency are apparent in those arguments.
The first thing you are likely to hear in defense of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terroristm Act — the USA PATRIOT Act — is that it was needed as a response to Sept. 11, 2001. It was, in fact, written long before that day, not in response to that tragedy, and was rejected as too draconian every time Ashcroft tried to introduce parts of it to Congress. And the provisions outlined in the 350-plus pages of the Patriot Act would have done nothing to prevent the horrific attacks of Sept. 11 (see the London Observer, Oct. 27, 2002, Review Section pages 1-4, for starters). The FBI had plenty of information on Sept. 11 suspects and agents who were urging investigations which were shut down by their superiors. Adding information on millions more people will not make it easier to target terrorists; it could conceivably lead to bureaucratic meltdown.
You will also hear some admit (U.S. District Attorney for Connecticut Kevin O'Connor and FBI agent Edward Cugell at a recent forum in Groton, for example) that the act has been used primarily in the war on drugs, not the war on terrorism. With the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and many questioning the war on drugs as racist, ineffective and damned expensive, the last thing we need is to sacrifice the Bill of Rights for more drug arrests.
The act is defended as harmless because those officials who wield its power would not think to step on anyone's civil rights unless it were necessary and good. True...for some of them. But those who are familiar with the civil rights movement and the term COINTELPro will understandably not be comforted by this argument. Well-intended though they may be, people don't always define “necessary and good” similarly. The Patriot Act makes legal the very acts for which Richard Nixon was impeached. Nixon and his supporters thought his break-ins were necessary and good.
In a stinging indictment of the abuses already perpetrated under the new act, the Justice Department's inspector general reported in June that FBI officials had “made little attempt to distinguish” between people with ties to terrorism and complete innocents in its detention of immigrants. Justice Department officials replied that they “make no apologies.” (See the New York Times, June 3.) Immigrants have been detained indefinitely, and without charges, and in many cases have faced such harsh treatment that even Amnesty International (which treads carefully in this country) is condemning U.S. policy and actions.
Another argument is that the act changes very little (O'Connor claimed it is 350 pages of legal mumbo jumbo). Legalizing a formerly impeachable offense is more than a very little change. Changing the standard for obtaining library and other (formerly unobtainable) personal records from that of “probable cause” to “simple relevance” to an investigation (as acknowledged by the U.S. deputy attorney general in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last December) is not a minor change; it is an abomination against our Fourth Amendment rights.
The act has been hailed as a nonconcern for decent, law-abiding citizens because it targets “them:” immigrants, dark-skinned people, incipient terrorists. Yet when criticized because of its encouragement of racial profiling, we are adamantly told (again, O'Connor) that it can be used against “anybody.”
In fact, thanks to another issuance from Ashcroft, the government now maintains a secret list of organizations which it deems to be worthy of surveillance. Are you donating money to one of those organizations? You'll never know. Since the Denver Police Department was recently exposed for having kept extensive files on Amnesty International (yes, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization itself) are we to trust that Amnesty, or Human Rights Watch, or any of the many religious, political and activist organizations critical of the policies of our current administration, are not under surveillance? I don't. And under the “safety in numbers” principle I urge everyone to donate to as many organizations as you possibly can, to protect your friends who may be on FBI lists now.
Blatant lies and manipulations are rained upon us regularly, but when they become a hailstorm we must know that the cloudmakers are worried. Let them be so. Public resistance to the erosion of civil liberties will continue to mount, as more abuses of power become known.
The foundations of our democracy are indispensable. Most of us equate our nation with our rights and freedoms, and cannot imagine living in a repressive country where freedom of assembly, speech and religion are restricted, or where anyone could be imprisoned indefinitely and secretly, without any charges filed against them. Yet we do, and Ashcroft has worse in store with the sequel he's written to the Patriot Act.
If we aim to keep the world safe for democracy, let's start at home by demanding that our own rights not disappear.
Penny Teal has been coordinating an effort to pass a resolution defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights in Stonington, where she lives, writes and homeschools her two children.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=EE60F028-3C8E-4CE5-AA13-99E956FF8F62
Published on 8/31/2003
Opposition to the USA Patriot Act has reached such a high level that Attorney General John Ashcroft has had to launch a road show to defend it. In June he met with editors and media executives in Aspen, Colo., to solicit their assistance in “portraying accurately” the act, which places unprecedented restrictions on the rights and freedoms of people in this country — both citizens and noncitizens. The Justice Department has also asked that law enforcement officials write commentaries supporting the act.
Unfortunately, the arguments used by the Justice Department fail to convince. That is partly because many are deceptive, if not outright lies; and partly because the manipulation of fears and the lack of self-consistency are apparent in those arguments.
The first thing you are likely to hear in defense of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terroristm Act — the USA PATRIOT Act — is that it was needed as a response to Sept. 11, 2001. It was, in fact, written long before that day, not in response to that tragedy, and was rejected as too draconian every time Ashcroft tried to introduce parts of it to Congress. And the provisions outlined in the 350-plus pages of the Patriot Act would have done nothing to prevent the horrific attacks of Sept. 11 (see the London Observer, Oct. 27, 2002, Review Section pages 1-4, for starters). The FBI had plenty of information on Sept. 11 suspects and agents who were urging investigations which were shut down by their superiors. Adding information on millions more people will not make it easier to target terrorists; it could conceivably lead to bureaucratic meltdown.
You will also hear some admit (U.S. District Attorney for Connecticut Kevin O'Connor and FBI agent Edward Cugell at a recent forum in Groton, for example) that the act has been used primarily in the war on drugs, not the war on terrorism. With the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, and many questioning the war on drugs as racist, ineffective and damned expensive, the last thing we need is to sacrifice the Bill of Rights for more drug arrests.
The act is defended as harmless because those officials who wield its power would not think to step on anyone's civil rights unless it were necessary and good. True...for some of them. But those who are familiar with the civil rights movement and the term COINTELPro will understandably not be comforted by this argument. Well-intended though they may be, people don't always define “necessary and good” similarly. The Patriot Act makes legal the very acts for which Richard Nixon was impeached. Nixon and his supporters thought his break-ins were necessary and good.
In a stinging indictment of the abuses already perpetrated under the new act, the Justice Department's inspector general reported in June that FBI officials had “made little attempt to distinguish” between people with ties to terrorism and complete innocents in its detention of immigrants. Justice Department officials replied that they “make no apologies.” (See the New York Times, June 3.) Immigrants have been detained indefinitely, and without charges, and in many cases have faced such harsh treatment that even Amnesty International (which treads carefully in this country) is condemning U.S. policy and actions.
Another argument is that the act changes very little (O'Connor claimed it is 350 pages of legal mumbo jumbo). Legalizing a formerly impeachable offense is more than a very little change. Changing the standard for obtaining library and other (formerly unobtainable) personal records from that of “probable cause” to “simple relevance” to an investigation (as acknowledged by the U.S. deputy attorney general in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last December) is not a minor change; it is an abomination against our Fourth Amendment rights.
The act has been hailed as a nonconcern for decent, law-abiding citizens because it targets “them:” immigrants, dark-skinned people, incipient terrorists. Yet when criticized because of its encouragement of racial profiling, we are adamantly told (again, O'Connor) that it can be used against “anybody.”
In fact, thanks to another issuance from Ashcroft, the government now maintains a secret list of organizations which it deems to be worthy of surveillance. Are you donating money to one of those organizations? You'll never know. Since the Denver Police Department was recently exposed for having kept extensive files on Amnesty International (yes, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization itself) are we to trust that Amnesty, or Human Rights Watch, or any of the many religious, political and activist organizations critical of the policies of our current administration, are not under surveillance? I don't. And under the “safety in numbers” principle I urge everyone to donate to as many organizations as you possibly can, to protect your friends who may be on FBI lists now.
Blatant lies and manipulations are rained upon us regularly, but when they become a hailstorm we must know that the cloudmakers are worried. Let them be so. Public resistance to the erosion of civil liberties will continue to mount, as more abuses of power become known.
The foundations of our democracy are indispensable. Most of us equate our nation with our rights and freedoms, and cannot imagine living in a repressive country where freedom of assembly, speech and religion are restricted, or where anyone could be imprisoned indefinitely and secretly, without any charges filed against them. Yet we do, and Ashcroft has worse in store with the sequel he's written to the Patriot Act.
If we aim to keep the world safe for democracy, let's start at home by demanding that our own rights not disappear.
Penny Teal has been coordinating an effort to pass a resolution defending the Constitution and Bill of Rights in Stonington, where she lives, writes and homeschools her two children.
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/newstand/re.aspx?reIDx=EE60F028-3C8E-4CE5-AA13-99E956FF8F62