← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Zoroaster
Thread ID: 9270 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-08-25
2003-08-25 14:53 | User Profile
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Ashcroft's Lack Of Credibility
Attorney General John Ashcroft has launched a publicity campaign to save the USA Patriot Act, a misnamed piece of legislation if ever there was. It should be called the Anti-Bill of Rights Act.
Ashcroft is out on the hustings because opposition to the Patriot Act, passed hurriedly in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attack, is itself coming under attack. More than 134 local governments have passed resolutions denouncing it. The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging a portion of it in federal court.
Ashcroft is denying that the federal government has or will abuse the broad authority the bill grants. If you believe that, you are naive. Let's dispose of the first false argument: The Patriot Act is necessary to prevent another terrorist attack.
In the first place, the first attack on Sept. 11 might have been prevented if the FBI, the CIA and the Immigration and Naturalization Service had done their jobs. You didn't need a new law to tell the CIA and FBI to, for God's sake, share information and quit playing stupid bureaucratic games. That sorry state of affairs existed because of a lack of oversight by both the executive and legislative branches of government.
In the second place, the Patriot Act will not protect America from another terrorist act. The very idea that the FBI will catch a terrorist by finding out what books he or she has bought or checked out of a library is juvenile, to say the least. The Patriot Act allows the federal government to compile a record of our reading materials and also, under threat of prison, forbids librarians or bookstores from telling us the FBI has come calling.
It also authorizes the federal government to break into your home, conduct a search and never inform you of it, as well as spy on your e-mail and other computer transactions. The fact that this requires a rubber stamp from an anonymous and secret federal court is a further affront to liberty.
The problem with trusting government not to abuse its power is this: Well-intentioned intellectuals might draft the legislation and issue executive orders, but when actual enforcement comes along, it is done by cops, who, as a rule, are not usually intellectuals or political philosophers or constitutional lawyers. No, just plain cops who, God bless 'em, tend toward tunnel vision and tend to see the world as easily divided into good guys and bad guys. Federal cops in particular have a bad reputation for believing unreliable and dishonest paid informants. They have destroyed many innocent lives because of it.
No doubt some moron will argue: Which would you rather do, lose your civil liberties or suffer another terrorist attack? That is a false dichotomy. A more accurate statement would be: Which would you rather do, become a slave inadequately protected against terrorism or remain a free man or woman and take your chances with terrorists? More than one wise man has said that people who will sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. Whether we ever become victims of terrorism is a matter of chance. Whether the federal government will abuse its power is a certainty, proven by the historical record.
Let me point out to you that in Iraq, the American occupational authority is virtually a dictatorship and can do anything it wants to anybody. But has it been able to stop terrorists? No. People who ask you to trade freedom for security are con artists. They will take your freedom away, but they don't provide you the promised security.
The FBI and CIA have plenty of authority without the Patriot Act if we insist that those agencies be operated intelligently and with integrity. This country survived for more than 200 years and through plenty of wars without the Patriot Act.
The attorney general is, I believe, a well-intentioned man, but he is a zealot, and zealots are dangerous. If we are spared another attack, it won't be Ashcroft in his palatial office or FBI agents snooping around libraries in American cities who will deserve the credit. It will be field agents overseas doing old-fashioned spy work who will deserve the credit.
You really should write your congressional representative and senators and urge them to repeal the Patriot Act. Legislation passed in a hurry and under emotional duress is almost always bad and dangerous.
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The American occupational authority in Iraq is merely an extension of the illegal Israeli occupation of Gaza and West Bank that has been in place for thirty-six years. To degrade loyal Americans to the status of Palestinians is clearly a Zionist goal, and Ashcroft, who may be a Noahide, is the main cheerleader.
In the early days of the Republic, patriots would have been hauled Ashcroft out of the Department of Justice and 'tarred and feathered" his sorry ass in the streets of Washington.
-Z-