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["Shea Tisdale" <shea AT sheatisdale.com>]

I am hoping you will forgive this use of bandwidth to promote a cause of mine.  Namely, the repeal of the USA Patriot Act.  I know everyone won’t agree with me, and I’m actually glad that is the case.  Otherwise, life would be pretty boring.  Therefore, I encourage you to read my opinion and the information below and anything else you can find and form your own opinion and make it known to your representatives.  

 

And let me say that I think it’s important you do this whether you agree with me or not. 

 

The price good people pay for their indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

— Plato (427-347 BC)

 

I don’t know how many of you are aware or not, but the USA Patriot Act is being used increasingly against US Citizens for common crimes.  The law was never intended for this (at least publicly they never said this when it was proposed) and it is a subversion of Constitution and our basic rights as citizens.

 

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

 

— Lyndon B. Johnson

 

I know that the “Security concerns” following Sept. 11 made many people feel that laws like this are necessary, but I personally believe that it wasn’t a lack of laws that lead to this or that caused us to fail in preventing it.

 

And afterward, the events of Sept. 11 were used by the government as an excuse to pass laws that remove civil liberties in the name of “protecting us” from the evil of terrorism. 

 

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins; all of them imaginary.

—        H.L. Mencken

 

While I will concede that not all threats to us are imaginary, and the acts of Sept. 11 certainly prove that.  I do think that it is appropriate to consider that the aim of politicians and governments is to increase their power at the expense of the people.  Our forefathers knew this well and built many protections into the constitution and debated issues such as this.  In considering the Constitution, James Madison quoted this:  In dubiis, non praesumitur pro potentia. In cases of doubt, the presumption is not in favor of a power. 

 

Everything that the terrorists did was against the law, from being here illegally, to using forged paperwork, to the heinous acts they carried out. And several agencies had all the information they needed to investigate and failed to do so.  So I don’t think the government needs more laws – only to enforce the laws we already have.  They don’t need new surveillance powers, they had information already.  They simply failed to act on it or to pass it on to other agencies that might have been concerned.  But seeing an opportunity, our government has made a power grab that gives them unprecedented new powers and leaves ordinary citizens at their mercy.  

 

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

— Benjamin Franklin

 

So that is my take on it with a few quotes thrown in by people much smarter than I.  Please consider this and read some of the news stories below.

 

 

 

http://www.centralmaine.com/view/editorials/030917edit_pat.shtml (If you go to this website, please read the story, but you might also look at their address banner near the top of the page and run your cursor across it.  Cool effect)

 

Within six weeks of passing the Patriot Act the Justice Department conducted seminars teaching enforcement agencies how to use the provisions of that law against citizens not suspected of terrorism.

 

Some learned that lesson too well.

 

A North Carolina county prosecutor used the law to charge a man accused of running a methamphetamine lab of manufacturing chemical weapons. The accused could get 12 years to life behind bars. The normal sentence for the crime is about six months.

 

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Surveillance/Terrorism_militias/20011031_eff_usa_patriot_analysis.php

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.02A.JVB.Patriot.htm

 

 

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/5010

 

http://www.bordc.org/Repeal.pdf

 

 

http://www.coloradoan.com/news/stories/20030807/opinion/17728.html

 

http://www.msnbc.com/news/950176.asp

 

 

http://216.109.117.135/search/cache?p=patriot+act+used&ei=UTF-8&url="nKXoUopCSz0J:www.azstarnet.com/star/mon/30915nPatriotAct-commonc.html

 

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/061703F.shtml

 

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=822&fcategory_desc=Under%20Reported

 

 

http://www.clairewolfe.com/wolfesblog/00000143.html