Posted on 08/25/2003 6:12:29 AM PDT by Theodore R.
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.
© 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc.
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.
I would add that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented if the citizens on board had been allowed to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
What an idiot. Yes we did have to have a new law to allow coordination between the FBI and CIA. They were prevented from coordinating by previously existing law.
He said nearly 2 years ago that he had undergone some sort of transformation based on his relationships with "Palestinian-Americans" in Florida. You can fill in the blanks. He has gone over to the other side.
And this is the fact that they most wish to cover up.
God, Charley has become lazy. The actual quote isn't hard to look up. It's from Benjamin Franklin, and the actual wording is:
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.Essential liberty Charley. For temporary safety. Franklin (who was apparently more than just one wise man according to Charley, so listen up) wasn't handing out some sort of axiom fronm on high. He was offering a guideline to consider when making such decisions. Is the liberty I'm surrendering essential to being a free man, or is it something less? Is the safety I'm gaining from this surrender minor and temporary, or important and lasting?
That's still an important analysis that I would like to see both pro and anti-Bush factions ask seriously. But Reese's lazy and knee-jerk anti reaction is no more laudable than the blind trusting reaction from the dreaded "neo-cons" Charley despises.
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.
Mostly the latter. The cultural genocide perpetrated by the left since the 60s made it easy for the terrorists to operate in the U.S. The difficulty in expelling aliens, the most massive, ceaseless, propaganda campaign in history designed to bully Americans into believing the bizarre theory that it is wrong to trust kith and kin more than the stranger is the heart of the matter. Lambs to the slaughter , led by shepherds who believe the wolves have as much right, nay more, to wander the pasture than the flock. It's as if the authorities suddenly threw several inmates from the local hospital for the criminally insane into your living room and then proclaimed, "We're sorry, but the violent behavior in here is forcing us to require that you all wear straight jackets".
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.
Just so.
Throughout the west, people who really oppose the post 60s establishment are already being put into prison (look at Pauline Hanson in Australia), or having their taxes audited, or at least get publically destroyed. What do you think a Bill Clinton-type will do with PATRIOT act VII in the future?
The CIA was prohibited by law from operating inside the US it was not probibited from sharing info on terrorist with the FBI... Charlie Reese is 100% correct in his assessment.
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