Hi Chico,

The Bush assault on the fourth amendment frightens me. The president claims the right to indefinitely detain American citizens without due process or access to counsel.

The secret INS detentions are on the same line.

And what terrifies me is that a year and a half after 9/11 the Administration still claims the need, the authority, and the right to basically 'disapear' people indefinitely.

I could accept the mass detentions as an emergency response to a terrifying event. BUT, as these people checked out to be okay they should have been released or deported with a reasonably full accounting of the process.

This relates to the next frightening assault on liberty where the whole freedom of information act is being gutted.

We know that our government and security agencies abuse their powers. I would even argue that this is somewhat appropriate. The interests of those who are fighting crime and terrorism are almost intrinsically at odds with the needs of an open society.

So the counter balance to secrecy and abuse must include access to government information. Hence the FOIA. I can accept that this information will be incomplete, but this administration has crossed the line.

The removal of restrictions on the FBI is another example of the removal of rights. Again, we know that the FBI abuses the law and violates the rights of Americans. This isn't a liberal conspiracy of defamation. And so we imposed some restrictions on _some_ of the worst abuses of civil liberties.

Hell...we _know_ that the FBI has engaged in dirty tricks to punish people for their Constitutionally Protected actions. That is one of the things that they do best. Now the limits have been repealed.

Mark talked of privacy...and I'll second that. I'll go so far as to submit that the purpose of the Patriot Act clause that specifically allows the feds to search our library records, and prohibits disclosure of such a search, was intended by the president to make us nervous about our own reading.

A major purpose of the Patriot Act was to make us all fearful. To make us look at our local librarian as a potential Judas.

As Ari said 'This isn't the time for that kind of comment. It is never the time.'

Maybe I am paranoid. BUT the FBI/et al didn't need the Patriot Act to do their jobs. Judges seldom deny search warrants to the police/FBI/etc. And to argue that requiring the FBI to first get a warrant will make it easier for terrorists is to argue against our Constitution.

George Bush and John Ashcroft have commited high treason against the Constitution of the United States. They should be arrested by the proper authorities, tried, and put in jail.

My opposition to the Death Penalty extends to traitors, but I'll offer that what Bush, Cheney, and Ashcroft have done to our country and way of life is far worse than what Tim McVeigh and Bin Laden have done.

McVeigh and Bin Laden are whacko criminal nut jobs who killed American Citizens, and who should be punished.

Bush, et al, are engaged in an ongoing assault on the core principles of America.

When we are physically attacked we can seek justice or vengeance, cry, and move forward. When our Constitution, the basis for our unique sense of American identity, is attacked, twisted, and subverted by criminal traitors then we are well and truly fucked as a nation and a people.


-the fourth amendment.

What most bothers me about the post 9/11 actions of the administration are the things that just are not needed.

For example, the effective overturning of the 4th amendment.