Freedom Forfeited By The Fewby Dirk Nelson
Fairbanks BORDC (website)
3/20/2003 It's been one year, four months and eighteen days today since the passage of
the USA PATRIOT ACT. That document wherein the Congress and White House shirked
their duties to be conscientious in the work that they do, as well as to uphold
the values that have made the United States a special place for over 200 years.
While there was previously room for criticism regarding the short-comings of
our various governments in failing to live up to their full potentials as outlined
in our various defining documents, there was still great pride that the concepts
existed in writing, and meant something. There were greater hopes that those ideals
could be pursued, and that we could achieve them with effort, commitment, and patience.
The USA PATRIOT ACT, portions of which can be found in failed pieces of legislation
from the past decade, defined how quickly our leaders in Washington were willing
to discard our stated principles. They disclosed their absence of fortitude and
commitment to our principles. The USA PATRIOT ACT marked the moment that our bureaucracy
became shirt sleeve patriots; willing to talk about the costs of liberty, but unwilling
to pay them.
While Congress evacuated and scrutinized their own offices for anthrax, they
gave latex gloves and disposable masks to the postal workers; the only government
service actually directly affected by the spores
It became a point at which America turned a corner from the slow chipping away
of rights that legislatures and courts had previously engaged in, and marked the
moment that the Bill of Rights could now be violated and re-defined at will in response
to fear and at a time that few questioned their actions. Even fewer knew what was
contained in these new pieces of legislation.
There were nearly immediate revivals of failed legislations resembling Stalin's
plan for Russia 60 years earlier; businesses mandated to turn in customers, roving
taps on communications, logging of persons' private reading behaviors, mandatory
disclosure of patrons business histories and medical records, proposals of neighbors
spying on neighbors, secret affidavits for searches, secret searches, surveillance
of church and political groups. Actions for which law enforcement officers had previously
lost jobs, badges, and pensions, were now merely enforcement of the law. All of
this changed in one and a half months, and without even being read by the House.
October 26, 2001 became the day that the Justice Department—now chastised by
Senator Arlen Specter (Republican), Senator Grassley (Republican) and Senator Leahy
(Democrat) to have been incompetent to the point of possibly forfeiting opportunities
to avert the tragedy of September 11, 2001—would, instead of being held accountable
for its shortcomings, be offered even more power.
Senator Specter's committee report concluded that the FBI's handling of terrorism
investigations was "scandalous," that incompetence was (rewarded and protected),
and even noted that the lead attorney for the Justice Dept. in charge of interfacing
with the secret Foreign Intelligence Court was "unable to define 'probable cause,'"
a key component to seeking a warrant.
We may never know why so many fumbled the ball leading up to that horrid day.
What we do know is that instead of mandating competence, Congress dealt the Constitution
a nearly lethal blow, and anyone who challenged it was subjected to scrutiny.
And we know that many of us want our America back. We demand it. Close |