posted on September 12, 2003 12:57:10 PM new
Stalin has risen from the grave, and guess who he is now ?
Locking Down Democracy to Keep America Free
by Jim Hightower
It's September 11 - do you know where John Ashcroft is?
It's been two years since America was attacked by al Qaeda terrorists wielding box cutters. Two years since George W. promised to "smoke 'em out," make Americans safe from foreign terrorists, and "secure our freedoms." Two years since our airports and practically every other public facility and private office building have been locked down, requiring all of us to submit to constant surveillance - from poking into our personal belongings to routinely wanding our bodies. Two years since hundreds of billions of our tax dollars have been diverted from other crucial needs to build the surveillance state. Two years during which our Brave New Homeland Security Department has been issuing its "Code Orange" alerts and advising us to defend ourselves with duct tape.
So do you feel safe? Or just a little bit suckered?
After two years of "protecting" our freedom by suspending our freedoms, here's what scares me: Not al Qaeda, but our own homegrown autocrats - Ashcroft and other political extremists and opportunists who fan the embers of fear, then drape a veil of patriotism over their push to impose a police-state mentality on our Land of the Free.
Yes, foreign terrorists can do us bodily harm, but they're no threat to the soul of America. They can't take our liberties from us, can't militarize our society, can't dim the light of America's proud democratic beacon, can't force our soldiers into imperialistic wars to make the world safe for Halliburton, can't change the essential principles of egalitarianism that undergird our society. But our own so-called leaders can do all of thisŠand they are. BushCo, backed by spineless Wobblycrats in Congress and cheered on by a fawning media establishment, have had two years and an unlimited budget to work their will in response to 9/11, and it's now time for us to speak bluntly about their efforts: These people are NUTS!
And dangerous. They can't find Osama bin Laden (and have even diverted our military from that legitimate purpose), but they have amassed a shiny new arsenal of police powers so they can always find you and me - tracking the library books we check out, the medicines we take, our political associations, our private internet searches, our psychiatric records, the church groups we join, and the charities we support.
Far from making us safer, Ashcroft's autocratic antics empower police to crack down on legitimate citizen activism without doing anything that will actually stop determined terrorists. In fact, the Feds had all the legal tools and resources they needed to stop the crashbombers prior to September 11, but they misused or ignored what they had. America is not made stronger by weakening our First and Fourth Amendment rights.
This is why a grassroots rebellion has flared nationwide against the USA PATRIOT Act. Some 150 cities - as well as the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and Vermont - already have passed resolutions opposing the abusive Act, and some police departments have said that they will not cooperate with FBI investigations that they deem to be unconstitutional infringements on people's liberties.
The public outcry has been so great that even Congress is stirring into action. In July, the House stunned Ashcroft by voting 309 to 118 for a Republican-sponsored amendment to block the use of federal funds for the PATRIOT Act's secret "sneak-and-peek" searches of people's homes and offices. There also is bipartisan backing for the "Library and Personal Records Privacy Act" to undo some of the Act's worst provisions, and for the "Rights of Individuals Act" to narrowly define who is a terrorist and to tighten the rein on the FBI's fishing expeditions.
In response to all of this, the White House took the most hilarious step imaginable: It sent Ashcroft on a two-week cross-country charm tour to sing the virtues of the PATRIOT Act! What, was Bela Lugosi not available? Of course, Ashcroft's tour included no public meetings - he spoke only before police groups. But no matter what kind of pretty cover he tries to put on the act, it's a hopeless as putting earrings on a hog - he just can't hide the ugliness down below.
posted on September 12, 2003 01:00:54 PM new
New Yorkers Protest the Attorney General's Tour to Promote the Patriot Act
Bashcroft!
by Sarah Ferguson
September 10th, 2003 10:00 AM
Two days before the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, more than 1,000 New Yorkers turned out on Wall Street to protest Attorney General John Ashcroft and the USA Patriot Act.
It was the biggest protest yet to greet Ashcroft on his 16-city tour to defend the Patriot Act's antiterrorist provisions against a growing chorus of critics on both the left and right. Ashcroft used his invite-only appearance at Federal Hall, just blocks from Ground Zero, to insist that the law—which expands the government's authority to survey personal records, spy on activist and religious groups, and detain non-citizens indefinitely—is crucial to maintaining the city's safety. "The painful lesson of September 11 remains the touchstone—reminding us of the government's responsibility to protect the lives and preserve the liberty of the American people," the Attorney General said.
But the fact that his opponents were kept penned behind a maze of police barricades, under the watchful eye of police sharpshooters and bomb-sniffing dogs, seemed to demonstrate otherwise.
Many said they were particularly outraged that Ashcroft came to lobby here on the eve of the 9-11 anniversary—and that he did so at Federal Hall, where the Bill of Rights was first introduced.
"I feel offended that the Attorney General has come, and just like the President, has looked for opportunities to feed 9-11 into his political agenda," said Andrew Rice, whose brother was killed at the World Trade Center. Rice is a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group of some 100 relatives of 9-11 victims that formed to oppose the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. "It doesn't bring any justice to my brother's memory to have a law-abiding Arab-American be detained and held without seeing a lawyer and then deported," Rice told the crowd, adding, "If you look at the law, I could be named a domestic terrorist if they found that my public protest was a risk to the national security of the United States."
That's precisely the type of claim Ashcroft hopes his tour will refute. But by confining his audiences to law-enforcement officials and refusing to take follow-up questions from reporters, the Attorney General has only reinforced complaints that the Bush Administration seeks to secure freedoms for some at the expense of others.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, assailed the tour as a "stealth road show," noting that the Attorney General had only made his New York schedule public on Friday. "Ashcroft is seeking to kill democracy behind closed doors," Lieberman charged. But even Federal Hall's thick marble walls could not fully screen out the sound of demonstrators chanting, "Ashcroft, Go Home! Leave Our Bill of Rights Alone!"
The demo drew a mix of immigrant-rights defenders, seasoned anti-Bush demonstrators, local office workers, and alarmed citizens like Robert Hickman, a 41-year-old artist from Williamsburg who arrived carrying his three-year-old son Caleb and a hand-penned sign reading, "Doofus!"
"I came because of how stupid he is," Hickman said of the Attorney General. "His religiosity is terrifying. He believes he's above the law."
Such complaints reflect a growing grassroots movement to roll back the Patriot Act. Already, some 160 cities and three states (Hawaii, Alaska, and Vermont) have passed resolutions opposing the legislation as a threat to civil liberties.
Though largely symbolic, activists hope these measures will convince Congress to rein in some of the Patriot Act's most sweeping provisions. While the Justice Department has sought to paint critics as card-carrying ACLU members, going so far as to launch a website to counter ACLU "myths," some of the staunchest opposition has come from the right. In July, the House overwhelmingly approved a bill sponsored by conservative Republican C. L. Otter of Idaho to overturn the so-called "sneak and peak" provision, which allows officials to execute search warrants secretly and delay notifying their targets. Another House bill to limit the government's ability to tap library and bookstore records is gaining support, and a Senate version is expected shortly.
Meanwhile, the uproar sparked by a leaked draft of Ashcroft's so-called "Patriot Act II" bill—which proposed allowing the feds to strip citizenship from any American who provides support for a group the government deems a "terrorist organization"—seems to have scared the Attorney General from releasing it.
Just a day before Ashcroft's New York visit, the Justice Department's own Inspector General issued a report criticizing federal officials for failing to implement rules to distinguish between illegal aliens arrested in terror investigations and those detained for simple immigration violations. (In June, the Inspector General had faulted the government for allowing hundreds of immigrants with no clear terror ties to languish in jail for months under harsh conditions.)
In New York City, activists are rallying behind Resolution 909, a measure introduced by Harlem Councilmember Bill Perkins in May that goes further than most local resolutions across the country in seeking to curb the reach of the Patriot Act. Beyond simply condemning the Act, it directs the NYPD to refrain from spying on activist and religious groups and asks police to stop enforcing federal immigration laws. It also calls on federal officials to release the names of all 9-11 terror detainees.
"If New York can pass a resolution like this, it will really put the Bush Administration and the rest of the country on notice," says Udi Ofer of the New York City Bill of Rights Defense Campaign, a project of the NYCLU that has mobilized hundreds of volunteers across the city. So far 22 council members have signed on to Resolution 909, but Ofer expects opposition from more conservative council members like Peter Vallone Jr. of Queens, as well as heavyhitting pols like Senator Charles Schumer. Schumer not only supports the Patriot Act but introduced a Senate bill earlier this year that would actually expand the government's ability to issue secret surveillance warrants against noncitizens [see story].
But on the street, Ashcroft seemed to be losing the PR war. "I think he needs to go into hiding or resign, because he's not doing anything for security here," commented Sonji Braxton, an insurance agent and single mom who wandered by on her lunch hour, gesturing at the police sharpshooters posted on the roof of Federal Hall. "This is America and it terrorizes me to come to work. And now they want more money to pay for this war? What about the money to educate my child? They need to pull our boys out of Iraq and bring 'em home, because everything they're doing over there just makes it worse."
posted on September 12, 2003 02:30:26 PM new
typical fascist answer, adolf, and oh yea, your little phrase that follows your fascist statements, wonder how much you believe in the "matthew" statement, got money in the bank ? do you have insurance? got any plans for tomorrow, and if so, why bother, if tomorrow will look after itself, plus go back and read some of your threads, looks pretty much like a hypocritical attitude on your part, but hey, what can one expect from a disfunctional brain
