by Monroe Trout
The first USA Patriot Act went too far in denying us our Civil Liberties. Now John Ashcroft, the attorney general, wants to go even farther with his Patriot Act II. The first Act allows government agents (who are supposed to be our servants and whose salaries we pay with our income taxes) to break into our homes when we are away to conduct a search for God-knows-what and denies us the right for days or months to even learn that a warrant was issued. This act even gives to government agents the right to learn of the books or materials we borrow from public libraries without our knowledge. It also allows the government to examine our finances and other personal information without judicial approval.
The new powers enumerated in this act, which Congress hastily passed with scant consideration of its consequences to our cherished civil liberties, can be used to investigate matters that have nothing to do with terrorism. These powers are reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and eliminate the checks and balances that have prevented law enforcement officials from abusing their powers and violating our civil liberties. Search warrants signed by a judge and served on the individual in question were always required to protect one's constitutional right to be free of unwarranted searches and seizures. The Drug Enforcement Agency long ago learned the consequences when they broke into homes of innocent people in their attempts to find illegal drugs.
Now Mr. Ashcroft wants to extend the reaches of that first act with Patriot Act II (an oxymoron or misnomer in the extreme) which would grant government broader powers to search our homes and learn what books and magazines we read from the public library. The government can arrest the librarian if he or she tells us of the surveillance. In my opinion, this is a violation of the First Amendment.
The act would permit government to follow us on our vacations to find out where we go to relax. The act would allow the government into our doctor's offices to scrutinize the drugs we take. This always has been protected as a part of the patient-doctor privilege, much like the protection given to the attorney-client privilege.
It would permit the monitoring of our phone conversations without judicial approval and would allow secret arrests. Everyone is supposed to be entitled to an attorney and an expeditious trial. The writ of Habeas Corpus appears to be placed in limbo if no one knows that a person has been arrested, and that person cannot receive an expeditious trial if the he or she is held for long periods in secret.
Surveillance of private citizens should always be monitored by the courts to prevent abuses by the Executive Branch. The act would also immunize federal agents who conduct illegal surveillance from any subsequent court action. American citizens could be stripped of their citizenship if they provide any aid to a so-called terrorist group, even if they did not know of the group's alleged links to terrorism. It reminds me of the witch-hunts of the 1940s and 1950s when unsuspecting people were labeled Communists because they contributed to an organization when they had no knowledge that it was infiltrated by the Communist Party. Joseph McCarthy was stopped when he tried to persecute such individuals.
Now we must stop Mr. Ashcroft by defeating his new Patriot (a ludicrous name) Act and by reexamining Patriot Act I and its effects on our civil liberties. Congress' members have not protected the people they are sworn to serve. If they are unwilling to amend Act I and defeat Act II, then the courts quickly need to declare both Acts unconstitutional.
Here is an example of the harassment and possible prosecution of an ordinary citizen that the Patriot Act permits. I was recently told at the Airport Security Check by a supervisor that if I didn't stop complaining about their inefficiency and their groping of all my body parts (I need hand checking because I am 72 years old and have a pacemaker), that I would be arrested. I asked since when can a person be arrested for exercising his First Amendment rights of free speech. Then he told me he would deny me boarding my plane. The humiliation of being groped dozens of times a year by a stranger in uniform because you have a physical disability is more than a person should have to endure. Even in the darkest days of World War II, the government did not suppress our civil liberties to the extent the Ashcroft Acts authorize today. (Notice I do not call them Patriot Acts.)
When we allow such acts to be passed swiftly in order to be labeled patriots, we are acquiescing to the same types of events that brought Hitler to power when good citizens stood by and did nothing. When we allow these things to happen to the least of us, we allow them to happen to all of us. We lose the moral right to criticize less freedom-loving countries.
It is time for all true patriots to stand up to the Ashcrofts of the world. It is time for ordinary citizens to say, "We treasure our civil liberties. Past generations fought for them. We want to protect them and pass them on to our children and our children's children." We must not allow anyone or any government agency to tread on our liberty. As Benjamin Franklin, a true patriot, said in 1775, "He who gives up his liberties for security gives up both his liberties and his security."
Dr. Trout is a retired health care executive who has served his country in many capacities including service in the Navy and with the Marine Corps and on Presidential and Congressional Commissions as well as state and local commissions. He lives in Knoxville.
March 12, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 11
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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