Monday, January 06, 2003

I can't say it any better than this. Karlin Lillington writes about the US's amazing apathy as we lose 200 years' of personal rights and freedom (from Ireland, no less). So rather than paraphrase, here's her post. And read the article being linked in the first sentence - it's a great, disturbing summary. ----------------------------- "This piece is being widely blogged and highlights a disturbing truth -- that people just do not seem to care that the most basic rights and principles, those which underlie the foundation of the world's democracies and are deeply interwoven into the US constitution, are being thrown out the door in the vague intention of 'fighting terrorism'. Today, people of the United States have given up their rights through the "Patriot Act," the "Homeland Security Act" and the Pentagon's new system of "Total Information Awareness." The astonishing thing about this "land of the free" is that most Americans now have no effective rights and do not care. ...The government now has the power to enter your home or your computer and secretly record whatever they find without ever having to notify you. They do not even have to obtain a warrant from a publicly accountable judge showing reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed. Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold spoke the following words from the Senate floor on Oct. 11, 2001, when he was the only senator to vote against Attorney General John Ashcroft's USA Patriot Act: "There is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country where police were allowed to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country where the government is entitled to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your e-mail communications; if we lived in a country where people could be held in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, the government would probably discover more terrorists or would-be terrorists! But that wouldn't be a country in which we would want to live." " [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]] comment []7:42:46 AM

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