Disclaimer: If you hate politics, if you hate being preached too, and if you are going to flame me rather than leave tasteful thoughtful comments about your differing views, you might just want to skip this entry.
[Bob Barr is the] 21st Century Liberties Chair for Freedom & Privacy for the American Conservative Union. “I think that [Biskupic and Mitchell] could have done their job, and if they had been in charge, they could have stopped those terrorists prior to September 11 without the Patriot Act.”
New powers aren't needed and weren't needed to prevent those attacks, he said, if agencies did their jobs efficiently without inter-agency bickering. Instead of focusing on improved job performance, the government is putting its energy against fundamentals of American freedom, Barr said. “Even back in the heyday in the war against mind-altering drugs, we always had the 4th Amendment which came back and was a bulwark against executive government power.”
Barr said the great danger of the Patriot Act “is that it represents a fundamental philosophical shift away from that and in the direction of telling the people of this country that the government can invade your privacy; they can gather evidence to be used against you without any probable cause whatsoever, without any suspicion that you have done anything wrong, simply because the government says it is necessary to fight the war against terror.”
The fear of being soft on terrorism has too many politicians and citizens afraid of openly criticizing these new laws, Barr said, adding that Congress may not be influenced to act for preservation of personal liberties until 2005, but he is glad to keep the discussion active.
“I don't think that we will win the battle to preserve our civil liberties in the war against terror unless we bring all the different groups together: Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals, very involved, uninvolved. It's absolutely essential, because the power of government is so large to begin with that these little incremental steps aren't seen by many in the public. It doesn't even register on their radar screen,” Barr said.
J. Decker, "Patriots Decry Act", Flagpole 1/28/2004, Athens, Georgia
You know something's up the day I agree with freakin' Bob Barr.
Anyway, today I'm (re)registering to vote, because I moved and I need a new card. If you are of age, you should too. Simply because if you don't vote, you can't lament that your voice isn't being heard. I don't have much faith in the whole process, and I don't feel very strongly about any candidate, but I am stauchly with the Anybody But Bushies, and I feel strongly about change. Come hell or high water, I want to feel in December that at the very least, I participated in the wonder that is democracy—something that (I feel) citizens of this country are more and more often taking for granted. Wouldn't you like to at least say that you weren't left out?
Come on, it's a license to complain!
