ZGram - 5/26/2002 - "Send the Patriot Act Packing!"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

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ZGRAM - WHERE TRUTH IS DESTINY

MAY 26, 2002

GOOD MORNING FROM THE ZUNDELSITE:

Today's ZGram is a commentary from the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by a 
distinquished professor and past president of the National Lawyers 
Guild.

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Justification For The
Patriot Act Is Gone

By Peter Erlinder

Commentary
Minneapolis Star-Tribune

5-26-2

The storm of questions and criticism following revelations that the 
Bush administration had numerous warnings of an impending hijacking 
before the Sept. 11 tragedy have focused primarily on the Nixon-era 
mantra, "What did he know, and when did he know it?" But even if a 
congressional investigation agrees with Bush administration 
protestations that the warnings weren't specific enough to know what 
to do, administration policy after Sept. 11 is going to require some 
explaining, too.
 
The "lack of specific warnings" defense may justify a lack of action 
before the airliners hit the World Trade Center, but it can't explain 
away the lies that were told to Congress and the American people 
after Sept. 11 to justify the administration's war on civil 
liberties. The administration has been cynically using its own 
failure to act on intelligence developed under then-existing laws to 
justify vastly increasing its own power at the expense of civil 
freedoms.
 
Within a month of Sept. 11, Attorney General John Ashcroft packaged 
an old FBI wish list as the USA Patriot Act and demanded Congress 
pass it without discussion, because of the threat of yet another 
"Pearl Harbor-like attack." He told us the administration needed new 
"tools" to prevent unexpected terrorist attacks -- new wiretap 
authority; secret searches; the use of secret evidence; secret 
immigration hearings; taping lawyers' conversations; locking up 
"undesirables" on his command, and other measures.
 
No less an expert than Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told 
us that concerns about civil liberties and abuse of power had to be 
shelved because of the "unexpected" new threat. Members of Congress 
have been accused of being the next thing to traitors for questioning 
administration policy and have even been forcibly expelled from 
Ashcroft's secret immigration hearings. Thousands have been locked up 
and deported, though no terrorists have been found, and our allies 
object to our holding of prisoners in violation of international law.
 
By presidential decree, the press has been cut off from normal access 
to government information. Local law enforcement is being deputized 
for federal immigration duty and Ashcroft is indicting lawyers who 
represent alleged terrorists a bit too independently. Even at the 
state level, in places like Minnesota, local law enforcement has 
gotten on the bandwagon with state "antiterrorism" bills that ape the 
Ashcroft proposals.
 
All of this has been justified in the name of preventing another 
"surprise attack." The administration, however, had the right "tools" 
in place before Sept. 11. Those tools would have proved effective, if 
the administration had known how to use them.
 
Now we know that we were all deceived. Recent revelations about the 
Sept. 11 tragedy prove that existing investigative powers were 
effective. The Bush administration used its own failure to act on the 
warnings it had received to justify grabbing even more power, at the 
expense of our civil liberties, by deceiving Congress and the 
American people.
 
The USA Patriot Act became law in less than a month, without any 
hearings. Now that we know it was passed under false pretenses, 
Congress should repeal it just as quickly. And the Bush 
administration should rescind the policies that diminish our civil 
liberties, until we can get an honest assessment of what went wrong 
in the months before Sept. 11.
 
-- Peter Erlinder, a professor at William Mitchell Law School, is a 
past president of the National Lawyers Guild.

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(Sorce:  http://www.rense.com/general25/justification.htm)

=====

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

"

"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear 
for their jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts 
about Israeli policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an 
end to the occupation."

-- Rabbi Michael Lerner

Published on Sunday, April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times