Word: patriotism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...October 2001, Congress passed a law in the midst of unprecedented fear and national solidarity. This law was the USA PATRIOT Act. Intended to loosen restrictions on our nation’s investigative bodies—and thus better protect citizens during the subsequent war on terror—certain aspects of this act have instead jeopardized the very freedoms our nation intended to defend...
...this week, Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt., in conjunction with other lawmakers concerned with civil liberty infringement, plans to propose a bill that will reinstate those standards. The details of the bill will be released tomorrow, but it has become very clear over the past 18 months that the PATRIOT Act has eroded far more constitutional privacy controls than appropriate. We have already witnessed the Bush administration’s callous disregard for individual civil liberties; in the fall, we learned of the Pentagon’s proposed plans for “Total Information Awareness...
Today, unfortunately, we are forced to acknowledge what we have been fearing: the present administration’s continued and calculated willingness to perpetuate a climate of fear in order to maneuver its agenda through a compliant Congress. Sixteen months ago, the USA PATRIOT Act was passed in the fear-laden aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It might have been hoped that this was merely the unreflective response of a shocked government in a time of crisis. Yet, in the last month, another tool used in this fight against Americans’ rights has surfaced?...
More troubling, however, is how the bill undermines fundamental constitutional rights of Americans by using vague and overbroad definitions of “terrorism” and “terrorist organization”—terms capriciously defined by the Attorney General. Under PATRIOT II, native-born Americans are at risk of having their citizenship stripped if they provide “material support” to so-labeled “terrorist” organizations, regardless if the citizen is involved only in lawful activities. There is no governmental check set up to oversee such decisions either...
...secrecy. The administration makes a mockery of traditions of public discourse and attempts to circumvent the decision-making role of Congress in doing so. The cynical might suspect the administration of waiting for an opportune time—a war with Iraq, perhaps?—to spring PATRIOT II onto a public clamoring for safety and receptive to its siren song of security at any price. Were there less time for measured debate and more pressing calls for action, such a maneuver might well have succeeded. But now is not such a time. The provisions of PATRIOT...