Politics: Here They Go Again
Bill Moyers' PBS show Now featured an interview last night with Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity. CPI has obtained a Justice Department analysis of a new piece of legislation to curtail your freedoms. The legislation, tentatively called the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" will drill right through whatever the USA Patriot Act left behind in October 2001. This includes granting Attorney General John Ashcroft power to strip any American of their citizenship without the opportunity to face their accusers, review the evidence against them or defend themselves in court.
(Perhaps Mr. Ashcroft could use a little backup in the old bill of rights department. Here's a refresher. Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. )
As a matter of fact this piece of legislation, if adopted as written, will diminish judicial oversight of the U.S. law enforcement infrastructure on such a massive scale that we will be, more than I've ever thought possible, destroying many of America's fundamental rights on the pretext of protecting them. Judges won't be able to oversee surveillance investigations, people will be identified through covert surveillance, stripped of citizenship and deported all without a hearing, and much more. Right to know is gone. More blocking of Freedom of Information Act requests. Congressional oversight is minimized. And the power concentrated around the position of U.S. Attorney General is astounding. This makes the federal law enforcement infrastructure into a massive KGB-type domestic espionage agency.
The staggering thing about this is that the analysis was leaked. But that is clearly part of the plan. There are 40 sections in this overview of the bill, and almost every one contains a whopper: one restricts judges from requiring reports on surveillance they authorized, another deletes sunset clauses on some USA Patriot Act provisions, so they remain in effect indefinitely, one even creates a legal advocate to argue on behalf of the government if the FISA Court ever again (as it did for the first time in May last year) decides to decline authorization for a surveillance request. Out of the 40 items floated in this 'leak,' Ashcroft, Viet Dinh and the rest of those craven dogs over at Justice will be ecstatic to get half of them through. So they leak this, on a snow-covered Friday at 5 o'clock (though Center for Public Integrity could have had the document longer), weather a weekend response (overshadowed by the next Gulf War and the new terror alert status), roll back a couple of provisions here and there, and then through it goes. A couple of Senators whine, they get called traitors in the press and bam, you've got KGB 2.0 on the shores of the Potomac.
Just remember, you read it here first.
Bill Moyers' PBS show Now featured an interview last night with Chuck Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity. CPI has obtained a Justice Department analysis of a new piece of legislation to curtail your freedoms. The legislation, tentatively called the "Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003" will drill right through whatever the USA Patriot Act left behind in October 2001. This includes granting Attorney General John Ashcroft power to strip any American of their citizenship without the opportunity to face their accusers, review the evidence against them or defend themselves in court.
(Perhaps Mr. Ashcroft could use a little backup in the old bill of rights department. Here's a refresher. Amendment VI: In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. )
As a matter of fact this piece of legislation, if adopted as written, will diminish judicial oversight of the U.S. law enforcement infrastructure on such a massive scale that we will be, more than I've ever thought possible, destroying many of America's fundamental rights on the pretext of protecting them. Judges won't be able to oversee surveillance investigations, people will be identified through covert surveillance, stripped of citizenship and deported all without a hearing, and much more. Right to know is gone. More blocking of Freedom of Information Act requests. Congressional oversight is minimized. And the power concentrated around the position of U.S. Attorney General is astounding. This makes the federal law enforcement infrastructure into a massive KGB-type domestic espionage agency.
The staggering thing about this is that the analysis was leaked. But that is clearly part of the plan. There are 40 sections in this overview of the bill, and almost every one contains a whopper: one restricts judges from requiring reports on surveillance they authorized, another deletes sunset clauses on some USA Patriot Act provisions, so they remain in effect indefinitely, one even creates a legal advocate to argue on behalf of the government if the FISA Court ever again (as it did for the first time in May last year) decides to decline authorization for a surveillance request. Out of the 40 items floated in this 'leak,' Ashcroft, Viet Dinh and the rest of those craven dogs over at Justice will be ecstatic to get half of them through. So they leak this, on a snow-covered Friday at 5 o'clock (though Center for Public Integrity could have had the document longer), weather a weekend response (overshadowed by the next Gulf War and the new terror alert status), roll back a couple of provisions here and there, and then through it goes. A couple of Senators whine, they get called traitors in the press and bam, you've got KGB 2.0 on the shores of the Potomac.
Just remember, you read it here first.
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