First some backstory. Back in those heady days shortly after a certain Saudi Arabian exile decided crashing airplanes into buildings was the greatest thing since suicide bombers, Congress passed a bill called the Patriot Act. Ranked up there with "Let The Eagle Soar" on the 'Stupidest Responses To September 11' list, the Patriot Act let the government track your purchases, legalized widespread wiretapping, and otherwise contributed to America's toasty new blanket of fear.
And remember, this was part of NOT letting the terrorists win.
Not satisfied with using the Bill of Rights as antique toilet paper, John Ashcroft has stepped up his abuse of our civil rights. Enter the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, a bill as yet unreleased by the Justice Department, but that has been nonetheless leaked to the media.
I'll be honest. This bill starts to scare me. You see, we at morons.org have criticized John Ashcroft and his tactics a lot...something he himself said "aids only terrorists". So under section 501 ("Expatriation of Terrorists") of this bill, anyone who has so much as visited morons.org could conceivably be kicked out of the country.
Yes, I'm completely serious about that. You see, the bill states that "if, with the intent to relinquish his nationality, he becomes a member of, or provides material support to, a group that the United Stated has designated as a 'terrorist organization'," an American citizen could be expatriated. (For those of you without dictionary.com open, that's a fancy word for "exiled".) However, Section 501 allows the government to infer that intent from conduct. So because we criticized Ashcroft, we supported the terrorists. And because we criticized the country's actions in other things, our intent was to leave the country...after all, you're either with Bush, or with the terrorists.
I'll admit that may not be a likely scenario as is, but it would be entirely possible under this legislation. And I haven't even begun to touch on the other things it can do. Such as Section 405, which legitimizes holding suspected terrorists without bail for over 10 years...a Sixth Amendment violation previously restricted to drug offenses.
Or what about Section 312, which repeals any law enforcement decrees that were passed before 9/11 that limit information-gathering and makes re-creating them even harder? These decrees were passed as a result of police spying abuses, but now that those evil Godless terrorists want to destroy our freedom, we have to let the police rape our daughters and spy on personal enemies like our own little Stasi! After all, freedom means legalizing the secret police!
Did I convey enough sarcasm in that last paragraph? It's so hard for me to tell in text.
Needless to say, I'm a bit pissed off here. The fact that the bill could get as far along the design phase as it has worries me deeply, and the fact that Ashcroft thought he could pull it off worries me even more. And then there's the precedent it'll set.
Maybe, for some reason I'd need a lobotomy to understand, you trust Ashcroft. You're convinced somehow that he won't abuse his new, ridiculously wide-reaching powers. Fine. You can think that. I'll probably call you an idiot, but you can still think that.
But do you think the next Attorney General will avoid abusing them? Or the one after that? What happens when someone who opposes you or something you believe in gets these powers? Will you be able to stand up for your rights and say 'no'?
Or will it be too late by then? Will there be anyone left then to speak up for you?
