A Matter of Rights
Bush has as good as told the American people that they have to sacrifice their civil liberties and their rights under the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in support of his "war", which most people seem willing, sheep-like, to do (such amazing stupidity! or is half the population on Prozac?). Attorney General John Ashcroft urged Congress to pass proposed "anti-terrorist" legislation without even considering what it stipulated. The legislation was hastily rushed through (the same day it was introduced) over the objections of civil rights advocates by a corrupt and compliant Congress in the second week of October 2001. This, the so-called Patriot Act, consisted of 342 pages, and those who voted for it could not possibly have read it.
The Patriot Act is a blatant denial of the Bill of Rights and as such is grossly unconstitutional and therefore illegal. According to this disgraceful legislation:
The FBI can now spy on your email, fax and telephone communications without even bothering to get a court order, and can demand access to your medical, employment, travel, library and bank and credit card records, simply on the grounds that you are a "suspected terrorist".
Police may obtain a warrant to search your home (if you live on U.S. territory) on the grounds that you are a "suspected terrorist" and they may then enter your home when you are away and search through your papers and copy your computer files, and they are not obliged to inform you for another 90 days (if then).
The Attorney General can strip any U.S. citizen of all his constitutional rights simply by declaring him or her to be a "suspected terrorist" or "enemy combatant"; no evidence is required and there is no appeal or recourse to a court of law.
A person so designated (whether or not a U.S. citizen), or a person who provides aid (even food or shelter) to such a person, may be imprisoned without trial indefinitely.
Ashcroft announced in August 2002 plans to open camps for the incarceration of "suspected terrorists". Anyone who opposes the policies of the U.S. government may now be designated a "suspected terrorist" and may be stripped of their constitutional rights and locked up indefinitely. Clearly Ashcroft is following the example of the Nazis who lost no time after coming to power in 1933 in establishing the Dachau concentration camp for the incarceration of anyone suspected of opposing the Nazi government.
The Patriot Act is such a blatant contradiction of the Bill of Rights that all senators who voted for it are unworthy of their office, since either they read it and understood it (in which case they are guilty of treason) or they did not (in which case they failed to fulfill their responsibility as elected representatives of the people).
Moreover, the Patriot Act was not drafted in response to the events of September 11th - it was drafted well before that date, and the events of September 11th were the excuse for its introduction.
U.S. government officials would have us believe that this 342-page, complexly nuanced document was allegedly crafted after September 11 in the time span of a little over a month. To accomplish this feat would have required the in-depth study [within a month] of fifteen other lengthy acts and statutes which it modifies and amends. - Doreen Miller: High Treason in the U.S. Government
The instigators and scripters of the "War on Terrorism", who place their trust in modern technology (and propaganda), believe themselves invincible in their drive to enslave everyone, American and non-American alike. But they overlook the fact that those Americans who have not prostituted themselves to the national security state and who, as true Americans, hold liberty among their highest values (and there are a lot of them) are unlikely to submit without a fight when they understand what is really going on.
11. The U.S.A: a Terrorist State
Many still believe that the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were the work of Arab terrorists who hate America. George W. Bush has even suggested in his usual idiotic fashion that they hate America because "America is free", "America is a democracy", etc. No. America used to be admired for these qualities. Where America is now hated it is because of its long-standing and intolerable interference and domination of other countries and its impoverishment of the people of those countries.
The initiators of the attacks decided to implement their plan after America has provoked immense hatred throughout the world. Not because of its might, but because of the way it uses its might. It is hated by the enemies of globalization, who blame it for the terrible gap between rich and poor in the world. It is hated by millions of Arabs, because of its support for the Israeli occupation and the suffering of the Palestinian people. It is hated by multitudes of Muslims, because of what looks like its support for the Jewish domination of the Islamic holy shrines in Jerusalem. And there are many more angry peoples who believe that America supports their tormentors.
Until September 11, 2001 ... Americans could entertain the illusion that all this concerns only others, in far-away places beyond the seas, that it does not touch their sheltered lives at home. No more.
- Uri Avnery: Twin Towers
Americans are largely unaware of the enormity of the crimes committed by their politicians. But in a representative democracy, such as allegedly exists in the U.S.A., can the people deny responsibility for the actions and policies of their government? How long can they allow their government, whose leaders they elect, to commit one atrocity after another and at the same time pretend that they themselves are innocent of any wrong-doing?
Like the Four Riders of the Apocalypse, the unknown kamikaze rode their giant crafts into the two visible symbols of American world domination, Wall Street and the Pentagon. ... They could be practically anybody: ... anybody who rejects the twin gods of the dollar and the M-16, who hates the stock market and interventions overseas, who dreams of America for Americans, who does not want to support the drive for world domination. ... Germans can remember the fiery holocaust of Dresden with its hundreds of thousands of peaceful refugees incinerated by the US Air Force. Japanese will not forget the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima. the Arab world still feels the creeping holocaust of Iraq and Palestine. Russians and East Europeans feel the shame of Belgrade avenged. ... Asians count their dead of Vietnam war, Cambodia bombings, Laos CIA operations in millions.
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