|
[Return to Home] [Return to Reflection Room] Nothing Patriotic about the Patriot Act:
So why do we have the USA Patriot Act? It is a response to 9/11 wholly dominated by fear, a natural defense mechanism when struck by a traumatic event. Fear drives you to do a lot of things you wouldn't normally do. In excess, it locks the individual into a form of mental imprisonment, driving paranoia and anxiety to such levels that sane logical thought becomes difficult and labored. You start seeing conspiracies around every corner and any time something doesn't go your way, you want to blame someone. Rage's thirst for retaliation, justice, and the visceral desire to even the score is eventually spent, but the fear almost always remains. Anyone who has ever played the game "assassin" with the toy plastic disc guns knows of that kind of paranoia- a driving fear. I once knew one student in college who was so afraid of coming out of his dorm room because he was in an assassin game that he missed classes and didn't go to the dining halls for 3 weeks. He was finally brought back to his senses when he was ambushed by several other "assassins" and eliminated from the game during the one time per day that he had to go to the bathroom. Ironically the winners of these "assassin" games were often the fearless, those who didn't alter their routine at all and aggressively pursued the other competitors. In appropriately small doses, fear keeps us alive and on our toes. In large quantities it makes us unreasoning to the point of losing sight of reality. What are the far-reaching implications of the USA Patriot Act? Though not nearly as bad as its original incarnation, the USA Patriot Act gives sweeping new powers to domestic law enforcement and international intelligence agencies to conduct surveillance on American citizens. Wiretaps, search warrants, pen/rap orders, and subpoenas have all been expanded. Especially hard hit are any rights to privacy in online communications and activities. Anything you type in a Google search can be monitored. Wiretaps and electronic monitoring can be ordered in the case of anyone SUSPECTED of illegal activity- no hard evidence need exist. Just suspicion is all it takes for you to be monitored. What is interesting is that there is no evidence that most of the powers augmented by the USA Patriot Act were insufficient before 9/11 or would have contributed at all to preventing the attack on the World Trade Center had they been in place. In fact, in many cases, powers were expanded in areas with a lack of emphasis in its ability to prevent terrorism. What impact will this have on terrorism? In a very real sense, probably very little. The United States has always traditionally been a very difficult target to actually hit by international terrorists. Many in Europe have wondered for decades how it is that the United States hasn't yet been a victim of international terror. In the history of the countries of the world, removing liberties and freedoms have never worked in stopping the activities of terrorists. Countries like Great Britain have passed legislation that gives their military and police sweeping arrest powers without charge against even its own citizens in an attempt to stop terrorist activities by the IRA. But in truth, these powers not only failed to stop the attacks, but undermined the confidence the people had in their government. In the end, it was not greater police powers, but the international peace process between Great Britain, Ireland and the Sinn Fein that put a stop to the IRA attacks. The Patriot Act is no different than any other attempt in history to curtail freedoms in the name of security. It seeks to treat the symptoms of the problem by creating an illusion that somehow you are more in control now than you know before. But the main problem itself (Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda) remains unfixed. And like all drugs, there are side effects that affect the majority who are law abiding Americans. Many defenders of the Patriot Act have stated that if you don't have something to hide, you don't need to worry about it. The only problem is that assumes that enforcement personnel will always be people of outstanding moral and ethical character and incorruptible in virtue. People are not infallible because no one is perfect; they will all be subject to same weaknesses and frailties that affect the rest of us. By giving a segment of the population more power and rights to intrude on the rest of the population, an imbalance in the enforcement and implementation of law is created. It creates a class of elites that violates the very notion that all men are created equal and subject to the same laws under God. Under what instances should any man or woman should be given the right to do what the rest of us could be jailed or imprisoned for doing? By disabling the checks and balances that ensure laws apply equally to everyone, an atmosphere of inequity and imbalance is created that stirs images of Hitler's Brown Shirts in the early days of the Nazi party, and the Red Guard of China at the start of Mao's Cultural Revolution. Perhaps none stirred these images as strongly as the Patriot Act's previous incarnation where bounties were offerred for neighbors spying on neighbors and for the Post Office to go through your mail. But despite the reduction in magnitude, the elites who wield this power still monitor and carry out policy based solely on suspicion and by their actions can ruin and destroyed innocent lives based on suspicion alone. Applied broadly and not just to terrorism, it opens the door for the creation of a class of untouchables who can destroy personal enemies or manipulate individuals they don't like because they have the power to do so. Not even the statesmen who represent us are immune to the broad scope of these powers, and if used for political advantage, it undermines the very foundation of our democracy. Ideologically what the USA Patriot Act has begun is a process that erodes the founding principles of liberty and freedom upon which this country was built. By dismantling and weakening the fundamental rights of law-abiding Americans to privacy and equal rights, the USA Patriot Act begins the process of destroying the one thing the terrorists could not have done themselves- undermine the God-given rights of freedom and liberty- the very soul of what makes America different from any other country in the world. It underminds the idea that in America we are innocent until proven guilty. That in America, we have the right to free speech and free thought without government retaliation or scrutiny. That in America, we are evaluated by our merits as individuals and are free from discrimination, harassment, or persecution by creed, color, or religion. That in America, it is tolerance and acceptance of our differences that make us uniquely American. And that in America we have a right to privacy in our own homes not to be spied upon by anyone especially the government we trust to safeguard and defend our freedoms should they be threatened by forces foreign and domestic. It is the fundamental aspect of freedom and liberty in America that makes people who live in intolerant oppressive regimes envious of us. But that we should, by an act of pure malice, be forced to surrender our identity as a free people is unthinkable. That our leaders, overcome by the anxiety and panic from fear, should uphold this desecration of our national identity and heritage is unconscionable. And that we, as Americans, would sit back and accept this loss of our identity and inalienable rights to freedom and liberty is unforgivable. The very notion of undermining the founding pillars of our democracy and liberty is by its nature unpatriotic. It is a capitulation of our ideals by a blind reactionary desire to feel safe without looking to see where the threat truly is. The curtailing of freedoms and basic rights in the name of security whittles away at the very heart of liberty. By dismantling liberty, we do to the very soul of this country what those who wish us harm could never have done. We risk the very existence of our identity as a people. By undermining the ideological foundation by our Founding Fathers, we put into motion a series of events that permanently alters what it means to be an American. It is a world that allows suspicion without proof to guide our every perception, opening the doors to discrimination, harassment, and unfair scrutiny. It directly penalizes those groups who fit cultural profiles and stereotypes, leaving them with fewer rights than those who do not. It is a world where how things seem or look becomes more important than how they actually are. And if this is the world we are entering then the terrorists already have the advantage. They've already shown us that by entering the country legally on a visa, by not attracting the attention of the police, and by blending in with normal Americans by wearing fashionable clothes, they can pull something off. However, upon closer inspection we find that had the immigration laws and rules been enforced, our intelligence agencies paid attention to warnings, and proper security measures enforced at our nation's airports and procedures followed at our nation's airlines, a lot of things might not have happened. No one I have spoken to who has ever flown out of Logan Airport here in Boston was at all surprised that security lapses were present. In fact, nearly two months before 9/11/01, Fox TV in Boston did an expose on the security lapses and how easy it was for normal people to bypass that security. Now that the TSA has taken over, things are not what they were then. But unless all passengers are stripped naked and flown in individually in locked sleeping chambers, there will never be a flight completely free of terrorist risk. I say to our leaders that as an American and a patriot, to please defend not only the word of the constitution of the United States, but also its spirit. Please preserve our freedoms, rights, and identity as Americans. Since 9/11 I have made a conscious choice not to live in fear of those who are envious of us or would seek to do us harm. But scarcely did I think that we would undermine ourselves. We must not give into our fear if we are to come out of this intact as a free people. I urge our leaders to pass no law that would compromise the integrity of the freedoms and rights that exemplify our identity as Americans for the illusion of security. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't have law enforcement agencies work more closely together or that there aren't other measures that shouldn't be taken to increase security at our nation's airports and infrastructure points. What this does mean is based on the changes that were made by the USA Patriot Act, I do not believe that any erosion of our rights as citizens would somehow make us more secure than we were before, particularly since many of the changes do not affect the areas that have anything to do with preventing international terrorism. This is compounded by historical evidence in the policies of other nations that increasing the powers of the police to spy on its own citizens or pre-emptively arresting and detaining them without charge does not decrease the risk of terrorist acts. In fact it has been shown that the terrorist acts go on anyway, and it's the law-abiding citizens who suffer and end up losing faith in their government. This final point is an important one, because there is a perception and belief by many Americans lately that the conduct of law enforcement has been particularly discriminatory towards individuals of Middle Eastern descent, people who look like they may be of Middle Eastern descent, or people who follow the Muslim faith. It is a clear symptom of inequity directly brought about by laws like the Patriot Act, which says to our citizens that our government trusts certain citizens less than others. And clearly by its actions it is saying that somehow people in these three groups somehow have less rights than the rest of us and those in the position of monitoring them have more rights than the average law-abiding citizen. As an American, I feel that it is absolutely unconscionable to view any person of different cultural, religious, or ethnic affiliation with any more or less suspicion based on the actions of a few. Those few weren't even citizens and were here to commit acts of barbarism. Every person has a right to dignity and has their own story, viewpoint, and beliefs that they are free to express in this country. It is a fundamental freedom and right in this country to express your viewpoint free of persecution or scrutiny. Clearly unless we have spent time with our friends and neighbors to try to understand the world through their eyes, we truly do not know who most of the people around us who call themselves Americans are. We may not all agree on the politics, the details, or the way things should be done, but when it comes to the idea of our rights and freedoms as citizens we do agree on them in principle and cherish them. As liberties are weakened in the name of security, we are weakened both towards each other and towards those we feel should be protecting us. We begin to turn into a world where people feel that they no longer have the right to free speech for fear that they will be scrutinized or harassed by the very government that should be protecting them. In a world where people are ruled by brutal oppression, tyranny, and cruelty, our rights and freedoms are the only things that truly bind us together and make us stand out in the rest of the world. We are a unique people among nations joined by individuals from different cultures, ethnic backgrounds, and religions. It is what the Founding Fathers of this great nation stood and died for. Thomas Jefferson wrote that liberty is unobstructed action based on our will, but that RIGHTFUL liberty is unobstructed action based on our will WITHIN the limits drawn by the EQUAL rights of others. The law, he writes, "is often the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual." |