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[ThatHawaiiGuy]

Real patriots defend liberty

Waving the bloody shirt in a shameful exploitation of 9/11, President Bush proposes additions to the "Patriot Act" to do away with the grand jury, suspend the right of habeas corpus and threaten with the death penalty anyone a prosecutor accuses of being a "terrorist." The current version of the Patriot Act is dangerous enough and Congress should oppose any efforts to further threaten our liberties.

The president even presumed to rename September 11 "Patriots' Day." Here in the Cradle of Liberty, we celebrate Patriots' Day in April with a marathon through the streets of Boston to honor the brave men who defied the power of King George III and won us those rights Mr. Bush now wants to take away. Attorney General John Ashcroft had the effrontery to come to Boston and defile the sacred precincts of Faneuil Hall with a speech defending the Patriot Act as "rooted in the Constitution and the liberties protected in that great document."

We read the Patriot Act and the proposed enhancements to it as violations of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution. This is the part of "that great document" known as the Bill of Rights, and it guarantees security against unreasonable searches and seizures, indictment by a grand jury (except in time of war), the right to a speedy and public trial by jury with counsel for the defense and protection from excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishments. Today, unnamed people languish in unidentified locations on unknown charges brought by prosecutors as unfettered by these constitutional restraints as were the redcoats and the ministers of King George. It is hard to see, as we watch the video of Osama bin Laden walking in mountain meadows, how these measures have made us any safer.

Even conservative Republicans in Congress like E. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin see the USA Patriot Act for the threat to our liberties that it is. Many are seeking the repeal of this legislation that they, including, to their shame, Massachusetts' two senators and five of its representatives (but not our district's John Olver) voted for in the hysterical days just after September 11, 2001. This newspaper supports the efforts to repeal the Patriot Act and opposes any suggestion that it be expanded. It urges the executive branch and federal law enforcement officials to respect the rights of all those arrested in the legitimate conduct of domestic terrorism investigations, lest we stoop to the ways the enemies of freedom run their courts and so become what it is we hate.

Let us remember exactly what it is we are defending in our war against terrorists. Like it says on the famous portrait in Faneuil Hall that shows Daniel Webster defending the Union against the machinations of the slave power: "Liberty and Union. Now and forever. One and inseparable."


http://www.berkshireeagle.com/Stories/0%2C1413%2C101~6267~1626789%2C00.html