Maybe some people don't give a damn that the First Amendment is being wiped away piece by piece in any number of ways during the "war on terror." War is good for many things, like the economy, nationalism, patriotism and the undertaker. It's also a good cover for the powers that be to get away with the erosion of civil liberties that they've been so thirsty for. With war, the government gets what it wants.
Schoolchildren should undergo some kind of training in civil liberties. What exactly does the First Amendment say? What is Due Process under the Constitution? And the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable police searches and seizures: what can I say to the police when the ask me questions on the street? Is it legal to criticize the government in times of war? Few people know the answers to these questions, mostly lawyers. What is sad is that our rights fade away slowly and many of our countrymen are not even aware of it, if they even knew we had these rights to begin with.
The Patriot Act gives the government power to do things that it could not do before. This law was enacted right after September 11, when the President could have gotten Congress to vote that a ham sandwich is actually a fish tank. The Patriot Act is loaded with highly significant measures governing the detection of terrorists as well as rules making easier for the government monitor political activity. All of this passed with no debate.
It comes as no surprise that this power to monitor political activity has been repeatedly abused by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. I wrote a few days ago about front page revelations in the New York Times that the New York Police Department -- the same entity that everyone loves in the aftermath of September 11 -- embarked on a nationwide effort to monitor political organizations that wanted to protest the Republican National Convention in 2004, held in New York City, where President Bush and other Republican warmongers and fearmongers could drive home their message of fear and loathing before a national audience. The NYPD, according to records obtained by the ACLU and the Times, wasn't just monitoring and infiltrating potentially disruptive organizations but peaceful organizations that never had any intent to disrupt anything. This monitoring is as un-American as burning the flag, except that it's 100 times worse.
That story on the front page of the Times a few days ago has now receded into the woodwork along with the other cockroaches of the Bush administration. There are just too many scandals to keep track of anymore. In some ways, that's good. Throwing light on the Bush administration from every angle can only hasten the demise of the shameless and deplorable administration that has bungled and lied and killed and squandered for six years. But it's actually quite bad that a First Amendment scandal is being ignored. That's because, for many Americans, scandal means sex, not the violation and trampling of our civil liberties, the very liberties that separate us from North Korea. I would bet if you Google "First Amendment scandal" nothing would come up. But Googling "sex scandal" would overload the computer.
The latest First Amendment scandal was reported in the Washington Post. This story, too, is being swept under the carpet. Under the headline, "FBI Provided Inaccurate Data for Surveillance Warrants," the Post on March 27 reported that "FBI agents repeatedly provided inaccurate information to win secret court approval of surveillance warrants in terrorism and espionage cases, prompting officials to tighten controls on the way the bureau uses that powerful anti-terrorism tool, according to Justice Department and FBI officials."
The story goes on to say that "The errors were pervasive enough that the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, wrote the Justice Department in December 2005 to complain. She raised the possibility of requiring counterterrorism agents to swear in her courtroom that the information they were providing was accurate, a procedure that could have slowed such investigations drastically."
Astute news watchers know that this story rings a bell. It should. According to the Washington Post, "The department's acknowledgment of the problems with the FISA court applications comes nearly two weeks after a blistering inspector general's report revealed widespread violations of the use of "national security" and "exigent circumstances" letters, which allow FBI agents to collect phone, e-mail and Internet records from telecommunications companies without review by a judge. The problems included failing to document relevant evidence, claiming emergencies that did not exist and failing to show that phone records requests were connected to authorized investigations."
So there you have it. Repeated violations of the freedom of association and freedom of speech. Without these freedoms, we ain't got nothing, brother. Where is the outrage?
