Editor,
President Bush tells us there is no democracy in Iraq. It is ruled by a government with little regard for civil liberties. Dissidents are watched, harassed and arrested without warrants or trials. Their privacy can be violated at any moment, their homes can be secretly searched, their phone conversations and correspondences monitored by the police. The wrong word could land them in jail, or worse - all in the name of "state security."
Yet the same U.S. administration that seeks to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein is simultaneously staging an unprecedented attack on the civil liberties of its own people. The last assault was the so-called Patriot Act, introduced by the Bush administration over a year ago and passed by a Congress still stunned and confused by the events of Sept. 11. It overrides the Bill of Rights by allowing secret searches of homes as well as phone and e-mail surveillance of individuals without obtaining warrants or establishing probable cause. It violates the rights of both citizens and non-citizens to a fair public trial if government agents suspect they have links to a terrorist organization.
The second assault on our Constitution, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, has not been launched yet, but was leaked to the press in February. One of the provisions of this act would grant powers to the State Department to deprive Americans of their citizenship - ultimately, so that they could be prosecuted without those normal, pesky rights of U.S. citizenship. They could then be imprisoned without a public trial, or even deported to an arbitrary country.
The "love it or leave" crowd will undoubtedly "love" this new legislation. But Americans who love their country precisely for its great principles of democracy and civil liberties will be appalled. They understand that the purpose of the Bill of Rights is not to protect criminals or terrorists, but to protect the rights of all Americans to express their objections to government policy without being treated like criminals. This, after all, is what distinguishes a democracy from a fascist state.
Already 63 cities in the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, have passed resolutions that oppose the Patriot Act. Santa Fe has passed such a resolution and one was overwhelmingly passed in the State House of Representatives before being tabled in the Senate.
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There is presently a grassroots movement in Albuquerque to get the City Council to pass a similar measure.
Please join this battle for the most basic of American civil liberties - our rights to privacy, to descent and to fair trials - by letting our city council men and women know that you support the Bill of Rights.
Charles Gasparovic
UNM staff
