Kakki wrote: Can someone point to a source that will explain what civil liberties of mine
> have been recently curtailed (other than extra security measures at the > airport). http://www.ccr-ny.org/whatsnew/usa_patriot_act.asp http://www.aclu.org/congress/l110101a.html A good place to start is to look into the 342-page USA Patriot Act. While you could argue that the Act, signed by Bush, was passed by the House and Senate, they did so under pressure from the President and his administration. The Act transfers broad powers away from the legislative to the executive branch of government. It gives law enforcement broad new powers to spy on citizens, conduct secret searches of our homes, tap phones, and intercept email based on any vague pretext of national security they may choose to come up with. Typing a certain phrase into a search engine could be reason enough to collect information on you. A new category of "domestic terrorism" is so loosely defined that a group like Greenpeace, blockading a harbor for instance, could qualify as terrorists and be subjected to severe penalties. If you happen to be an alien: and you ever gave money to a group that becomes identified as terrorist, you are automatically a terrorist. Of course hundreds or thousands of foreigners have been detained, imprisoned, held without charges since Sept. 11. Their families have been dumbfounded by the stonewalling of the administration. Bush has instigated the use of military tribunals which can arrest, try without choice of counsel, convict and even put to death any non-citizen accused of being a terrorist, ALL IN SECRET. The Bush administration has intimated that it may have to resort to methods of torture on certain suspected Al-Queda members it has in custody. http://www.civil-rights.net/webdocs/torture.html ["The recent words of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who so often figures as the swing vote on pivotal decisions, do not hold out hope for a vigorous defense of our political freedoms by the judiciary. Following a visit to Ground Zero, where the World Trade Centers once stood, the Justice bleakly predicted, "We're likely to experience more restrictions on personal freedom than has ever been the case in this country.""] The struggle for civil freedoms is nothing new. Clinton vastly expanded wiretapping, among other things. Martin Luther King and the Suffragettes were demonized and harrased. More recently, LA cops shot rubber bullets and attacked with clubs protesters at the Democratic convention last year, and arbitrarily arrested and detained 600 people, some just passersby. The Republican convention in Philidelphia was more of the same. Our liberties are at great risk, the terrorism thing is a Trojan Horse for a power-mad aristocracy, and we are no safer for all this than we were Sept. 10, when terrorists waltzed right in. Maybe the FBI etc had better things to do. Sidebar: I recently heard that the government jettisoned a proposal (pre Sept 11) to install inpenetrable doors on commercial jets because it didn't want a "regulated airline industry". Sidebar 2: The new structure of military spending under Bush is costing 1 billion dollars a day. While his tax plan gives billions in relief to the corporados. Other info on the erosion of our civil rights can be found at The Partnership For Civil Justice website, a group founded by civil rights attorneys. http://www.civil-rights.net/ > Also, what has recently happened to curtail reproductive choice? > Bush Replaces Medical Associations with Pro-Life Orgs as Delegates to World Health Assembly http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=5523 Bush has long been supported by the Christian right, who, of course, oppose abortion. Some members of Bush's inner circle have publicly stated their opposition to abortion, even in the case of rape victims. Sorry I can't give you names, maybe someone remembers that well publicized story. I believe the only thing keeping all this in check is that Bush recognizes his chances for re-election would be shot if he went too far on abortion. If men could get pregnant, abortions would be free and paid for by the government. And sanctified by religious groups. God's will or something like that. RR
