Wednesday, March 01, 2006
"Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead." Sen. Jim Bunning, R-KY
Dear Senator Bunning,
You are widely quoted, having said, in support of certain controversial provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act, that "Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead."
I offer a corollary to your hyperbolic statement:
Being alive doesn't mean much when you live under an authoritarian dictatorship. Life doesn't mean much when the secret police can listen to your phone, read your mail, and audit your library records. Being alive doesn't mean much when the secret police can apprehend you without warrant, probable cause, criminal charges or legal counsel, - indefinitely - while denying you all of the due process that our Constitution guarantees to everyone.
As a US Senator, you are sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution, even if many citizens are sufficiently naïve that they would waive their Constitutional rights out of government-inspired fear. Your support for laws and policies that would nullify the Bill of Rights belies your Oath of Office, and it undermines the rights of all Americans.
In applying PATRIOT Act, the president's warrantless-wiretap, and other off-the-record domestic spying programs, the criteria that may justify governmental waiver of a citizen's Fourth Amendment protections are nebulous, if they are defined at all.
Certain over-reaching provisions of the PATRIOT Act, as well as the president's no-warrant wiretap activities, the torture and humiliation of prisoners, and the existence of secret, offshore gulags are a black eye on America, and no one who loves the United States of America should lend countenance to such conduct.
I see no reason why the government cannot do its job and still play by the rules that have served us so well for nearly 220 years. If we must surrender our civil liberties to protect our national security, then I believe that the terrorists have already won.
Sincerely,
[jj]
