Protect Your Civil Liberties


Concern over the erosion of the protection of rights, both enumerated and tacit in the Constitution, is bipartisan. People on both sides of the American political spectrum are waging campaigns to stop the erosion of the protection of rights and restore protections that have been circumvented or removed.

They are both also working toward a restoration of the balance of power in American government by actively seeking to support efforts to curtail the assumption of power by the executive branch (the office of the President).

From the Republican Party:
http://www.americanfreedomagenda.org/

From the Democratic Party:
http://www.americanfreedomcampaign.org/

This is fundamentally important stuff. The Defense dept, the State dept, the FBI, and the CIA (among many others) have the power to conduct surveillance, detain without grounds, and use enhanced interrogation techniques on people in the United States without oversight from either Congress or the courts. This means none of us is actually safe from our own government because members of the executive branch have the ability to simply label individuals as "unlawful enemy combatants" in order to justify the violation of individual civil liberties.

The oath of office in all Constitutionally created offices states, "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all invaders, foreign or domestic." It does not mention protecting the American people. Why not? Because the ideals contained in the Constitution are more important than the people they serve. Countless soldiers in every war the United States has engaged have died for those ideals. Our Constitutional ideals are both our greatest weapon against terrorism and what separate us from dictators, fascists, communists, and terrorists. That the executive branch violates that oath in the name of protecting the people makes the violation of civil liberties that much worse.

The effort to protect us, the American people, by using these tactics of surveillance, detention, and enhanced interrogation (code for torture) is in reality counter productive in a "war on terror." These tactics create a timid and frightened populace who does not believe in its own government; they belie the very foundation of our nation, and they serve terrorist ends by allowing them to point out the inherent hypocrisy evident in gulf between our national ideals and our government's actions.

Have a look at one of the web sites listed above. Write your Conressional representatives through their websites (http://www.house.gov and http://www.senate.gov/). Pay attention, and if possible, get active.

Daniel

Posted: Fri - October 19, 2007 at 02:10 PM          

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