Defending the Bill of Rights

The Bush administration poses a huge threat to the civil liberties supposedly guaranteed by the US Constitution.  In October 2001, the USA Patriot Act passed by a pressured and short-sighted majority of Republicans and Democrats in Congress, just six weeks after Sept. 11, greatly expanding the power of the FBI and limiting the right of habeas corpus.  Several Executive Orders of the Bush administration quickly followed, further eroding our rights in the name of “national security.”  And the Justice Department was secretly working on the downright totalitarian Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (Patriot Act II) when a draft of this document was brought to light this February. 

These acts, enacted and proposed, reveal a federal strategy which asks us to sacrifice liberty for the sake of security.  But, as Benjamin Franklin said, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”  The Monroe County Green Party therefore supports dissent in the face of the above-mentioned federal government incursions.  We must speak out about infringement of our rights before it is too late.

Please see the following links for more information.

The Bill of Rights Defense Committee                        www.bordc.org

The Center for Public Integrity                                    www.publicintegrity.org

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press   www.rcfp.org/homefrontconfidential

Nat Hentoff interview on NOW with Bill Moyers            http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hentoff.html

The Center for Constitutional Rights – Report on the USA Patriot Act

http://www.ccr-ny.org/v2/reports/report.asp?ObjID=BdSKj6pXDC&Content=159

What you can do

There is a local Bill of Rights Defense Committee in Bloomington.  We welcome you to join our e-mail list via the web at http://groups.yahoo.com/.  The name of the group is BORBloom.  Or you may e-mail Steps to Freedom (steps2@bloomington.in.us) to obtain more information.  We have already been very successful in bringing the urgency of Bill of Rights defense to the forefront of community discourse in Bloomington by holding a public forum in April 2003 and working to get the City Council to pass a resolution defending the Bill of Rights in June 2003.