June 30, 2005
USAPA Radio Ad ::
politics, legal — tagged civil rights, legal, politics and USAPA
11:06 am
So I was sitting here, and I just heard a radio ad from these people, who are actively opposing further expansion or extension of the USA PATRIOT ACT. At first blush, they seem to be a diverse group of people from quite different political backgrounds, who share a common interest in civil liberties and limiting governmental intrusion on their lives.
I haven’t talked much about the PATRIOT ACT on these pages, mostly because I don’t think it diminished our protections all that dramatically compared to what they were pre-USAPA. Rather, protracted War on Drugs, combined with an judiciary that has often been quite unsympathetic to the civil rights of suspected criminals did an effective job of undermining many of our constitutional and civil rights protections long before that bill was passed. And unfortunately, those rights were limited in semi-secret, over many years, with very few people noticing or attempting to fight back.
So I have a hard time understanding everyone’s exasperation. But I’ve also taken Constitutional Criminal Procedure, so I’ve seen the slow attrition of civil rights, albeit only in the classroom, through a long string of Supreme Court cases decided since the early 1970’s. But one thing I will say about the Checks and Balances people, as well as people like my Congressman, is that their efforts to curb the effects of the USAPA are opening a new dialog on how much we all value those consitutional protections. Indeed, this is a discussion we should have been having long ago.
Update: From Patriots for Checks and Balances website:
Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) is a network of individuals and organizations—conservatives and progressives—that believes the threat of terrorism cannot be allowed to dissolve or erode the carefully constructed structural foundations for preserving our liberty, enshrined forever in the Constitution.
