May. 13, 2003 - 22:13 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Muddy

Supposedly Afghanistan is under control, Iraq in dust with looters haggling over the spoils, Baath party it is claimed is washed out. All is well, safely rest, CIA, Justice and the Pentagon are nigh. Darn nigh I think.

Quoting Robyn Blumner of The St. Petersburg Times in The Rocky Mountain News May 13, -- "It all happened behind closed doors, as government mischief typically does. The Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress attempted to sneak through a provision in the intelligence authorization bill pending before Congress that would give The Central Intelligence Agency and the military the ability to investigate Americans!

"The amendment would allow the CIA and Pentagon to issue administrative subpoenas or national security letters to order businesses such as telephone and credit card companies and financial institutions to turn over their records on customers -- all without court approval."

In a Rocky Mountain News editorial this morning are a few things of interest. "The Senate's refusal to extend parts of the Patriot Act is an encouraging sign that Congress is having second thoughts about the hastily enacted anti-terrorism law and its still unknown implications for civil liberties. THE POLITICAL USE OF THE FEAR OF TERRORISM IS OCCURRING IN STATE GOVERNMENTS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND THE SENATE SEEMS TO UNDERSTAND THAT ITS GETTING OUT OF HAND (my caps). "A spokesman for House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner said making the Patriot Act permanent, "Will happen over his dead body." "Congress needs more of that kind of attitude because the Justice Department, despite earlier denials, is drawing up a sequel that contains such chilling features as the power to make secret arrests and revoke citizenship."

"Attorney General John Ashcroft has refused to answer basic questions about his department's use of that law. Rather than talking about extending the law, Congress should order up a thorough investigation of the Patriot Act in action. If satisfactory answers aren't forthcoming, when it comes to 2005, LET THE SUN SET. Wipe it from the books ! ! ! ! (caps still mine)

In the Rocky Mountain News of May 5th Nat Hentoff of the Newspaper Enterprise Association says, "No other national administration, in my more than 40 years of covering the state of the Constitution's health, has more persistently protected itself from scrutiny - and public oversight - than George W. Bush's executive branch and, particularly, his Justice Department. According to Mr Hentoff, "It was only after an understandably anonymous whistleblower in the Justice Department leaked the 86-page draft of John Ashcroft's proposed USA Patriot Act 2 to Charles Lewis of the Committee on Public Integrity that Congress - and the rest of the citizenry - learned about plans to: specifically authorize secret arrests for the first time in our history; collect and maintain DNA samples of anyone "suspected" of some kind of association with designated terrorist groups; and strip Americans of citizenship for "supporting" of such groups even if they had no idea of their 'terrorist' bent."

Mr. Hentoff goes on to talk about Mr. Ashcroft. He goes on to say, "On both sides of the congressional aisle, there is resentment of this secrecy in the imperious Justice Department. Despite this, Ashcroft is trying to further insulate himself. The Justice Department's Office of Legislative Affairs has, by order of the Attorney General, instructed all members of the Justice Department to inform that office 'ahead of time' and 'as soon as possible' before they participate in any briefings on Capitol Hill or engage in 'substantive conversations' with members of Congress or their staff on Capitol Hill.

Every Justice Department employee is to be tracked to make sure - said the directive -"that the Department speaks with one voice on Captol Hill." "Moreover," the memorandum adds, "in almost all cases . . . we will accompany you to briefings."

It seems to me that by using the threat of terrorism our government can, at will, terrorize any one of us at any time as it stands. It can determine what books we check out of the library and when we did it, check over the details of our credit card use -- and forbid those from whom the information is gathered from divulging it to anyone else - even the person involved, can imprison us secretly, can accuse us of being associated with a terrorist group (whether true or not) and revoke our citizenship at will.(Now where can an American (revoked) citizen go ?) Going back in legend a bit, "The man without a country," put himself in that condition -- but we can do it with a library card or a Visa card.

In my OPINION I wonder are we going into the situation that Pastor Neimuller once spoke about ?

Looks like we all know what is going on, but appear to be powerless to overcome the Bush Steam-Roller and force the sun to set on this situation we are in because of the paranoia of 9-11.

We appear to be approaching the marsh of terrified slavery because of the fostered fear of "terrorism" and its getting a bit Muddy . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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