John Ashcroft and the Bush Administration want to erode the civil rights and freedoms that are vital to the American ideal. They are advocating laws that break down the trust between communities, and using fear and inflammatory rhetoric to divide us.
On August 19th, John Ashcroft begins a national tour promoting an extension of the USA PATRIOT Act. We need your help to make a strong statement to stop John Ashcroft from doing more damage to the bill of rights.
As Americans, we have a long standing tradition of defending not only our own liberties and civil rights, but also standing up for equal rights for all.
Show America the depth of our commitment to basic civil rights: add your name to the Stop Ashcroft petition, and pass it on to your friends, family, and co-workers. We will deliver your names and your comments to the Attorney General.
To John Ashcroft:Stop compromising our freedoms. Stop eroding our basic civil rights. Stop trying to teach our neighbors to spy on each other, and American communities to mistrust each other.
I will not stand for your using fear to threaten what it means to be an American.
The rule of law and due process are at the heart of the American tradition. There is no contradiction between protecting the country from terrorism and ensuring the protection of our basic civil liberties every step of the way.
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=stopashcroft&JServSessionIdr002=egzno4osu1.app193a“Fighting terrorism does not mean compromising our freedoms”As President, I will devote myself to protecting Americans from terrorism. I will improve the preparedness of our first responders; dedicate more resources to defending seaports, airports, and land borders; take significant steps to improve industry and infrastructure security, especially hazardous sites like chemical plants; and improve our intelligence gathering and sharing capabilities. I will work to shore up relationships damaged by this Administration’s arrogant foreign policy, because collaboration and intelligence sharing with other nations is critical to preventing terror attacks. I will also focus attention on the root causes of terror abroad.
But as we fight the war on terror, we must be vigilant in protecting civil rights and liberties. The rule of law and due process must continue to be the hallmarks of our judicial system. There is no contradiction between protecting the country from terrorism and ensuring the protection of our basic civil liberties every step of the way.
This Administration has unnecessarily compromised our freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism. President Bush and Attorney General Ashcroft have adopted a series of anti-terror tactics that erode the rights of average Americans and cannot be justified on national security grounds. Reports of the Department of Justice Inspector General and numerous watchdog groups document a troubling pattern of hostility to civil rights and liberties since September 11.
Sometimes public outcry has thwarted these tactics, such as when the Justice Department proposed a program to reward Americans for spying on their neighbors. But dissent has been stifled by an Attorney General who told Congress that opposition to his policies give “ammunition to America’s enemies” and by an Administration that goes to great lengths to avoid the scrutiny of Congress and the public.
While the Administration’s overzealousness diminishes the rights of all Americans, it has taken its greatest toll on communities whose cooperation we need in the fight against terror. Policies that single out immigrants for special registration procedures and coercive interviews amount to ethnic and religious profiling. These tactics antagonize minority communities without enhancing security. The detention of thousands in secretive federal custody for weeks and months, sometimes without formal charges, is also unacceptable. And recently the Justice Department’s Inspector General identified credible allegations that detainees have suffered physical abuse in custody.
Other anti-terror tactics are similarly offensive. There is no justification for the Bureau of Prisons to monitor communications between prisoners and their lawyers without a court order, a policy that undermines the attorney-client privilege. The FBI should not be authorized to spy on religious and political organizations and individuals without evidence of wrongdoing. Military tribunals that fail to protect the basic rights of the accused lessen our moral credibility in the eyes of the world. And labeling American citizens as “enemy combatants” to hold them indefinitely in military custody without access to counsel and the courts offends everything our nation stands for.
I am also deeply troubled by some provisions in the USA Patriot Act, which was enacted in the wake of 9/11 without meaningful debate. The Act gives overly broad investigative and surveillance powers to the government and strips federal courts of their traditional authority to curb abuses of power by the executive branch. Many of the Act’s provisions have little or nothing to do with combating terrorism; in fact some had been previously rejected by Congress. But the Ashcroft Justice Department took advantage of the climate of fear following the attacks to make fundamental changes in law enforcement procedures. I am concerned that this Act:
- allows law enforcement agents to obtain information about an individual from a library, bookstore, bank, telephone company, credit card company, hotel, hospital or university without individualized suspicion and without meaningful judicial review;
- expands the use of “sneak and peak” searches, even in non-terror cases;
- allows the police to collect information about an individual’s internet use without a showing of probable cause;
- allows the government to conduct wiretaps in criminal cases using the looser rules intended for intelligence investigations;
- authorizes the Attorney General to detain immigrants based on a mere certification that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" the immigrant endangers national security.
Now the Attorney General is seeking to supplement the Patriot Act with Patriot Act II, included in the Administration’s so-called “Victory Act” proposal. Rather than expanding the Patriot Act, we should reconsider the wisdom of the original bill.
The September 11 terrorists sought to disrupt the American way of life, including our constitutional freedoms. They must not succeed. As President, I will lead the war on terror in a way that protects civil rights and civil liberties while protecting our safety. I will ensure that the United States is not merely a military or economic leader in world affairs, but a moral leader as well.
http://www.deanforamerica.com/site/PageServer?pagename=policy_statement_civilrights_patriotact
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