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You've asked people to name one civil right they have personally lost under the Bush administration... let me name a few:
1. The right to a private consultation with an attorney.
The Justice Department claims the right to now listen in on attorney-client conversations, in case the client is trying to pass along some information to help terrorists in an ongoing plot. How does a client have a right to an attorney, and what we have all come to expect to have as attorney-client privileged conversations, if the government can listen in.
Also, if the Supreme Court had not intervened, the Bush Administration would still be claiming that people it held as 'enemy combatants' had absolutely no right to due process or to speak with an attorney. Sandra Day O'Conner, in the sharpest rebuke, said that war was not a 'blank check.' Thank goodness, most of the time, for the Supreme Court!
2. The right of privacy is being infringed upon by the Bush Administration (a right which though not precisely mentioned in the Constitution the Supreme Court has found we do, in fact have, in certain cases).
Someone from the government can go to a FISA judge and ask for an order to take the records from a public library or bookstore, based soley on the claim that there is an ongoing investigation that involves national security. No specific person is named in these requests, yet everyone's library records can be taken. This applies also to bookstores and other businesses like Internet Service Providers. Though it will have to be tested in the Supreme Court, I believe that what I read in the library, the books I peruse in a bookstore, and even more importantly my medical records are private. Only upon an authorized WARRANT should the government be able to pry into those. And a warrant has always had to show just cause. Now, these orders from the FISA court allow the government to seize all records from an organization, like a doctor's office, simply in the name of national security. That is simply wrong and at the moment, until the courts hear the cases, my right to privacy has been abridged.
3. I believe that Americans have a right to travel, but the No Fly List has caused many people to be barred from getting on airplanes. Even Senator Ted Kennedy has been blocked from boarding planes because someone with a name similar to his is on the list. Though most people eventually get to fly on another flight (the same day or days later), some are stopped completely from flying because their names (or someone with a name close to theirs) is on this list. There is no Congressional oversight for how one gets on the list, no guidelines for how to get off the list, and many people are being at best inconvenienced and at worst deprived of their right to travel because of this list.
4. The right to know if someone has a warrant to search my property. The sneek and peak portion of the PATRIOT Act allows government to search my property and NEVER tell me that they've done so. Plus, the ability to get warrants for such a search from a FISA court is much easier than a regular court of law.
5. On another privacy note... though you might not agree that I have a right to privacy on what I read in a bookstore or library, the courts have certainly upheld the right of a person to have a private phone conversation, whether on a pay phone, cell phone, or home phone. To get a wiretap order against someone in the past, you had to go to a judge and get an order for a specific phone. Granted, today's technology makes it necessary to change the way wiretap orders are written. But the Bush administration and law enforcement now have the ability, through the PATRIOT Act, to get a 'roving wiretap' that follows a person around and any phone that person is NEAR, can be tapped. Granted again, if the order was to tap the phones and record conversations OF THAT PERSON, I would be comfortable with the rules. But the rules allow anyone's conversations to be tapped if that person is or was anywhere near that particular phone. This is an unacceptable invasion of privacy for anyone else who might use that phone, reasonably expecting his or her conversation to be private.
These are just a few of the rights that this administration has tried to abridge or suspend.
Here's the real question for you.......... Does the government have to do something that particularly effects YOUR LIFE, before you'll stand up and demand justice for others? If it has to directly impact your life before you stand up and shout, remember that by the time you get your lazy butt out of your chair to say something, you may find that you are all alone, and there's no one out there to help you or give a damn what you say.
Peace, Craig Wiesner - Reach And Teach Teaching about civil rights? Think inside this box: CIVIO
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