Sunday, June 5, 2011

Not Quite Patriot Heroes

In today's Spokesman Review, we have an article about Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado giving us a "head's up" about the government's loose interpretation of the Patriot Act to the detriment of our civil liberties. Some excerpts:

“Today the American people do not know how their government interprets the language of the Patriot Act,” Wyden said. “Someday they are going to find out, and a lot of them are going to be stunned. Some of them will undoubtedly ask their senators: ‘Did you know what this law actually did? Why didn’t you know? Wasn’t it your job to know, before you voted on it?’ ”
...
But in a statement before the vote, Udall said the law allows the government to “place wide-ranging wiretaps on Americans without even identifying the target or location of such surveillance; target individuals who have no connection to terrorist organizations, and collect business records on law-abiding Americans, without any connection to terrorism.”


I have a question for the senators.

If the American people are going to be so stunned and outraged at our government's behavior, if this is such an egregious assault on our civil liberties, if this is so serious and the ideal that is America is such a driving force for you, then why don't you tell us?

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