Patriot Act Up for Renewal - Time to do Away With It

From the 1798 Alien and Sedition Act to Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and other civil liberties to Jim Crow laws to Wilsonian prosecutions of antiwar citizens during World War I, our federal and state governments have a long, if less than honorable history of infringing  (when not  riding roughshod over) the rights of Americans. Usually this occurs in a time of some panic or crisis (real or perceived), and it almost always turns out to be excessive, fading away quickly as cooler emotions prevail.  (Some cases, like the Jim Crow laws, take decades to overcome.)

Our current version is the Patriot Act, which was excessive from the start in its allowance for government agencies to override the rights and of citizens in the name of protecting them from foreign terrorists.  (Of course, we can’t be trusted to carry weapons to defend OURSELVES from such terrorists in the rare cases where we might encounter them but we must trust government agents to go through our personal information and communications (including financial), and even physically search us and our belongings to keep us safe as citizens.)  To me this is to devalue the nature of citizenship.

I ‘m told that the Patriot Act comes up for renewal and/or extension over Memorial Day.  I can hardly imagine a more appropriate holiday for doing away with this un-American act as a step toward returning us to the freedom, independence, and self-reliance that have defined us as Americans since the country’s founding.

Sincerely,

Dr. Richard J. Davis

(Dr. Davis was the Maryland Libertarian Party's