- How Can We Justify This?
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- Let us pray that our nation will remember that the
unfolding
of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil
rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act.
We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional
justice?
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- How can we justify in effect canceling the First
Amendment
and the right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?
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- How can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth
Amendment,
probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and
seizure?
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- How can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth
Amendment,
nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration without
a trial?
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- How can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth
Amendment,
the right to prompt and public trial?
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- How can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth
Amendment
which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?
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- We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet
surveillance
without judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify secret
searches without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the Attorney general
the ability to designate domestic terror groups. We cannot justify giving
the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system
anywhere such as medical records and financial records.
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- We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target
people in this country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify
a government which takes from the people our right to privacy and then
assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy. The Attorney
General
recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to
underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself at this time,
before this administration.
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- Let us pray that our nation's leaders will not be
overcome
with fear. Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol. And
this must be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of
congress
in the current environment. The great fear began when we had to evacuate
the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol
again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during
a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington when anthrax,
possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail. It continued when
the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then the
Administration
brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House. It
continued
in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the same time the President was
announcing the withdrawal from the ABM treaty. It remains present in the
cordoning off of the Capitol. It is present in the camouflaged armed
national
guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol
campus.
It is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must
pass each time we go to vote. The trappings of a state of siege trap us
in a state of fear, ill equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind
Games, the War Games of an unelected President and his unelected Vice
President.
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- Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To
promote the common defense" is one of the formational principles of
America. Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the
tragedy of September the Eleventh. We licensed a response to those who
helped bring the terror of September the Eleventh. But we the people and
our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response,
to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the
response.
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- Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.
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- We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.
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- We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.
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- We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in
Afghanistan.
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- We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo
Bay.
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- We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva
Convention.
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- We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due
process and habeas corpus.
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- We did not authorize assassination squads.
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- We did not authorize the resurrection of
COINTELPRO.
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- We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of
Rights.
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- We did not authorize the revocation of the
constitution.
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- We did not authorize national identity cards.
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- We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from
cameras throughout our cities.
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- We did not authorize an eye for an eye.
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- Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who
perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers
in Afghanistan.
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- We did not authorize the administration to wage war
anytime,
anywhere, anyhow it pleases.
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- We did not authorize war without end.
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- We did not authorize a permanent war economy.
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- Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy.
The President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending.
All defense-related programs will cost close to $400 billion. Consider
that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit.
Consider
that the Inspector General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot
properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in recent
years the Dept. of Defense could not match $22 billion worth of
expenditures
to the items it purchased, wrote off, as lost, billions of dollars worth
of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts
it did not need.
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- Yet the defense budget grows with more money for weapons
systems to fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new
enemies to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror.
This has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with
the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking
democracy
itself with the militarization of thought which follows the militarization
of the budget.
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- United States Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
(D-Ohio)
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- Email responses to Dkucinich@aol.com
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