IP: THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DISSENT AND TREASON

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2001 15:46:09 -0800
> From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ultradevices com>
> To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>,
>    Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Subject: THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DISSENT AND TREASON
>
>
> Sources:  New York Post
> http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ucrr/20011208/cm/there_is_a_difference_between_dissent_and_treason_1.html
>
> THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DISSENT AND TREASON
> Saturday December 08 07:05 PM EST
> By Richard Reeves
>
> WASHINGTON -- So, the attorney general of the United States tells me:
> "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty,
> my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists."
>
> Well, screw you, buddy! What are you trying to say? Are you saying
> that anyone who talks about civil rights, civil liberties and the
> freedom that makes us Americans is a traitor in this undeclared but
> loudly proclaimed war?
>
> I have messages for you, Mr. Attorney General John Ashcroft, former
> governor, former senator and all-round political perpetual: (1) I am
> no traitor, and neither is anyone else who questions sweeping
> expansion of government power to search people's homes and minds; (2)
> if someone or something has to be blamed and castigated for the
> breakdown in American security analysis that occurred so horrifically
> on Sept. 11, we should start with the foul-ups of the government
> itself in allowing terrorist networks to develop almost openly over
> the past 10 years.
>
> Start by searching you own record, sir. Take a hard look at what the
> FBI and the CIA have been doing instead of setting them on ordinary
> citizens with new powers to tap, bug, search, seize, detain and
> arrest. The people supposed to be watching over us have responded to
> their own failures in watching our enemies by saying that now they
> need more power to watch us.
>
> That said, Ashcroft impresses me as a small man, who does indeed seem
> to see the very real terrorism crisis as an opportunity to push a law
> enforcement agenda not unlike the one heralded as the salvation of the
> country in the bad old days of "The Russians are coming! The Russians
> are coming!" His obvious determination to regulate almost everything
> in the country, with the notable exception of any checks on unlimited
> gun ownership by either citizens or aliens, seems somehow detached
> from the real threat of foreign-sponsored terrorism. His blaming the
> naivete of the citizenry about terrorism is outrageous. Americans know
> what is happening, and they certainly seem willing and eager to do
> something about it, including the use of our military wherever in the
> world bad guys assemble and plan.
>
> The libertarian monthly Reason is one of the few publications that
> have the guts right now to criticize the repression impulse that has
> coursed through the country since Sept. 11. The publication has
> gathered men and women of both the right and left who understand, or
> are willing to say, that the terrorism was not caused in some bizarre
> fashion by constitutional guarantees of individual liberty and free
> speech.
>
> "Federal agents still need to make the case that the expanded powers
> for which they are asking are necessary," the journal quoted Jerry
> Berman of the Center for Democracy and Technology as saying in its
> current issue. "It wasn't a restriction breakdown. It was an analysis
> breakdown."
>
> The magazine also quoted two officials from research institutions:
>
> "Once people have been subjected to such thoroughgoing government
> surveillance, all relations between the government and the public are
> transformed. Whether the rulers be revolutionary despots or
> democratically elected officials, every citizen knows that 'they' know
> all about him and his affairs, and hence no one dares to step out of
> line. In such a situation, the sociopolitical system will gravitate
> ineluctably toward totalitarianism," said Robert Higgs, editor of The
> Independent Review.
>
> "Friends of traditional American values -- namely, freedom, privacy
> and justice -- should keep their eyes on two transcendent issues
> during wartime," said David Kopel, the Independence Institute's
> research director.  "First, the effort to change our system of checks
> and balances and our system of federalism with unreviewable central
> executive power. Second, the tendency of people to suppress their own
> willingness to think freely, and to lash out at those who do not
> similarly self-suppress."
>
> Watching members of Congress defer to Attorney General Ashcroft, there
> is obviously a lot of self-supression going on in Washington these
> days. But not at the Justice Department or the White House; the
> executive branch seems more intent on expanding its own police power
> at home than in mobilizing the free will of the American people
> against terrorism from abroad.
>
> --
> Robert J. Berger - UltraDevices, Inc.
> 257 Castro Street, Suite 223 Mt. View CA. 94041
> Voice: 650-237-0334 VoiceMail: 408-882-4755 Fax: 408-490-2868
> Email: rberger () ultradevices com  http://www.ultradevices.com

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