It's wonderful to see all of the activity opposing the Patriot Act and the civil liberty violations stemming from that legislation. To date, three states and 163 cities, towns, and counties have already passed resolutions to protest the Patriot Act. For example, Bill of Rights Defense Committees have been organized all over the nation, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth.

The Minneapolis City Council passed a Resolution Defending the Bill of Rights on April 4th, 2003, and the Duluth City Council did the same on July 14th. The Saint Paul Bill of Rights Defense Committee holds weekly meetings at the William Mitchell College of Law, 875 Summit Ave, St. Paul, every Monday, 7 to 9 pm. I encourage you to help them get a similar resolution from the St. Paul City Council.

It's encouraging to see that grassroots efforts can have some effect on local and state governments, and opposing the Patriot Act is a worthy cause. However, as a libertarian, I have two concerns about this grand cause:

1. That it was not until such an obscene piece of legislation as the Patriot Act that so many Americans became alerted to the fact that their civil liberties were systematically being eroded.

2. That many citizens jumping on the anti-Patriot bandwagon will believe that this is anti-GOP action... that something like the Patriot Act could only occur under this administration.

The roots of the Patriot Act, and with the War on Terrorism, go far beyond the current administration. I won't defend the actions of the Bush administration in any way, but they are only the current violators of civil liberties.

Let us not forget, or forgive, for even a moment, that the Patriot Act passed the House 337-79 and sailed through the Senate 96-1, with strong urging from Democratic legislative leadership.

Let us also not forget that Bill Clinton agreed to limit habeas corpus, allow for secret evidence in immigration trials, and personally obstructed justice in the investigation of his own acts of perjury. It was a Democratic President (FDR) who set the precedent for much of this by imprisoning American citizens in the 40's, merely because they were of Japanese, Italian, and German descent.

Comments from a prominent Democrat about the passage of the Patriot Act:

"This was one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation relating to the Bill of Rights in the history of our country! It was a low point for me in terms of being a Democrat and somebody who believes in civil liberties."    Nat Hentoff

There is only one political ideology that really believes in full Constitutional protection of our rights, and that holds those rights to be inviolate. Libertarians have been warning about and fighting the encroachment of such civil liberty violations for over 3 decades.

In 1999, the LP launched the DefendYourPrivacy.com  website to fight the Health & Human Services regulation, which forced doctors to turn their patients' confidential medical records over to the government. Despite 62,000 petition-signers, Congress shelved an attempt to reverse the regulation. The problem was that Democrats supported the regulation because it was Bill Clinton's baby, and Republicans supported the regulation because George W. Bush endorsed it.

Earlier, the LP had successfully squashed the FDIC's attempt to implement their "Know Your Customer" regulation that would have invaded bank customers records:

the Indianapolis Star wrote:

"Much of the credit must go to the Libertarians. Of some 253,000 e-mail messages, letters, and faxes to the FDIC, more than 170,000 were...generated by the party's DefendYourPrivacy.com website."

Shortly after the passage of the Patriot Act, the LP began a series of press releases, warning America about it.

October 3, 2001
New compromise "Patriot Act" is still a threat to civil liberties

October 16, 2001
Anti-terrorism bills should be rejected for 'recycled police state-style snooping'

October 23, 2001
Help strip anti-privacy measures from anti-terrorism legislation

October 30, 2002
Pundits ask: Who will control Congress? Libertarians ask: Who cares?

Libertarians are always watching government for violations of our personal liberties. It's a shame that it took the extreme nature of the Patriot Act to wake a lot of sleeping Americans who have largely ignored so many violations leading up to this point.

Liberals and conservatives... we welcome you, at last, to the fight to protect our Constitutional rights. While you're fighting the plentiful civil liberty violations of the Bush administration, please leave your political self-righteousness at home. Every single time we grant more power to government, for whatever reason, we are inviting government to stretch their "power envelope" further.

Every additional task we allow government to control sends the message that we, the people, are helpless without government. Is it any wonder that our politicians take that sick message to heart and treat us like brainless serfs in an empire?

Civil liberties are merely some of the eggs that get broken for the monstrous omelets being cooked up in Washington. The REAL problem is that government is force, and the use of force always backfires on those who grant its use.