If you and other liberty activists don’t take immediate action, Congress will once again pass a sneak attack on your rights by re-authorizing the so-called “PATRIOT” Act without hardly a hearing or a debate.
As you know, in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, Congress passed the original, freedom-stealing “PATRIOT” Act in the heat of the post 9/11 fears – without legislators even having a chance to fully read and thoroughly debate a bill that would transform parts of the federal government into a national security state.
Last year, the Democrat-controlled Congress quietly slipped through a one-year extension, with little opposition which was later signed by President Obama.
This year, Congress intends to renew three controversial provisions of this Act, and due to legislation introduced by Representative Mike Rogers [MI-8] (H.R. 67) and Senator Patrick Leahy [VT] (S. 193), the pieces are in place to extend them for another year.
It appears the Republican-controlled House and Democrat-controlled Senate are ready to once again sneak this bill through while Americans are not paying attention.
Please send your senators and representative a free action fax IMMEDIATELY by clicking here.
The three provisions set to expire are the “roving wiretap” provision, which allows the government to conduct surveillance without specifying person or place being wiretapped; the “library records” provision that allows the government to collect “any tangible thing” during an investigation; and the “lone wolf” provision, which targets “non-US” persons unaffiliated with terrorists.
It is time for Congress to let these Bill of Rights-shredding provisions of the “PATRIOT Act” expire.
The implementation of the national security state has created an expansive, inefficient, and secretive bureaucratic nightmare increasingly being targeted to spy on Americans, even based on anonymous information and political affiliation, all supposedly in the name of “keeping us safe.”
Last year, The Washington Post series on “Top Secret America” exposed just how massive and unaccountable America’s surveillance state has become.
Today, there is a “web of 3,984 federal, state and local organizations, each with its own counterterrorism responsibilities and jurisdictions.
At least 934 of these organizations have been created since the 2001 attacks or became involved in counterterrorism for the first time after 9/11.”
In a 2009 fusion center report from Missouri, Ron Paul supporters were targeted and state police were told to be on the lookout for people displaying Campaign for Liberty bumper stickers or other paraphernalia.
The report became public as C4L prepared for its first Regional Conference in St. Louis and was only later retracted after Campaign for Liberty members took quick and decisive action to fight the government’s smears.
On Thursday, February 3, at 10AM, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings on Senator Leahy’s bill. It’s important that your senators hear from you today about opposing “PATRIOT” Act renewal.
Since the passage of the “PATRIOT” Act, innocent American citizens have become the victims of domestic surveillance.
Our letters have been opened and our phone calls tapped, while the FBI and other law enforcement conduct warrantless “sneak and peak” searches without any judicial oversight.
Together, we must stand up to such infringements on our civil liberties and demand the “PATRIOT” Act be allowed to expire.
As Benjamin Franklin famously penned decades before the American Revolution, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Restoring the Constitution and respecting the traditions of liberty our Founders passed on to us – not trampling on Americans’ rights – will keep our nation strongly defended and safe.
In Liberty,
John Tate, President