As the Bush administration's war on terror continues domestically and abroad, chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union across the country are protesting what they see as government encroachment on personal freedoms in the name of national security.
The National ACLU is running an advertisement in today's New York Times that condemns a piece of legislation that it claims is being drafted by the U.S. Department of Justice. The ACLU said the legislation, titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, infringes on citizens' freedoms of speech, association and religion.
Newspaper reports maintain that the Justice Department has not officially introduced such a bill, but the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity claimed it obtained a leaked copy of a draft of the resolution, which it posted on its web site, http://publicintegrity.org.
Executive Director Charles Lewis said in an article that his group published the draft because \democracy is supposed to be a contact sport, with many and diverse participants, and we quickly discovered that practically no one on Capitol Hill in either party or in the national news media had ever even heard of [the act], much less read it.""
According to the Web site, the act would, among other things, provide for the creation of a DNA database of ""suspected terrorists"" and make it harder to obtain information on suspected terrorists through the Freedom of Information Act.
In Wisconsin, some ACLU members said they have heard little of the new legislation, often referred to as ""PATRIOT Act II,"" but they reserved harsh words for the original PATRIOT Act.
""One of the scariest things about this USA PATRIOT Act is that everything is secret,"" said Ann Heywood, Chippewa Valley ACLU Chapter president.
""When there's secrecy, there's going to be abuse,"" she added. ""Out of every 10,000 police officers, some of them are going to be crooked.""
Madison resident and ACLU member Arthur Thexton also said he had not heard of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, but even without its introduction, citizen's civil liberties are threatened.
""As long as [Attorney General] John Ashcroft and [President] George Bush are in charge, the state of civil liberties is in decay,"" he said. ""These men have no respect for the Bill of Rights.\
