Reply #27: ACLU says - Fight for your rights! We are losing many of them.

[The Wielding Truth]

The USA PATRIOT Act: What rights are being threatened?
New Federal Executive Branch Actions
This lack of due process and accountability violates the rights extended to all persons, citizens
and non-citizens, by the Bill of Rights. It resurrects the illegal COINTELPRO-type programs of the ‘50’s, ‘60’s, and ‘70’s, where the FBI sought to disrupt and discredit thousands of individuals and groups engaged in legitimate political activity.

First Amendment - Freedom of religion, speech, assembly,
and the press.
Fourth Amendment - Freedom from unreasonable searches
and seizures.
Fifth Amendment - No person to be deprived of life, liberty or
property without due process of law.
Sixth Amendment - Right to a speedy public trial by an
impartial jury, right to be informed of the facts of the accusation,
right to confront witnesses and have the assistance of counsel.
Eighth Amendment - No excessive bail or cruel and unusual
punishment shall be imposed.
Fourteenth Amendment - All persons (citizens and noncitizens)
within the US are entitled to due process and the
equal protection of the laws.


• The press and the public have been barred from immigration
court hearings of those detained after September 11th and
the courts are ordered to keep secret even that the hearings
are taking place.

• The government is allowed to monitor communications between
federal detainees and their lawyers, destroying the attorney client
privilege and threatening the right to counsel.

• New Attorney General Guidelines allow FBI spying on religious
and political organizations and individuals without having
evidence of wrongdoing.

• President Bush has ordered military commissions to be set up to
try suspected terrorists who are not citizens. They can convict
based on hearsay and secret evidence by only two-thirds vote.

• American citizens suspected of terrorism are being held
indefinitely in military custody without being charged and without
access to lawyers.

The American Civil Liberties Union, along with thousands of organizations and individuals concerned with protecting our civil rights and civil liberties, is campaigning to ensure that our
rights are not a casualty of the war on terrorism.

Join us in this effort to regain our hard-won freedoms.
• Support a resolution in your city rejecting the USA PATRIOT Act, joining your city with others
across the country in upholding the Bill of Rights.
• Contact your elected representatives and the President to express your opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act.
• Send letters to local newspapers. Organize discussions
What can be done?
Become a member of the ACLU.
Because freedom can't protect
itself. For more information, go to
www.aclu.org/safeandfree