Matthew Rothschild: Five Ways Bush's Era of Repression Has Stolen Your Liberties Since 9/11

[marmar]

From the New Press, via AlterNet:


Five Ways Bush's Era of Repression Has Stolen Your Liberties Since 9/11

By Matthew Rothschild, The New Press. Posted July 24, 2007.



In his new book, Matt Rothschild examines how the Bush White House constructed the edifice of repression to brazenly access our private data and shred the judicial process.

The following is an excerpt of Matthew Rothschild's "You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression" (The New Press, 2007).


To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists. ... They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends.
-- former attorney general John Ashcroft

You're either with us or against us. -- George W. Bush


Today's America is a much less free place than the America of 2000. Following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Bush administration has, by word and by deed, erected an edifice of repression here in the United States.

We've been living in it ever since. And it's not a comfortable place. The government is monitoring your phone calls and can read your e-mails and open your snail mail.

The government can access records of your large financial transactions, such as buying a house.

Law enforcement officers can bust into your home when you're not there, riffle through your belongings, plant a recording device on your computer, and leave without notifying you for at least thirty days -- and maybe a lot more.

You no longer have the right to protest where the president or vice president can see you, or at major public events when they aren't even present.

Law enforcement officers can now monitor you in public if you are merely exercising your political rights.

They can infiltrate your political organizations.

And they can keep track of you at your place of worship. The government can find out from bookstores and libraries the material you've been reading, and the bookstore owner and the librarian can't talk about it, except to their lawyers, for a whole year -- or more.

The government can hold you in preventive detention for months on end as a "material witness."

If you're not a citizen the government can deport you on a technicality or for mere political association. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/57689/

[Cirque du So-What]

1. K & R

I'll soon be buying Matt Rothschild's book.

[marmar]

3. "I'll soon be buying Matt Rothschild's book."

Me too.

[babylonsister]

2. Rec'd. Love this writer, and the content of this post scares the

hell out of me.