http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/04/04/bob_barr/Another conservative has a change of heart
Former Clinton inquisitor Bob Barr explains why he left the Republican Party and why he shouldn't have voted for the Patriot Act.
By Alex Koppelman
April 4, 2007 | During the Clinton administration, Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia was one of the most visible Republicans in America. In 1998, the arch-conservative was a House manager of President Clinton's impeachment trial. But since leaving Congress in 2003, Barr has become a vocal critic of the constitutionally questionable policies of Clinton's Republican successor, George W. Bush. In 2004, he declined to support Bush's reelection, and in late 2006 he formally left the GOP to take a leadership position in the Libertarian Party. Two weeks ago, Barr and several other conservative heavyweights announced the founding of the American Freedom Agenda, a group opposed to what it sees as assaults on civil liberties in post-9/11 America. And in another break with his past, last week Barr, an erstwhile anti-drug warrior who once led a congressional effort to block medical marijuana use in the District of Columbia, announced that he is joining the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project as a lobbyist.
Salon spoke with Barr about his views on civil liberties, the American Freedom Agenda and his reasons for abandoning his old party. We reached him at an Atlanta phone number that ends, like all of the office numbers Barr maintains, in the digits 1-7-7-6.
You recently announced the creation of the American Freedom Agenda. Can you tell me a little bit about that and what you're doing there?
This is part of a multifaceted effort to bring attention to the abuses and losses of our fundamental, constitutionally guaranteed liberties since 9/11. This particular effort is spearheaded by Bruce Fein and focuses on 10 specific issues related to our fundamental civil liberties that Bruce, myself,
Dave Keene, Richard Viguerie and hopefully a number of others feel are extremely important and go to the core of constitutional liberties in this country. So we're going to focus on those efforts to educate the public, drive home the message to appropriate members in the House and the Senate as to the importance of these constitutional liberties and work to ensure legislation, where appropriate, to address them.
You also recently announced that you were leaving the Republican Party and joining the Libertarian Party. What was your reason for doing that?
Several-fold. One, that the Libertarian Party, among all of the parties out there, is the only one that is true to my core philosophy of working to minimize government power and maximize individual liberty. None of the other parties, and especially the Republican Party any longer, is at all committed to that philosophy. And secondly, my great concern, manifested especially since 9/11, is the assaults on our fundamental civil liberties by this administration. personified, for example, in the disregard for the rule of law as exhibited by the warrantless NSA electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. More recently, documented abuses at the FBI in carrying out certain of the expanded powers granted in the Patriot Act, namely, national security letters. And in January of this year, the testimony by the attorney general that this administration does not believe that the fundamental right to a writ of habeas corpus is an important, fundamental, constitutional guarantee. So what we have is a party, the Republican Party, to which I was very proud to belong for many, many years, no longer being committed to a core conservative philosophy. The Libertarian Party is so committed, and I felt that at the time that it was necessary to make a change because of the seriousness of the assaults on our civil liberties.
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