Patriotism Perverted
By Dan Gillmor for the San Jose Mercury News.

The Bush administration’s hostility to our fundamental liberties is unrelenting. Not content with ramming the contemptibly named “USA Patriot Act” through a sadly compliant Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the White House and its forces are lining up for another whack at the Bill of Rights.
Draft legislation from Attorney General John Ashcroft’s law-enforcement gnomes is making the rounds. It’s apparently being called the “Domestic Security Enhancement Act,” but think of it as “UnPatriot II.”
Read the draft on the Center for Public Integrity’s Web site. Then read the FindLaw Web site’s analysis by Anita Ramasastry, an assistant law professor at the University of Washington School of Law and associate director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce & Technology.
The legislation, Ramasastry warns, is “a wholesale assault on privacy, free speech and freedom of information.” She does not exaggerate.

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Patriotism Perverted