Plans by John Ashcroft for a nation-wide bus tour to promote the USA PATRIOT Act will waste taxpayers' money and time justifying an unconstitutional law.
The Justice Department organized the tour to answer criticisms by civil liberties groups saying the act was unconstitutional and infringed on personal rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Criticism also has fallen on terror-fighting initiatives and decisions within the Justice Department.
More than 140 city and state law-making bodies have passed resolutions condemning the act, and dissent continues to grow in Congress. The ACLU even is suing the Justice Department over one clause in the act allowing government officials to seize business, library and computer records without notification.
While the government is showing a good faith effort to address concerns over this legislation, such a campaign simply is a waste. A bus tour of the country will cost loads of money that can be used for other seemingly worthy causes in the Justice Department. This money can be used to increase monitoring, detection and enforcement capabilities in the fight against terror.
The time element also is a factor. The Attorney General should not be gallivanting about the countryside trying to build favor over legislation, though deeply flawed, which already has been passed. He should be prosecuting so-called "terrorists" in court. The fact that this sort of thing needs to be done shows the administration knows it should not have been passed in the first place.
And U.S. citizens already do not like the law. No public relations circus should be able to change the minds of Americans who know the USA PATRIOT Act is unconstitutional and an infringement on everyone's rights. The act erodes the rights to privacy, speech, fair trial and due process. No one should stand for that, least of all the top lawyer for the country.
Mr. Ashcroft should realize that negative reactions to the act show only that it was the wrong idea in the first place. The only way this administration can mollify the American people in the issue is to repeal the offending act totally.
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