Posted on 03/21/2005 11:17:28 PM PST by Dan from Michigan
Second Amendment Foundation Endorses Call to Review Patriot Act
BELLEVUE, Wash., March 21 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) today endorsed efforts by Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances -- a coalition of organizations and interests that includes the ACLU, tax reformers, medical privacy proponents and gun rights activists -- to have certain sections of the Patriot Act reviewed. The coalition is meeting Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
"As a civil rights organization, we are very concerned about sections of the Patriot Act that allow invasions of privacy under the guise of some investigation that may be nothing more than a legal fishing expedition," said SAF Founder Alan M. Gottlieb. "A search conducted without the knowledge or consent of a citizen, including a so-called 'sneak-and-peek' search, is an anathema to the foundations of our legal system. Sections of the Patriot Act allow the use of so-called 'delayed-notification' search warrants that let police search homes and businesses and remove property, including firearms, before telling the owners.
"As it stands," Gottlieb continued, "the Patriot Act also permits the government to seize certain personal records from third parties, whether they are doctors, attorneys or even the neighborhood librarian, and they could not even tell you about it. Whatever happened to the concept of attorney-client privilege or doctor-patient privacy? Many people are concerned that such authority might threaten our Fourth Amendment rights.
"Because another section of the Patriot Act also could also ultimately be abused to stifle legitimate protest by various organizations, there are definitely First Amendment issues that should be addressed," Gottlieb added.
"While these issues do not directly relate to the right of individual citizens under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms," he observed, "a threat to any civil right is a threat to all of them. While there can be little doubt that the authors of the Patriot Act had the best of intentions, sometimes it is true that good intentions are the stuff from which the road to Hell has been paved.
"I think it is important," Gottlieb concluded, "to recall the words of Benjamin Franklin, who said, 'They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'."
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The Second Amendment Foundation is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 600,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, Conn.; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers & an amicus brief & fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.
2. Why did you fight for the same policies you fought against as a Senator back when Klinton pushed for them in the name of the "War on Drugs"?
"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."-George Washington
I like this one.
I fully support diminishing our government's resolve to engage in 'sneak & peak' or 'data-mining' without concrete, specific, validated prior cause....
Ashcroft (and you) were and are wrong. We didn't need the "Patriot Act" during the Cold War, when spying and subversion was more prevalent than Al Qaeda activity is today, and we don't need it now. It is INCREDIBLY dangerous.
The juicy parts of the PA don't expire. Like that little scam Bush signed on the Saturday they caught Saddam that re-defines what a "financial institution" is to be whatever government decides it is. Which means that anybody that receives a single dime from you, like a kid's lemonade stand, can be re-defined as a financial institution and be forced to turn over anything they know about you and then be prohibited by law from telling you of the inquiry. "I don't have to show you any steenkin Warrants!"
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