Free Republic

Critics worry about rights violations By Owen S. Good, Rocky Mountain News, July 24, 2002 BOULDER - The city's police force will be strongly discouraged from cooperating with federal authorities who invoke the provisions of anti-terror legislation under a resolution passed by the City Council on Tuesday night. The resolution changes law enforcement policy in Boulder very little, making it mostly a symbolic gesture, but one opponents of the USA PATRIOT Act consider necessary.They say the federal law, which greatly expands investigative powers to thwart terrorism, does so at the expense of individuals' constitutional rights. "We see a lot of...

<p>IN the pain-filled atmosphere after Sept. 11, I was one of the Muslims who took a public and critical stand regarding the way both my co-religionists and our government were handling the crisis. As a result, I started to receive death threats from Muslim and non-Muslim fanatics alike. The stress my family endured became unbearable when police noticed that my home was being ``staked out'' by ``unknown and suspicious parties.''</p>

As a practicing Jew and a conservative Republican I have some insight into the political choices Jews make. Jews, like most other immigrant groups that arrived from Germany and Eastern Europe in the first half of the last century tended to be socialistic. Those generations found a home in the Democrat party. The Republican Party was viewed as the party of the rich bosses who excluded Jews from many business opportunities and careers. The Jewish Democrat affiliation became a tradition over time – handed down from parents to children. Today this is changing – many younger Jews and almost all...