Patriot Act

An act of patriotism... Sounds like an honorable, and righteous thing no matter what the perspective... So right off the back the name is misleading! "America land of the free" is actually short for the real expression, it actually is said "America land of the free, unless your Black, Jewish, Italian, Asian, Indian, Poor, Latino, but ESPECIALLY Middle Eastern". The Patriot Act enables the American government to write a legal document to secretly spy on any citizen. Even better if they find any evidence of "suspicious activity" they can make arrests without even notifying the "alleged criminals" of their crimes or rights. Talk about unconstitutional, when this bill was written in 2001 congress pulled down their pants and left a nice one all over the 1st, 4th, 7th, and 14th amendments. 

I understand their are very valid debates to why this law can be for good. It does tighten security and makes it easier to catch the bad guys. The extremely evident problem I see is who decides who the bad guys are? I cant say that I’ve never made a racial stereotype but I can say I’ve never wanted to arrest someone for looking or acting a certain way without being certain of their guilt towards a crime. The level of ignorance and corruption in US politics that continues to flow through the media has completely turned me off to any idea that the American government is actually on the side of the people who aren't rich or white, and I’m saying this as a fucking well off white man!!!!  

Don’t get me wrong I’m 100% a patriot, I love America, I love Philadelphia, I love the communities in which I’ve been brought up in, and I love my life. However if there’s something I love more then America it’s a respect for human rights. I’ve never been oppressed and the one quality I was born with that links my ancestors to oppression is my mothers Judaism. That being said I consider myself an empathetic person who believes in social rights, and liberties for all people regardless of race or religion. The people who were involved in 9/11 are murderers, and animals for which I share no compassion, however to punish an entire race for the crimes of few is savage and putrid. In the The New York Times editorial of the patriot act their congressional research service committee gives a summery of the act. In the fourth sentence of the summery I quote “It creates new crimes, new penalties, and new procedural efficiencies for use against domestic and international terrorists.” HOWEVER it does not list what those new crimes, penalties, and procedural efficiencies are! That means there are laws that are private to the American public. Penalties that are not disclosed with the average citizen. Worst of all policies that only exist in clandestine government files. How in any way is that Patriotic?

Imagine a city under domestic military control, where the government has access to any amount of private information and has the ability to legally arrest and torture any citizen. Now imagine that the head of this military operation is a rich, racist, chauvinistic, white man, who got the military position from family connection rather then merit and personal accomplishment. In 1960 Bobby Kennedy was appointed as commanding general without any previous experience. (Not to bash Bobby Kennedy just an example of family connection leaking into office) That may not be the case but this “patriot act” is the first step in giving the government that kind of power. My criticism of the US government does not reach into all branches. I do believe that things could be a lot worse then they are, and that much of the government has righteous and morale intentions. My hope is that the Patriot Act is not abolished but instead refined. All information should be made public and it should be evident that the government works for the people, not the other way around. I don’t have a problem with catching the bad guys but the perception of what is right and wrong should not only be left to a specific number of government officials no matter how qualified or unqualified to make that decision they are. Citizens need to understand that its their responsibility to be informed of all laws and what could be considered suspicious behavior, however in order to do that the information needs to consistently be pushed in the publics face. The people should have a say in any law that affects them especially one like the Patriot Act.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/usa_patriot_act/index.html

http://www.fincen.gov/statutes_regs/patriot/index.html