Thanks to Montana's legislators
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Editor,
This is an open letter to Sen. Max Baucus, Sen. Jon Tester and Rep. Denny Rehberg:
We urge all citizens of Montana to thank our congressional delegation at your first opportunity; all three voted against extending the misnamed “Patriot Act.” The Montana delegation’s unanimous “nay” was shared by only one other state, Alaska. It seems that only the “Last Best Place” and “The Last Frontier” can send a unanimous message of sanity regarding this statutory abomination; a law that eviscerates freedoms guaranteed us by our U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, the bill passed. For this, we can thank 77 percent of Senators (72 Yea and five Not Voting, with only 23 Nay) and 64 percent of the Members of the House (250 Yea and 32 Not Voting, with 153 Nay) and our President, who signed the bill in absentia on May 26.
The extension perpetuates this law until 2015. It reauthorizes “tools” such as searches and wiretaps without judicial warrants and permits potentially perpetual detention of suspected “terrorists.” These are egregious police powers that our federal executive can continue to exercise unilaterally.
This is federal police state totalitarianism, pure and simple. This bill suspends habeas corpus, a bedrock principle of our law, which protects us from being illegally detained. It also contains mandatory detention provisions, which can be interminably extended without Judicial review, that inherently violate the presumption of innocence and the right to a speedy trial, two foundations of our free society. So how could such a law be labeled “Patriot”? Would it not be more appropriate to call this “The Traitor Act”? Have Americans become so fearful and weak that we are willing to sacrifice the freedoms our founders fought to establish between 1776 and 1783 and that we, as a people, have safeguarded and enhanced for 225 years thereafter?
The United States has historically been a beacon of freedom for the world. This has been the true source of our power, prestige, influence and prosperity. That we now communally allow such statutes to be passed and perpetuated is tangible and potent evidence that we have lost our way. As we let the light of freedom dim, corrupting power continues to concentrate in fewer and fewer hands.
Benjamin Franklin said it best: “Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.”
So thank you, Max, Jon and Denny, for clear-eyed independent thought and action, even if futile for now, in the face of the tragic fear-mongering political fogbank that masquerades as policymaking in our nation’s capital.
Sincerely,
Jay Wilson Preston
Cynthia Macklin Preston
Charlo
