Letters in the Editor's Mailbag

December 28, 2003

Land of the free no more

Since all we liberals do is whine, I'd like to offer a constructive suggestion instead. This letter isn't protesting the sudden invocation of a high terror alert during the busiest travel time of the year - all without actually giving the average citizen anything to do except to be afraid.

And this letter isn't to complain that while Saddam Hussein was famously getting his tonsils examined by a U.S. Army doctor, President Bush was signing into law the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, which greatly and stealthily expands domestic surveillance powers in a fine-print rider to a little-noticed, mostly classified appropriations bill.

I'm not complaining, even though Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, objected that "the stealth addition of language [is] drastically expanding FBI powers to secretly and without court order snoop into the business and financial transactions of American citizens. These expanded internal police powers will enable the FBI to demand transaction records from businesses, including auto dealers, travel agents, pawnbrokers and more, without the approval or knowledge of a judge or grand jury. This was written into the bill at the eleventh hour over the objections of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee."

No, I'd just like to offer a friendly suggestion. Let's change our venerable national anthem from the outmoded "Land of the free and home of the brave" to the more modern and trendy "Land of the subjugated and home of the terrified."

HART WILLIAMS
Eugene