Published on Monday, November 10, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
Gore Urges Repeal of Patriot Act
Former vice president lashes out at Bush, accusing him of 'mass violations of civil liberties' and weakening the nation's security.by Ronald Brownstein
WASHINGTON — In a blistering critique, former Vice President Al Gore accused President Bush on Sunday of eroding personal freedoms and weakening the nation's security through "mass violations of civil liberties" in the war on terrorism.
"Where civil liberties are concerned, they have taken us much farther down the road to an intrusive, 'Big Brother'-style government — toward the dangers prophesized by George Orwell in his book '1984' — than anyone ever thought would have been possible in the United States," Gore told an enthusiastic crowd of 3,000 that filled DAR Constitution Hall.-snip-
Virtually all of the 2004 Democratic presidential candidates have criticized Bush's civil liberties record, but Gore's remarks are among the sharpest attacks that any Democrat has offered on the issue. Gore's comments follow an equally confrontational speech in August, when he accused Bush of misleading the country on the war in Iraq and a wide array of domestic issues.
-snip-
In the speech, Gore charged that the Bush administration "had turned the fundamental presumption of our democracy on its head" by seeking to withhold information about its own activities, even while acquiring ever more information about the activities of private citizens.
Gore said Bush was frustrating the public's right to information about its government by resisting independent and congressional investigations into the Sept. 11 attacks; by instructing federal agencies to resist requests for documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act; and by refusing to disclose details about individuals of Arab descent detained after the attacks.
At the same time, Gore noted, the administration has pursued new authority to investigate Americans it considers security risks by monitoring their e-mail and Internet activity, their conversations with lawyers, and even the lists of library books they have checked out.
Linking his new critique to his earlier criticism of the war in Iraq, Gore declared: "It makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden."
Gore said Bush should renounce his policy, which has been used twice, of indefinitely detaining American citizens that the president designates "enemy combatants."
Gore also said the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban members held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, should be allowed to petition for status as prisoners of war, and he argued that Congress should authorize any military tribunals used against suspected terrorists. Bush has asserted the right to try suspected terrorists before such tribunals but has not yet done so.http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/1110-01.htm
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
