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THE PATRIOT ACT
by David E. Meadows , 2005

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED AT MILITARY.COM, December 28, 2005

How can anyone vote against a set of laws passed under such a great and wonderful title as The Patriot Act? It’d be un-American. But the Patriot Act is not the first time America has faced a set of laws that curtailed individual freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution.

The Patriot Act is to the 21st Century what the Alien and Sedition Act was to our nation in 1798.

In 1798 England and France are at war. Napoleon is empire building. Nelson discovers the French fleet anchored in Aboukir Bay and wins a major victory. The United States refuses to support France in the conflict, starting a quasi-war with the French. It is a time when the United States fears for its survival as an infant nation and tries to remain neutral.

President John Adams sits in the White House and his Federalist Party controls Congress. The tyranny of the masses during the 1789 French revolution increased already grave concerns held by John Adams on our own grand experiment in democracy. He brings those concerns with him to the presidency.

Within Congress, his political party controls both Houses. In 1798, he signs the Alien and Sedition Act giving him unfettered right to arrest, detain, and deport non-citizens he thinks are a danger to the security of the nation. The Act makes it a crime to speak out against the President, his government, and Congress. Numerous reporters are arrested, convicted, and jailed for violating the Alien and Sedition Act.

It takes states such as Kentucky and Virginia, rising up to declare the Act unconstitutional to consolidate popular support behind a fractured Jeffersonian Republican party. The Republican Party Presidential campaign of 1800 is muted because the Act forbids criticism of the government. Since the Jeffersonian Republicans are not in power, the Alien and Sedition Act does not apply to the Federalists. The election is so close the House of Representatives must determine the next President. The 36th vote elects Thomas Jefferson. The Alien and Sedition Act costs the Federalists power. Within 2-years after Jefferson takes office, all of the laws under the Alien and Sedition Act expire.

The Patriot Act has some good points in enhancing our fight against terrorism in such areas as border control, money laundering, providing for victims of terrorism, increasing sharing of intelligence/ information across government departmental lines, and the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act. Unfortunately, its bad parts such as secret searches, secret seizures of personal information from third parties, and secret surveillance beg for abuse.

The Patriot Act is as slippery a slope toward tyranny in the 21st Century as the Alien and Sedition Act was in the 18th Century. No person, no individual, no secret group must ever be trusted to protect individual freedoms. Our founding fathers mistrusted government. Intuitively, they protected individual freedoms with far-sighted balances of power written into the Constitution.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." He also said oppose with firmness any invasions on the rights of the people.

The Patriot Act is flawed. It was quickly implemented during a time of national distress when astronomical measures were believed needed to ensure national security. That time has eased. Our elected officials have the opportunity to correct those portions of the Act that violate our Constitution. Benjamin Franklin said during arguments leading up to the War of Independence, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

We are at a crossroads in our history. If someday you want to sit in court watching your son or daughter defending themselves because of books read or remarks said –then, to paraphrase Edmund Burke- ‘all it requires is for good people to do nothing.’ The Patriot Act is a genesis of slippery slopes for eroding individual freedoms. Slippery slopes leading to loss of freedom are rife through history where most start with the best of well-meaning intentions to meet a national security crisis.

Every veteran, every elected official in Congress, every justice on the Supreme Court, and every President has taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. It is an oath that freely taken is forever bound. It is what we sacrificed part of our lives in protecting so the American ideal of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness could occur within the framework of Constitutional freedom.

Dictates of conscience, loyalty to oaths of office, and morale obligations to the nation must guide our elected officials; not political party loyalty or personal arrogance. It is time for our Senators and Congressmen to correct the Patriot Act, or discard it and start anew. It is a time for the State legislatures to recognize their own Constitutional responsibilities such as Virginia and Kentucky did against the Alien and Sedition Act. And, most importantly, it is a time for us to decide where our votes will lie in the coming 2006 elections.

David E. Meadows / SixthFleet.Com David E. Meadows Washington D.C. E-Mail readermail@SixthFleet.Com