On Friday, October 25, 2001, that black day in American history, George Bush signed into law the hilariously misnamed USA Patriot Act into law.  With that act, Bush and the US congress betrayed the American people to tyranny.  Whether they realise it or not, they are systematically dismantling Magna Carta, keystone of a thousand year heritage of liberty.

MAGNA CARTA

   All our liberties, all our protections against government tyranny, are founded on Magna Carta or the Great Charter.  I used to think that every schoolboy knew the story of Magna Carta, but then I found out that not even lawyers or legislators know it.  I found out the hard way when I called a Tennessee legislator about 10 years ago to rebuke him about “child protection” legislation he had sponsored.  A former policeman, he had not a clue that secret witnesses that the accused could never confront, the presumption of guilt, and secret court proceedings overthrew not only Magna Carta but our whole inheritance of Christian and English liberty.

THE CHURCH AND THE BARONS STOOD UP

   During the absence of Richard the Lion Heart in the crusades, his brother John became King of England.  Our picture of medieval life doesn’t fit the reality.  A king had far, far less power than today’s president or prime minister.  He commanded the kingdom’s chief men (“barons”) only by their personal loyalty to him.  He was their feudal lord, i.e., they held title to their lands and powers in return for certain services, limited and spelled out in advance.  This hierarchy of personal loyalty, mutual obligation, and limited service reached from the highest nobleman to the lowest serf.  Both sides were obliged to observe the feudal rights and obligations, and both low and high jealously guarded and enforced their rights.  The king could not command a thing outside that feudal compact.
   To put it mildly, John played the tyrant in state and church.  The barons, led by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, rose up and forced John to sign the Great Charter in which he agreed to abide by their rights – sealed by King John “in the meadow called Ronimede between Windsor and Staines on the 15th day of June in the 17th year of our reign [1215].”  Yes, you read it right.  The Church led the barons in revolt against the tyrant.  Yes, the Church refused to submit its liberty and the realm’s to the tyrant. 
   Magna Carta is difficult to read.  While it protects certain crucial rights it also changes feudal laws wholly unfamiliar to us.  Here are some of the rights it guarantees, with the clause number in parenthesis. 

• Freedom of the church.  The church will be free and have the right of freely electing its own officers. (1, 63)
• No taxation without representation.  Taxing powers are limited, and essentially, are not lawfully levied without representation and consent. (15, 16)
• Equality before the law.  As the king promised to observe customs and liberties toward his barons, so the barons must observe them toward their own men. (60)
• Due process, habeas corpus, right of property, jury trial, freedom from unreasonable search.  “No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, except by the lawful judgement of his peers, or by law of the land.” (39)
• Speedy justice without charge.  “To no one will we sell, deny, or delay right or justice.”  (40)
• Right to travel or dwell anywhere.  “All persons are free to come and go and stay in the land in time of peace except outlaws, prisoners, and enemy aliens.”  (42)
• Free markets and freedom to trade.  All merchants are free to come and go and stay in the land and buy and sell without unreasonable tolls and according to ancient custom, except in time of war.  (41)
• Right of revolution against tyrants.  As security for the charter, the barons were to choose 25 men as guardians of the Charter.  If the king or any of his officers infringe the charter, the offense shall be reported to four members of the 25.  They must go to the king or his justiciar to ask that the matter be put right.  If the king fails to do so within forty days, the four barons shall refer the question to the whole 25, who, together with the community of the whole realm “shall destrain and trouble us in all possible ways by taking our castles, lands, and possessions.”  Once the king acquiesced in redress the former relations with him would be resumed.  (This section was, unhappily, omitted from later renewals of the charter.”

THE USA PATRIOT ACT

   This ‘law” begins insulting us with the title, a piece of infantile marketing-by-acronym:  “Uniting and Strengthening America Act by Providing Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.”  Sounds like the acronym for the evil institute in C.S. Lewis’ book, That Hideous Strength:  the N.I.C.E., National Institute for Creative Experimentation. 
   This hideous bill passed the house of [mis]representatives by a vote of 357 – 66, and the senate by 99 – 1.  Only one single senator, and him a liberal pro-abort from Wisconsin, had enough unshakeable courage to vote against it.
   The bill purports to offer law enforcement new tools in the “war against terrorism.”  Whether they realise it or not, it systematically destroys Magna Carta in a “war on liberty.”  Here are some of the bill’s provisions:

• Destroys grand jury secrecy.  It’s not bad enough grand juries have already been converted to tools of the prosecution with no shred of independence.  Now they’ve destroyed its secrecy meant to protect both the innocent and citizens fearful of bringing criminal charges against someone powerful or mighty.  Now nearly any federal official or bureaucrat can “share” grand jury testimony or wiretap information.
• Destroys protection against unreasonable searches and seizures with “sneak and peek” warrants.”  Before police had to serve you with a copy of the warrant when they entered your home, and provide an inventory of anything taken.  Now they can sneak into your home while you are absent, take whatever they wish, and leave.  Imagine how they’ll hoot to themselves when you report a burglary and they pretend to investigate, knowing all the time they are the thieves. (Section 213)
• Destroys equal protection of the law. Formerly habeas corpus protected both citizens and aliens from warrantless arrest and imprisonment.  Now any alien can be arrested and held without being charged for six months.  Imprisonment can be continued for another six months “on suspicion.”  How many times can they renew imprisonment?  The law doesn’t specify.  Oh, and just so you don’t appeal, the only place you can appeal is to the US Court of Appeals in Washington.  Get in line, Methuselah.
• Destroys protection against unreasonable and warrantless searches.  Enables police permanently to conduct Internet surveillance or a pen wiretap (records all numbers incoming and outgoing) without a court order in some circumstances.  Any US attorney or state attorney general can order FBI’s Carnivore surveillance system installed to record addresses of Web pages visited and e-mail correspondents – without going to a judge.  (Section 216)
• Destroys financial privacy.  The “amendments and improvements” to the Banking Secrecy [sic] Act further perfect our financial police state.  Bank tattle-tales are exempted from liability for falsely reporting a money laundering violation. (351)  Section 359 could be stretched to apply to anybody engaged in any transaction, including flea markets and garage sales.  Ridiculous!  You say.  Hide and watch, I say.  It could also apply to electronic money issuers and offer the government a means to suppress that trade since it competes with their own national currency.

   No point to say, “Well, they will limit the application of these laws to terrorists only.”  Law enforcement couldn’t do that even if they meant to.  The law looks at all offenses equally.  Anyway, as we’ve seen with the money laundering laws, they enforce them to the letter, not even requiring any intent to break the law.
   Some “senators” and “representatives” tried to hide behind sunset provisions in the law:  some of the extraordinary law enforcement powers expire at the end of 2004.  Well, hogwash!  Like they stopped enforcing the Victory Tax Act for withholding when it expired in 1945?  Right.  When did they ever cut our chains once they’ve riveted them around our necks?   Besides, the “sunset provision” in section 224 applies only to one part of the act and specifically exempts the most outrageous provisions. 
   And don’t be fooled.  They will extend the precedents of this law to every other room where the last rags and strings of liberty still hang.  These breaches cannot be quarantined to “terrorism” any more than the war on drugs was quarantined to “drug dealers.”

NO OTHER PEOPLE

  Why do we get such abortions voted into law?  We cannot avoid the ugly conclusions. The American people want security before liberty.  Are they really cowardly slaves?  Like all slaves, do they want to be sheltered and told what to do?  Who but slaves slaves refuse to take responsibility for themselves and do not cherish their liberty?.
   Americans are also ignorant.  Part of that guilt belongs to their training in state schools, which are only statist propaganda factories.  Another and greater part belongs to those who are wilfully ignorant, who make no effort to learn their rights and enforce them.  Laziness, cowardice, wilful ignorance – it makes quite a cocktail for slaves.
   Are Americans self-centered cowards?  Those who love their country and their children unselfishly will defend and, even at the peril and hazard of their own lives, pass on their heritage of liberty to their children undiminished.  DO Americans have only contempt for that heritage?  Such people will never say NO to their own home-grown Gestapo and Fuehrer of Homelandsecurity.
   Those Americans who yet have a spark of manhood in them can as yet only protest.  Write those traitorous representatives and senators who voted to overthrow your ancient and precious rights and tell them you, at least, will remember. 
   And when the tyrant comes to your door, resist with all the power of the law and Magna Carta!  Resist, because it is your right and your duty.
-- F. Sanders

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