Read Between the Lies

Everyone knows, or at least they should know, the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees every American the right to free speech and to peaceably protest and petition the government. Americans today tend to take these rights for granted quite often, with the thought that they will always be there. However, over the past eight years, the executive branch has been slowly and quietly removing these rights, and many others, from Americans under the guise of patriotism, security, and the threat of terrorism. Don’t want to believe this could possibly be true? Look at just one,of the hundreds available, examples given by Jim Hightower in his article on Bush’s war on dissent, published in The Nation: He outlines a particular instance in which Iraq war protesters were on the side of a road where the Presidential motorcade was to come by. The protesters were on public property and peacefully protesting. However, the Secret Service forced them to move into an “approved” protesters area more than a third of a mile from the view of the motorcade, and stand behind a fence. Media members were not allowed to go to area, film or photograph it, and the protesters were not allowed to talk to the media. One man was arrested for refusing to leave the public sidewalk with his anti-Bush sign, and charged with disorderly conduct. Does this sound like freedom of speech or the right to peaceably protest? Imagine you wanted to protest something in your town or city, maybe nothing as large as the Iraq War or with the President involved, but a local issue of contention. Under this type on rule, law enforcement officers can tell you when, where, and how you may protest, if at all.

I believe increases in the power of the executive branch of the American federal government since 9/11 have had a directly adverse affect on the civil and constitutional liberties of American citizens down to the state and community level. I believe very strongly in the Constitution exactly as it was laid out by the founding fathers, and these new laws and regulations produced by the Bush administration are an abhorrent attack on American citizens’ personal liberties. They should be taken very seriously by people in local communities if they hope to continue living life in America as we know it.

People need to get involved, but before that they must get informed. If people do not know about these laws and regulations, they cannot know how they affect them or most importantly how to fight them.

Each of the pages on this site outlines a particular case of severe injustice to the Constitution or personal and civil liberties created by the Bush administration via laws, acts, and Presidential or Congressional Directives since 9/11. This includes analyzing source documents, academic articles, and editorial criticisms. Each is used to point out a different aspect of the attacks on our liberties over the last eight years and how they truly are starting to affect members of the community and state.

Cited:

Hightower, J. (2004).Bush zones go national: in the undeclared war against dissent, disagreement has become a crime. The Nation. 279, 27.

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