As the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act that trampled Constitutional rights is to expire this year, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee is encouraging citizens to contact senators today to request their support of the JUSTICE Act.
The Bush administration's PATRIOT Act fueled hatred toward Americans after 9/11/2001 due to the Act's resultant condoned violence against mainly innocent captives and an untold number of innocent, self-identified, targeted individuals in communities.
The Justice Act serves to restore some of the human rights Americans once took for granted, rights protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights until 2001, rights that drew people from all over the world to love and respect the U.S.
Justice or more 'Patriot'
Introduced by Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Jon Tester (D-MT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) on Constitution Day, the JUSTICE Act offers extensive protections for individual privacy and liberty interests.
Beyond introducing needed limits on PATRIOT Act provisions, The Justice Act revisits portions of the FISA Amendments Act that was enacted over widespread objections from human rights, liberty and privacy advocates.
Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has introduced an alternative bill, the USA PATRIOT Act Sunset Extension Act, with support of Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Ted Kaufman (D-DE).
In terms of privacy, oversight, and accountability, Leahy's bill does not protect Americans' rights and prevent government abuses as much as the Justice Act.
JUSTICE Act reforms
*More effective checks on government requests for personal records, including judicial review and requirements that surveillance targets be connected to a security threat;
*Restrictions on "sneak and peek" searches to limit their use to the national security arena;
*Limits on "John Doe" roving wiretaps to prevent their overbroad use as a dragnet authority;
*Changes to the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, such as repealing telecom immunity, preventing "bulk collection" of international communications, and prohibiting "reverse targeting" of law-abiding Americans;
*Stronger oversight of national security letters that government reports show have been widely abused.
"The JUSTICE Act recognizes that the PATRIOT Act provisions set to expire this year are merely tip of an iceberg and broader reforms are necessary to curb government abuses and protect the rights of innocent Americans," stated Shahid Buttar today.
Buttar, Executive Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, invites citizens to join the People's Campaign for the Constitution and raise voices in local communities and with like-minded others across the country.
BORDC is soon to release a model ordinance limiting domestic spying by local law enforcement agencies for consideration by city councils across the country.
The ordinance will offer opportunity for local activism to help reframe the supposed choice between liberty and security according to Buttar.
Local debates on the ordinance may also help inform Congress as it considers needed national reforms.
How anti-terrorism laws and policies impacted Constitutional rights
The "War on Terror" and The Constitution, a new booklet by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), is a concise summary of how key anti-terrorism laws and policies enacted since September 11, 2001, affect Americans’ constitutional rights.
The new laws are organized into chapters corresponding to sections of the U.S. Constitution and articles of the Bill of Rights.
Stories in each chapter show how the lives of innocent American targets and foreign detainees have been affected.
Shahid Buttar, Executive Director of BORDC with Kevin Zeese
Address National Press Club, Washington, D.C.
Learn more, ask "Why?" and "Why not?" For more information and to help restore the Constitution, visit or email BORDC.
Learn about H1N1 vaccines that arrive in the U.S. next week and how to be a Safety and Informed Consent Advocate in your community by attending the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination in Washington DC, Oct 2-4, 2009 hosted by the National Vaccination Information Center.
Deborah Dupré is author of the timely book, Operation H1N1: Vaccine Liberty or Death, with 170 pages, with over 150 references, plus interactive edutainment, in which she devotes Part I of IV to the history and timeline of non-consensual human experimentation.
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