Democracy Rallies in the 9th Inning!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/law/09/26/patriot.act/index.html

Federal judge rules 2 Patriot Act provisions unconstitutional

Finally some news I don't want to make fun of!

"In place of the Fourth Amendment, the people are expected to defer to the executive branch and its representation that it will authorize such surveillance only when appropriate."

The government "is asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. The court declines to do so," Aiken said.

This is very good news. I live in New York. I've lived in New York for a very long time now. (discounting summer and winter breaks for school I've lived here for 7 years) I was about a mile and half or so from the towers when they fell. Roughly the distances from my house in Westford to Dunc's house and back. I work two blocks from Ground Zero. Back at school I lived below the quarantine zone and had to wear a painters mask just to walk around. Daryl, John and I bought hard helmets and gas masks, donned I heart NY shirts and defied Giuliani to go down and help on the rescue effort. We bought eye drops and carried them around with signs we put on our backs so anyone who needed them could holler at us. We went each night until the rescue effort was called off. The night it rained I don't think I've ever been so cold in my life. Being a bit of optimist, even at that time, a commented that it was good, at least anyone trapped down there might get a mouth full of water. Being a realist Daryl commented they were more likely to drown. That night we worked the bucket line moving rubble back. And as you know, we found no one. My point is I understand the desire to go after terrorists. Back at school my buddy Brad had to be evacuated from his dorm. He stayed with my roommate and I. He's a nice guy, soft spoken, polite, but as I he sat there in my room scared he looked at my roommate and I, well, not exactly looked at as, more he looked in our general direction. He couldn't quite meet our faces. Anyway. When the story first broke that Afghanistan might have been involved he said something to the effect of, 'We need to bomb them. We need to bomb them now and wipe them off the face of the Earth.' This was quite out of character for Brad but it was the general tone of New York. When the UA on 14th Street was showing free movies my buddy Josh and I decided to go. We walked right up the middle of broadway. There were no cars. There were no people. It was like a scene from Omega man. Ash, imagine the walk between your and Ginny's office, middle of the day and you see no one. No cars. No people. Just one step removed from having tumble weed blowing around. It was strange. And when we got to 14th street we stood around outside staring at the Empire State Building til the last second before we had to go in. Just stared trying to lock it in our minds cause we honestly thought it might be gone by the time we got out two hours later. All this by way of saying, I get it. We need to be vigilant. We genuinely can't go through it again. But here's the thing. Back then I was still proud to be an American. I thought that we were, in 9 ways out of ten, maybe 99 ways out of a 100 the best country on the planet. Now its 6 years later and I don't feel that way. But thanks to Judge Ann Aiken of the US district court for the district of Oregon I feel a bit better.

I know I've let bits and pieces of my 9-11 experiences slip out here and there in stories. Maybe I'll do a post about it sometime. Felt good to get a bit of it 'out there.' And I am serious. We've (not us personally, but our government) done some deplorable things in the past six years but more over we done something far worse, we've eroded our constitution, weakened the legislative and judicial branches of government and left our country's democracy weakened.

Benjamin Franklin once said something to the effect of, those who abandon liberty for temporary safety diserve nether liberty nor safety. And he was right.

A lot of right wing kooks are probably going to rip Judge Aiken a new one, so if you feel the way I do, leave her Judicial Assistant a message, 541 431 4140, but you should probably do it after business hours.