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Increasing Use of Terror Laws in Non-Terror Cases

The Associated Press reports that anti-terror laws are being used increasingly against "common criminals."

Bush is calling for expanded Patriot Act powers.

The San Francisco Chronicle says the Patriot Act went too far and Americans are rising up against it. The Miami Herald notes the sweeping new powers have few checks:

Two years into the war on terrorism, federal law enforcers conduct secret searches, indefinitely detain ''special interest'' suspects and mine data bases for personal information on Americans. Yet we still don't know how effective our government has been in protecting our homeland.

It's time for Congress and Americans to press the administration for straight talk and smart policy. In no case should Congress grant greater federal policing powers unless the administration demonstrates that it hasn't abused the broad power it now wields with the Patriot Act and that there would be sufficient oversight.

Doug Giebel in Counterpunch says we are ending America as we know it.

The neo-conservative Bush Administration "plan" to remake our American nation intends to alter forever the relationship between government, business and the people. Until those tragic but fortuitous events of September 11, 2001, this long-simmering scheme was more wished-for than real.

From the beginning, this administration has fostered the notion that a "war" against "terrorism" can literally be "won." How will we know? President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld offer no specifics. Pushing Patriot Act excess as if it were vitamin-enriched candy, Attorney General Ashcroft and his crew seem to believe nearly anyone alive is a potential terrorist. Who knows if my five-year-old neighbor will grow up to follow in the footsteps of Timothy McVeigh? Can the Ashcroft Justice Department devise a test to identify future suicide bombers?

If not, should everyone be locked up, just to be on the "safe" side?

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