Julia Pirnack, Longmont's mayor, recently explained in these pages why she felt city government should not take a position on actions of the Federal government, including the "Patriot" act and its erosion of Constitutional rights. Yet it is the city's librarians who must now hand over a list of what any citizen has been reading, and must keep secret from that citizen the fact that his or her reading choices are being monitored by the Homeland Security Agency. It is the city's police officers who may soon (if Patriot Act II passes) be asked to conduct, for the first time in our nation's history, SECRET arrests. It is local school administrators who must now provide addresses and phone numbers of all families with high school boys to the Armed Forces recruiters. It is our citizens and residents whose private information can now be seized without any probable cause or compelling need. And it is our elected officials, who swore to uphold the constitutions of the United States and of Colorado, who must provide guidance to our city workers and our citizens when our basic rights conflict with secret demands from Federal officials.
Over sixty cities, including Denver and Boulder, have passed resolutions and ordinances to help protect their residents' rights. Longmont Citizens for Justice & Democracy will soon be presenting a draft ordinance, reviewed and endorsed by the Boulder County District Attorney, to help safeguard the rights of Longmonters. We're asking our Mayor and council to raise their eyes above the zoning and other vital details that take most of their time, and act on this urgent LOCAL issue. On March 15 we'll be gathering at the library at noon to check out "subversive" books; join us and find out which books make you a "dangerous person"!
Eventually it is likely that many provisions of the "Patriot" acts will be overturned by the courts. But in the current political climate of fear, that will take time and money. In the meantime, many innocent citizens will lose their privacy, their jobs, their freedom, their citizenship or their lives. We need only look back to the McCarthy black lists, J. Edgar Hoover's covert war against civil rights activists, the Nixon "enemies list", admitted torture of suspects by the Chicago police, admitted framing of innocents by the LAPD, the Denver police "spy files", or the reckless police violence in Colorado Springs a few weeks ago, to realize that being innocent does not mean you will be safe from authorities.
Our Constitution is what makes us special; if we surrender it out of fear, then the terrorists have already won; America has been destroyed.
Keith Langley
1614 Donovan Place
Longmont CO 80501
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