Bill Would Unleash Thought Police

* Regarding the new legislation providing for the arrest of individuals before they have committed a crime (“Wilson Signs Bill Allowing Arrests Before Crime Is Committed,” Oct. 18):

Now that the thought police have been unleashed upon us, they might as well lock me up and throw away the key.

The pictures in my head relating to what ought to be done to the sponsors and ratifiers of this legislation are the imaginary equivalent of a class A felony--I would plead self-defense.

There hasn’t been a totalitarian regime yet that hasn’t twisted the legitimate fear of crime by their citizens into a convenient smoke screen for the arbitrary exercise of state power. China, the former USSR, Hitler’s Germany--all suspended individual human rights in the name of preserving order and safety.

The concept of arresting people for crimes they have not yet committed turns our entire constitutional system on its head. The people behind this legislation are at best well-intentioned ignoramuses and at worst self-serving manipulators.

In order to perpetuate the current prohibition or indulge their puritanical indignation, they would jettison the very soul of the “last best hope of mankind.” They are traitors to the American Dream.

As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently stated: “Those who would trade their liberty for security deserve neither.”

RICHARD SAWICKI

North Hollywood