Stripping Away Liberty With Each Passing Law

If Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft isn’t the most dangerous man in America, I can’t imagine who is. “Justice Dept. May Pursue Wider Power to Arrest Terror Suspects” (Feb. 8) refers to a draft of a bill that the attorney general’s office would like to float before Congress, which would circumvent the Freedom of Information Act. This would allow secret arrests of anyone the government feels like arresting, without disclosing their names. Under the FOIA this is illegal, and it should be illegal. The fact that they are dubbing this “Patriot Act II” makes me even more uneasy. How about “Kristallnacht II: the Final Solution.” Feeling any safer?

Sorry, I gotta go. My mood ring just turned “orange.”

William Tierney

Hermosa Beach

*

Re “U.S., in Challenge to Moussaoui Case Ruling, Seeks Halt to Proceedings,” Feb. 8: The government finds the 6th Amendment rights to a defense lawyer, to subpoena defense witnesses, to confront prosecution witnesses, to exclude unreliable hearsay and to be tried by an impartial jury inconvenient? No problem! Just cancel Zacarias Moussaoui’s federal trial and send him to Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal trial, or no trial at all. Condemn him and execute him. Or execute him without a trial, as President Bush boasted of suspected terrorists in his State of the Union speech.

That solves the short-run problem of what to do with Moussaoui but in one easy stroke tears away America’s mantle of liberty and justice for all. Lady Liberty will be left cowering in shame.

Carol Boyk

Los Angeles

*

News Item: Iraqi scientists talk privately to United Nations inspectors (Feb. 8). I am pleased that this milestone has been achieved and has moved Iraq toward a freer society.

Now if only Ashcroft would let his prisoners talk privately to their lawyers, we in the United States could also have a freer society.

John R. Shiban

Westlake Village