Civil liberties under attack

Re “Privacy Guardian Is Still a Paper Tiger,” Feb. 20

While the president announces that he cares as much about the civil rights of Americans as their safety and security, it’s revealing that he has only taken steps to further the latter. It may seem to him that to create a civil liberties panel would be in self-conflict; that is, a group of people he hires to tell him what he can’t do.

The Declaration of Independence posits that it is the responsibility of the citizenry to hold its national government accountable. If the leadership won’t take action, individuals need to band together to force the issue.

For a president who holds the same core political values as I do, it is disappointing that he has mismanaged the implementation of nearly every domestic and foreign policy overseen by his administration. Good ideas, wrong people. Keep the ideas and change the people -- to those who have proved they are likely to get the job done.

PAUL FUNG

Monterey Park

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I’m actually glad that the White House has not formed the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board.

Asking the Bush administration to form a committee “whose purpose is to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected in the fight against terrorism” is like asking a pickpocket to hold your wallet.

DON LANDIS

Carlsbad

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A White House Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board is a joke. The reality is we wouldn’t need it if everything our elected officials did was a matter of public record in the first place.

Our elected officials should be wholly accountable to the taxpayers who fund their salaries and afford their security, healthcare and pension (while many of us are losing ours).

I say, open everything up. Only then would we have a chance at making government truly accountable to the people.

GRAHAM BECKER

Oak Park