The news about the state of our republic is very bad. Not since McCarthyism have we seen civil liberties under assault by Congress, the executive branch and the Supreme Court as they are today. The founders of our republic understood full well the danger to liberty when governments usurp the power of "We the people." Benjamin Franklin put the case for jealously guarding our civil liberties succinctly: "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."

Just 45 days after the September 11, 2001 attacks, Congress passed the "USA PATRIOT Act" with virtually no debate. Of the 435 members of the House, including 6th District Congressman Norm Dicks, only Congressman Dennis Kucinich read the bill prior to its passage. After having read this dangerous piece of legislation, Kucinich voted no. This piece of legislation is destroying our most cherished civil liberties, essentially nullifying the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, the heart of the Bill of Rights.

Without a warrant or probable cause, the FBI can now search your private medical records or access your library records. Your doctor or local library is forbidden from notifying you when these searches take place. The government may search your home while you are away and in some cases even confiscate your property. Judicial oversight of these measures is virtually nonexistent.

President George W. Bush, with the connivance of the Justice Department, the National Security Agency, The CIA, and the FBI has authorized and conducted unlimited illegal surveillance of American citizens, monitored phone, email, and other computer records, arrested citizens without cause, held them incommunicado, "rendered" them for torture to dictatorial regimes around the world, stripped the FISA court of jurisdiction, and used "signing statements" on legislation nullifying Congressional action. How has Congress acted to protect its prerogatives and protect our rights? The Democratic controlled Congress has done nothing to ensure the rights of the "first branch of government," the people's branch, nor has it acted to protect our rights but has, in fact, passed legislation further destroying our rights.

The Democratically controlled Congress passed, with the affirmative vote of Norm Dicks, the Military Commissions Act which removed Habeus Corpus, "The Great Writ," from the Constitution. Going back to the Magna Carta in 1266, Habeus Corpus protects the rights of people who have been arrested: the arresting officials must bring prisoners before a court for a public hearing detailing the charges against them. Congress has given the president the right to designate any citizen an "unlawful enemy combatant," arrest that person and then make that person disappear.

Last October, with Norm Dicks as a co-sponsor, the House passed, 404 to 6, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007." The legislation originated in the House Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence on which Norm Dicks serves. This truly chilling piece of legislation, taken directly from the playbook of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the McCarthyites of the 1950s, is aimed not at actual hate crimes or even terrorist conspiracies but at thinking, talking, or even Web surfing. It targets beliefs rather than actions. It is, in short, a "thought-crimes bill," and sets the stage for further criminalization of protest. The bill moves toward designating people as terrorists based not on what they do, but on what they say and what they think.

These moves by Congress, and many others with similar ramifications, supported by Democrats and approved, every one, by Norm Dicks are neutering our Bill of Rights and making a mockery of the Constitution. As the great civil libertarian Frank J. Donner, in his book, The Age of Surveillance: The Aims and Methods of America's Political Intelligence System, argued, "the true goal of domestic intelligence was not to prevent or punish criminal activity, but to protect existing power structures and suppress dissent. Domestic intelligence, he said, is by nature 'future-oriented:' it is not looking for criminals, but potential criminals, and it does so by relying on 'ideology, not behavior, theory not practice.' Anyone who thinks the wrong way could at some point act the wrong way - - so they have to be watched." [James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, "Don't Even Think About It: Enter The Thought Police," Mother Jones, 24 January 2008.] We must move to restore the hard-fought rights established in the Constitution of our republic.

Dr. Gary Murrell would vote to restore Habeus Corpus, to restore the republic, to overturn PATRIOT Act I and II, the Military Commissions Act, the Homegrown Terrorism Act, and any other piece of legislation that attempts to destroy our liberty by promising illusory enhanced security.