I want to thank the organizers of the peace rally for inviting me to speak.  It is great to see so many people spend their Saturday afternoon trying to advance the cause of peace and freedom.  Our country needs to return to the kind of activism that has made large ideas possible so many times in American history.

          The large idea that brings us together today is the principle that w:st="on">America should never launch an aggressive war no matter how brutal and corrupt a foreign government might be.  It is not the prerogative of their own, to judge another nation’s government on moral grounds and then take unilateral military action to impose its will.  There is a forum for dealing with tyrants like Saddam Hussein and Slobadon Milosovic.  That forum is the community of nations as expressed by international organizations like NATO and the UN.  Mr. Milosovic is right now facing justice for his crimes at the International Court at The Hague.  That is happening largely because of the effective exercise of the military strength of the United States.  Yet, there is no controversy in this.  That is because in the Balkans conflict the United States organized an international force with an international face to bring an end to tyranny in Kosovo and   Because of George Bush’s refusal to work through international organizations in dealing with Iraq the United States is now hated and vilified in many parts of the world.  It is because of George Bush’s militarism thatU.S soldiers are just about the only troops trying to pacify Iraq U.S. soldiers who are often paying the ultimate price for those efforts.  Egotistical militarism is also why the treasury of the United States is just about the sole source of funds for liberating and rebuilding.

Unless Congress takes action by this fall to renew the Patriot Act, that disgraceful legislation will thankfully come off the books.  But the Bush administration argues that the Patriot Act is an essential tool of the battle against terrorism that should be enacted again.  Yet, the Patriot Act has never been limited to investigating terrorism.  By far the majority of federal investigations using the extraordinary powers of the Patriot Act focus on U.S.citizens and have nothing to do with terrorism.  The Act is used by the IRS to imprison taxpayers.  The Act is used by the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to prosecute gun owners.  The Act was recently used by the FBI to break up a whorehouse in New Orleans and to prosecute a gentlemen’s club in Las Vegas.  The Bush administration has not identified a single terrorist plot that has been thwarted by the use of the Patriot Act.  There is simply no reason at all to renew this oppressive, un-American legislation.

          Second subject:

When nations are at war, soldiers are captured by the opposing side.  The captured soldiers become POWs.  POWs are traded or held until the end of the war.  This is the enemy combatant doctrine that has been a part of the law of war for thousands of years.  The Bush administration has put couple of new twists on the principle.
The first twist is that POW status continues indefinitely even after the war is over.Afghanistan was over in January, 2002.  The Taliban was forced from power and a new government had been installed.  The war inIraqis over.  Saddam Hussein’s regime joined the dustbin of history almost a year ago.  Yet, the United States still incarcerates hundreds of foreign nationals as POWs.  Indeed, the United State has created its own law-free zone in Guantanamo Bay where people, including children, can be imprisoned forever without benefit of a charge or a trial or a means to obtain their freedom in any way.  It is little different than slavery.  It is a disgrace to our nation’s honor and to our great national history.

The other twist the Bush administration has is that POW status is not for soldiers only.  By far, most of America’s enemy combatants were never a part of a national army or even an organized fighting force.  It appears that most were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.  At least two of the POWs, Jose Padillo and Jasser Hamdi, are U.S. citizens that have no proven ties to the Taliban or to the Saddam Hussein regime.  Yet, as people born into freedom, both of those men have spent more than a year locked away in isolation with no access to family or friends, without a charge, without an attorney, without the right a petition a court and without hope for justice.  It is little different from the criminal procedure practices of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein.

Unfortunately, for the first time since the Bill of Rights was enacted in 1791, suddenly here in our 21^st Century under the so-called USA Patriot Act, the powers of our federal government have all but ended any right to personal privacy in most aspects of our lives.  Even in the absence of any proof that a particular crime has been committed or any proof that the suspect may have done something wrong, a Top Secret Washington Court can now allow the CIA and FBI to:

1.      Break into your home and take some of your belongings.  The homeowner may never know what the government has done.

 2.      Banks, physicians, libraries, schools and just about anyone else can be forced to divulge their records and everything they know about you while prohibited under pain of imprisonment from informing you of what the government has done.

 3.      All of your telephone conversations can be tapped.  You e-mail and web visits can be monitored.  Your bank accounts, credit cards and credit history can be investigated without your knowledge and leaving no evidence of the FBI search behind.

All this and much more can now be done to every American citizen under the Patriot Act.

           This law is being fought in the courts.  Hopefully, the Bill of Rights still has strong standing in the courts.  This law is being fought by the state governments and by hundreds of American cities and towns.  Alaska, Hawaii Vermont and New Mexico have already passed state laws denouncing the Patriot Act and defying some of its provisions.  Other states will likely follow.  At last count, 235 local government resolutions have been passed condemning the Patriot Act and many more will certainly come.  Finally, this law is being fought on the field of public opinion, including in forums like this one this afternoon.

Do your part for the cause of freedom.   Pick up some of the flyers being distributed today.  Show them to your friends and family and encourage them to help defend their own freedom.  Circulate the upcoming petitions to ban the Patriot Act.  Register to vote.  Attend your city council meeting in support of freedom when the Patriot Act issue is placed before the council in every city in Hampton Roads sometime very soon.  Write to your State delegate and your congressman saying that the Patriot Act and other oppressive practices should be abolished.   Let just about everyone you know find out that our country is rapidly losing the very freedoms that have made the United States the greatest nation in the history of the world.  And show our President and our Congress that the best patriotism in America is to stand up for the freedoms that almost all Americans hold dear.

Thank you for your hearts and your minds and your hands, your legs and your voice in this effort to preserve fundamental American freedom.  In the end, our nation will defeat the murderers of the present era and remain free just as the United States of America has always been free.