The foxes aren’t at the ports, oh no, we’ve put them in Congress, assigning them to guard the hen house. While Americans fret over ceding control of our ports to a foreign power, the real terror threat comes from within, from our United States Congress by way of its vote to renew the Patriot Act.

We have been told that renewal of this act is key to preventing more terror attacks in our country.  Now, anyone who is targeted by law enforcement officials as a terrorist, can be dealt with in the future, using the same methods as those used on drug dealers and other criminals.

Opponents of the act have criticized it as being weighted too heavily in the interests of law enforcement, and too lightly concerned with protecting American civil liberties.  It appeared to be summed up most succinctly in the words of Senator Robert Byrd who said, “The erosion of freedom rarely comes  as an all-out frontal assault……….it is a gradual, noxious creeping cloaked in secrecy and glossed over by reassurances of greater security.”  Byrd was one of only ten senators who opposed the renewal of the act.

Paradoxically, the founders of our country, all men of wealth and privilege, were deeply concerned about the rights of the individual.  In fact, they pretty much said it all in the Articles of the Constitution and the Amendments so why, why, if it ain’t broke do we need to fix it?  We have been through so many actual wars in this country – wars of defense against aggression and now, faced with a pseudo war which more and more people are beginning to question and rail against, we are burdened with a Patriot Act.  Who are the patriots, anyway? The folks who dream weapons of mass destruction or the rest of the people who are continuing to ask why?

The furor about the ports seems small potatoes when compared to our civil liberties.  Up until now the ports have been loosely overseen by various foreign nations – containers have been sporadically searched and no one has popped out to destroy us.  In fact, vis-à-vis law enforcement agencies, the ports have been virtually overlooked.  Not that I’m advocating bringing in Bush’s buddies to be the keepers of our ports, but it seems to me, the whole fuss has been an administration plot to lure us into going softly into the soft night of a police state.  What better way to deflect attention from the Machiavellian changes to our liberties than to cry out ‘the Arabs are coming, the Arabs are coming’, thereby drowning out the rustlings of our founders, as they turn over in their graves.

I was in New York City on 9/11 - a day beyond horrible-  but even though I lived there for 4 additional years, I never felt the fear that I am now experiencing.  I have read and I have seen how the Germans, for example, ceded their liberties to their government, and I am afraid, as a citizen and as a Jew.  Yes, the real terror fighters are we the people, and we must use our voices, our emails and our letters and most of all, the ballot boxes, to let the foxes know that we are still in charge.