Excerpts from ACLU's "ORGANIZER TOOL KIT"
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/toolkit/images/folder_insert_final.pdf
Civil Liberties Under Attack
The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks presented our country and its leaders with a profound challenge — keeping America both safe and free. Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s response to 9/11, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, has threatened freedom in America in three profoundly disturbing ways:
By focusing suspicion on groups or individuals, based on religion or national origin alone;
By demanding virtually unchecked authority to snoop and spy on law-abiding Americans not suspected of any crime; and
By shutting down dissent and due process with strategies ranging from secret hearings and detentions, to open disregard of the courts.
Security does not have to come at the expense of freedom, justice, tolerance and equality. To stop the Bush administration from further trampling our Constitutional rights, we need to have our voices heard through legislative pressure and legal action.
"To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists — for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve."
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft
Senate Judiciary Committee
December 6, 2001
"Unpatriotic" Activity: Promoting a Climate of Fear and Intolerance
In addition to increased governmental intrusion into our private lives, we are living in a climate where fear, not values, governs our lives. From Capitol Hill to small towns across America, refusal to conform is being attacked and labeled as unpatriotic."
Former White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer warned Americans to “watch what they say.” And conservative commentators like Bill O’Reilly suggested prosecuting war protesters as "enemies of the state."
People brandishing anti-war signs and slogans have been turned away from public areas, such as commuter trains in Seattle and suburban shopping malls in upstate New York.
Country music stations stopped playing Dixie Chicks songs, and CD burning events have been staged after Natalie Maines, one of the singers in the trio, t old a c oncert crowd in London, "Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas."
During presidential appearances, the Bush administration has herded protesters out of sight into “designated protest zones.” When President Bush made a Labor Day visit to Pittsburgh in 2002, people with pro-Bush signs lined the streets while police, under what they said were orders from the Secret Service, moved dissenters one-third of a mile away. People who refused to be moved were arrested.