Big Brother Is
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By Dean Hartwell
The Pledge of Allegiance says that the
He has, for example, proposed a definition of "terrorist activity" that includes use of any "explosive, firearm or other weapon...with the intent to endanger persons or property." According to the People for the American Way, an animal rights activist who threw a pie at the Secretary of Agriculture engaged in a "terrorist activity."
The Attorney General has also supported sending his agents into churches to eavesdrop on churchgoers his departments suspects are criminals. The agent need not have probable cause, as I noted in a previous column (click here and look for "Guns or Privacy?" 6/4/02).
Now, Ashcroft wants to put citizens he does not like in camps and take away their constitutional rights! Jonathan Turley, professor of constitutional law at George Washington University said that if this plan takes effect, all the Attorney General need do is declare a citizen to be an "enemy combatant" to send them to the camp.
Redefining the word terrorist. Spying on people in places most people consider private. Rounding up political enemies. It sounds like 1984, the book by George Orwell that describes a totalitarian state.
In that book, the government condensed the language to a few basic words so as to discourage freedom of thought. The government told its people that they must agree with their leader, "Big Brother", who, government officials say, watches over them like a Santa Claus. If they disagreed with a Big Brother slogan like "War is Peace," they were labeled ungood and were whisked away to parts unknown.
Compare that to the policies of John Ashcroft. People who say or do something the government does not approve of may be called "terrorists" or "enemy combatants" and taken away from the rest of society.
Big Brother frequently changed enemies. He called Oceania good one day and ungood the next. The public is so brainwashed they no longer care or even notice the contradiction. That sounds like the Bush Administration. Forget about wanting Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" - he is no longer the enemy. Hussein is.
Perhaps Big Brother's best phrase was "Freedom is Slavery." That sounds like Ashcroft. If you don't like the Bush Administration ideas, you are free to join a camp and become a slave.