You see, today the American government tells us that it can spy on us whenever and however it likes.

It can read our e-mail and postal mail, track our financial records, pry into our medical histories, force libraries to turn over lists of the books we read, force internet service providers to turn over records of our surfing habits, and tap our phones and record our calls.  

It can deny us the right to travel without certain government approved "papers."

It can send its agents into our homes without warrant and remove whatever it wishes, without ever notifying us.  

The president claims that he can seize anyone, including American citizens, and turn them into non-persons. The government – the American government – can arrest you without warrant, put you into prison without charge, and hold you for as long as it pleases.  

It can deny you legal council and try you before a military court, where none of the regular rules of evidence and reasonable person standards apply, and where your guilt will be assumed. It can subject to you "enhanced interrogation techniques" (torture, by any other name – "Ve hev vays of making you talk"), and you will have no recourse.  

Your family may not be permitted to know where you are.  

President George W. Bush (a member of the party that once prided itself on being the "party of limited government," and that even now prides itself on being the party that brought down the Evil Empire) has decided that he can ignore whatever laws he chooses. He in fact is the law, in his own opinion.  

Further, he tells us that what he and the members of his administration do is not open to public scrutiny for "national security" reasons, that they are not accountable to anyone. In fact, they bristle if you question them at all, and suggest that maybe you don't have the best interests of the country in mind. 

The Dream That Was America Or Moscow On The Potomac