Little Hawk, I don't think anyone is trying to say that "Bush and Hitler are moral equivalents."

Reread:—

Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Now read some of the stipulations of the Patriot Act:—

1. It gives carte blanche to the Executive Branch of government to act. It sets aside the Judiciary and Legislative Branches and is no longer answerable to them. No more "checks and balances."
2. It allows random arrests and detention without hearings or trials for anyone or any group designated by the President. It also allows retroactive prosecution.
3. It allows the concealment of Presidential records.
4. It permits secret "military tribunals" for presidentially designated "terrorists."
5. It legalizes searches and seizures without having to establish probably cause.
6. It allows the hitherto unlawful infiltration and surveillance of legal, religious, labor, and political organizations.
7. It allows the wholesale surveillance of private citizens, private business records, and other materials without having to establish of probable cause.
8. It eliminates all e-mail and internet privacy.

Two things that I've heard have happened so far are:—

1. Bookstores and libraries have already received subpoenas asking for the purchase or lending records of their patrons.
2. Several attorneys have reported that heretofore privileged conversations with their clients are being subpoenaed.

Whether this is sort of restriction of the rights of citizens is imposed by Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 or by the Patriot Act in the United States in 2001, it sets a country up for take-over by a dictator. Whether it's done by a slavering madman or an honest and sincere group of nervous patriots, the end results are very unlikely to be anything but disastrous. Restricting the rights of citizens because of "matters of national security" has been the overture of just about every oppressive regime that ever existed.

Sense of history, folks; sense of history. Let's just hope we don't all meet in up the concentration camp. . . .

Don Firth