Thanks for the links

All kinds of bloggers from all walks of life have been linking to the Reform the Patriot Act blog.

The Smedley Log writes that even folks who don’t normally side with the ACLU may want to listen on this issue:

The ACLU has been running a blog aimed at reforming the Patriot Act. I know some people out there have a knee-jerk response to any sentence that includes the letters A, C, L and U in close proximity, but even many of those folks are justifiably concerned about the Patriot Act – especially when lawmakers’ bandy about ideas like making it permanent and doing away with certain sunset provisions.

The Impolitic worries that we’re going back to the “Bad Old Days”:

It’s official – the Bush administration will go to any lengths to abridge your civil rights in order to maintain their veil of secrecy and deceit and hold onto to their political power. The Patriot Act, allegedly enacted to “protect” us from terrorism has not resulted in a single meaningful terrorist conviction but has been used to prosecute ordinary crimes that are covered under other statutes and is being used to spy on activist groups engaging in lawful political speech. The FBI confirmed it has at least 1,200 pages of records stemming from their surveillance of the ACLU, Greenpeace and other similar activist groups like MoveOn.

Those are the ones we know about because the ACLU forced the admission with an FOIA request. Chances are, if you’re blogger or journalist that hasn’t been a dutiful steno for the White House press releases, they have records on you as well. I doubt Rush, O’Reilly, John Hindracker, Glenn Reynolds, or the Mudville Gazette for instance have anything to worry about, but for the rest of us, if you’ve been wondering why your phone or computer is running erratically, don’t discount that you’re on the White House enemies list. Feels like the 60s all over again.

Here are some more of the folks who have linked to us in the last month: Voices of Central Pennsylvania, A Breed Apart – The Piedmont (SC) chapter of the Progressive Librarians Guild, Library stuff, Marnie Webb at ext 337, Suburban Guerrilla, Fabulous Girl’s Boudoir, And we shall march.

Thanks for your support. Keep up the good fight!