I protest.

Welcome to the New Amerika.

In the BBC article "Librarian's stand against federal law" their correspondent Humphrey Hawksley interviews a Berkeley librarian about the so-called "USA PATRIOT" act. The librarian, Jacky Griffin, is director of the Berkeley city library; she says what most of us already know, that not only can the FBI now demand any information at all from her, but she is prevented from even mentioning that they've made that demand:

"All of this is secret," she says. "All the courts operate in secret.

"The subpoenas are done in secret and any librarian who is approached is not allowed to talk about it under penalty of going to jail."

With her is Linda Maio, a soft-spoken city councillor who technically is Jacky's boss.

"But couldn't the city stand behind you on this," she says "and defend you?"

Jacky cuts her off. "I'm not a lawyer, but my guess is that I would be rotting in jail while you and the FBI are arguing it out in court."

My fairly educated guess is that Jacky is right.

At the other extreme, Hawksley stopped for a few interviews in the town of Alliance, Nebraska, population 10,000. According to the city manager,

"We all support the Patriot Act here" ... "And we watch out for any strangers coming into town too."

There's a reason Nebraska is known by the more sophisticated as a "flyover" state. Reading this, I would certainly not want to drive through it. With my long hair and California license plates, I could very easily end up among the disappeared. And if you think I'm being "shrill" or "paranoid," consider Jose Padilla, who has been held without charge, trial, access to a lawyer or to his family for more than two years.

As if the city manager wasn't enough, though, we have this blinkered idiot:

As he was speaking a young woman in jeans and denim jacket, her hair tied decisively back, got out her four wheel drive and came across.

"I think it's right," she said. "Terrorism has gone too far overboard and I will give up some of my freedoms to know that I am safe."

For her, I of course quote that noted terrorist Benjamin Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

She wants safety? I'll give her safety! She would probably be very safe in the cell next to Padilla! How dare she advocate trading not only her own liberty but mine and that of my children for some illusory "safety?" When she has traded her freedom away entirely, who will then keep her "safe" from those who purport to provide that safety? The citizens of North Korea are pretty "safe," too, for some definition of "safe." Safe to starve to death, anyway.

Hawksley ends his report

in the Arab quarter of Brooklyn, where stories are plentiful about harassment of the Arab-Muslim community.

The talk is not only about Guantanamo Bay, but also about young men disappearing for weeks on end, forced deportations, being hauled in for questioning for speaking out of line.

They talk in detail about Section 215 - the bit which deals with personal records, and of the Metropolitan Corrections Facility on the corner of 29th Street and Third Avenue, where people are held without trial and access to lawyers.

"I don't know what's happening to this country," said Ihab Tabir, a Brooklyn immigration lawyer who is originally from Jordan.

"If you say anything against what is happening in Iraq for example, you can be arrested.

"You can't speak openly on the street anymore. I tell you, everyone is afraid."

Let me repeat this: "If you say anything against what is happening in Iraq for example, you can be arrested."

This is what Franklin meant. Is this "the land of the free?" Is this the country that embraces "freedom of speech?" Apparently not. Many have claimed that this is the United States which is somehow "special" and therefore "it can't happen here." Well I'll tell you that it is happening here. When an Arab immigrant in Brooklyn can't freely express himself in public, how long is it before they get to the rest of us? How long will it be before they shut me down for daring to criticize their actions? And by "they" I of course mean our so-called "Justice" Department, under the direction of John Ashcroft, religious zealot and would-be student of Heinrich Himmler.

This is why I'm a member of the ACLU. As I've written here before, it was only when the ACLU formally announced their opposition to the so-called "USA PATRIOT" act that I joined. Since then I've seen them steadily working to defeat Ashcroft and the Act itself. The ACLU is one of the tiny number of organizations actively working for, rather than against, our liberties. Actively opposing this kind of abuse of power is the only way we will keep the freedom we tend to take for granted. Despite the ignorant assertions of that stupid woman in Nebraska.

Or, alternatively, we could all find ourselves living in something very like Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. Or perhaps like the Islamic theocracy in Iran, only in our case it would be a Christian theocracy.

Personally, I would rather not be jailed, tortured or executed for my beliefs.

Would you?