Sensenbrenner Goes Nuts

Here.

My letter follows:

Dear Representative Sensenbrenner,

It was with dismay and shock that I watched you gavel to a close your committee's hearing on PATRIOT Act reauthorization, simply, it seems, because you disagreed with the views of those testifying to your committee.

While you might have been technically correct that the PATRIOT Act itself did not establish indefinite detention, FISA searches, the systematic torture at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram, or Abu Graib (for which no one has paid except for a few low level soldiers), etc., they are all of the same piece: a government that no longer cares about the rule of law or its own Constitution, and a Congress that has supinely given away its oversight authority and responsibility.

The witnesses did talk about sneak-and-peak warrants (which were liberalized by the act) and requests for librarian records, for which there is not even a probable cause showing that the records are needed. In your closing, you asked for a list of people who the witness knew were asked by FBI agents for library records. As I am sure you no doubt know, under the PATRIOT act, it is a crime to tell anyone else if such records have been sought; thus, without any guarantee of immunity, you would expose citizens to criminal liability.

Lastly, it is hard for me to even come up with a word to describe how you closed the hearing; "heavy handed" is the nicest word I can come up with.

Sincerely,

Tom English
Jackson Heights, NY