I have an idea for a new movie. Congressmen and citizens alike will eat it up.
The premise is simple: the nation’s top law enforcer (played by John Ashcroft) undertakes an experiment. He determines to do everything that those in power in representative democracies do wrong, to propose every law that has started landslides into oppression and totalitarianism in other places throughout history. His plan will consist of the introduction of two sweeping pieces of legislation: the Patriot Act and Patriot II.
The title is “How to Lose a Nation in Two Patriot Acts.”
It will detail Ashcroft’s efforts to undo more than 200 years of precedent and principle in a nation that calls itself “The Land of the Free.” He will reinterpret sacred documents like the Constitution and copy tactics from America’s former enemies, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Britain circa 1776. And (in the biggest twist of all), rather than being disgusted and repulsed, Congress and American citizens will fall head-over-heels for his proposals.
The story begins with Ashcroft’s timely introduction of the first Patriot Act, immediately in the wake of terrorist attacks on America. The proposal gives government agencies the ability to gather intelligence about American citizens, law-abiding or not — just like the KGB in Soviet Russia or the Stasi in East Germany. It gives the government the power to conduct major searches of drawers, offices, homes and computers for any investigation without prior notification — just like the British searched colonial Americans’ homes prior to 1776. Ashcroft sells the bill as a stopgap measure for terrorism but specifies no time limit for it, essentially creating a permanent secret police — just like the Nazis did in the 1930s.
The Senate passes the bill, 96-1. The overwhelming victory is somewhat surprising, but it can be explained as a vote out of fear, the shell shock of seeing so many victims of terrorism only months earlier.
The real drama occurs when Ashcroft introduces Patriot II (also known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act) in February of 2003. Just before introduction, he sets the national mood by calling for a “Terrorism Alert Orange,” putting a police and military presence in the streets of major cities and urging citizens to buy survival supplies to prepare for attacks.
Perhaps these are real threats, and perhaps these threats are exaggerated — the movie doesn’t say, and Ashcroft reveals nothing. But they make people in the “Home of the Brave” afraid again and ready to swallow any legislative tranquilizer offered.
So Ashcroft offers one in Patriot II. It goes even further toward total annihilation of the country’s past ideals, those principles that spurred millions of our ancestors into war and death so that they could be protected.
The bill allows for wiretapping of American citizens for 15 days without a court order. It removes limits on police intelligence-gathering and investigations. It calls for stripping the citizenship of any American who contributes to a “terrorist” organization, and defines terrorism so vaguely that it would likely have stripped the citizenship of such celebrated Americans as Martin Luther King, William Lloyd Garrison and Henry David Thoreau if the law was in place during their times of struggle.
It would allow for the creation of databases of law-abiding Americans’ DNA in a time when the power of such information is increasingly dangerous. It would further erode protections of due process and fair trial through allowing for secret and prolonged detentions, secret trials and hush orders on witnesses when speaking to the media. And it would eliminate protections against neighbors and businesses (including bookstores) spying upon citizens, encouraging an environment in which privacy is under assault from all fronts.
The bill would be Ashcroft’s last trial, his last experiment in determining the strength of the foundation of America’s great principles of liberty and self-government. In a sense, it would pit experiment against experiment: the great experiment of representative democracy undertaken by this nation’s founders at the Constitutional Convention against the experiment of the new police state.
The ending? That has yet to be determined, because the bill has just been proposed. Either the American public and its representatives, in a great awakening of conscience, will rise up and ditch Ashcroft and his efforts at destruction, or, in an amazing turn of events, Ashcroft’s experiment will succeed. With the stroke of a pen, he will erase what millions risked their lives to protect — and the people will applaud him.
A sentimental and evocative ending for the older viewers, or a big twist, with heavy irony … the critics love that stuff nowadays. We’ll leave it up to the test audiences.
Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in English and political science.
