Producer/Host: Jim Campbell
This program was first broadcast less than a week after the 9-11 attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon. Within days of those attacks, sweeping new so-called anti-terrorism laws were proposed and passed that dramatically reduced Americans civil liberties. Several provisions of one, the PATRIOT Act, are up for extension right now. One allows junior FBI officials, with no court order, to demand to see what books you’ve read, who you’ve written checks to, who the customers of your small business are, what ailments you’ve been treated for – and, by the way, no one is allowed to tell you this is going on? And that is only one of the provisions up for grabs between now and the end of December. As was the case back in 2001, if you have any thoughts on these PATRIOT Act provisions, now is the time to make them known to your congress people, and to your neighbors.
Although the specific bills mentioned in this re-broadcast did not pass exactly as initially proposed, all of the details mentioned in this broadcast have been implemented since then, and we are still living with them today.