THE PATRIOT ACT IS A TRIUMPH OF NONDISCRIMINATION | 2004-01-31
Under the Patriot Act, everybody is a potential terrorist. The FBI can search your house randomly, because if the law said anything else, it would be discriminating. Some people have found this shocking.. They shouldn't.
Once you accept the idea that everybody should be treated as a career criminal, you have given up your rights. Once you accept the idea that potential terrorists cannot be profiled, you have declared that you yourself should be treated as a potential terrorist.
Once you accept the idea that illegal aliens are "undocumented aliens," it means you are only in this country because those who issue those documents, the Federal authorities, let you be here.
So those who let you live in this country, the Federal Authorities, have a right of search and seizure which is unlimited.
You cannot limply accept each stage of the process and then suddenly get upset when the logic you have accepted turns into the Patriot Act.
And if everybody is a potential terrorist, if everybody is a criminal, if everybody lives here at the sufferance of those who issue documents, how can we be free?