———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Date: Mon, Sep 15, 2008 at 12:47 PM
Subject: Alert: BORDC Issues New Booklet, The “War on Terror” and The Constitution

BORDC Issues The “War on Terror” and The Constitution

“This booklet .. provides the basic tools with which the citizenry can begin to act to make this America again.”
- Nat Hentoff

The Northampton, MA, September 17, 2008 — “The ‘War on Terror’ and The Constitution,” a new booklet by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), is a concise summary of how key anti-terrorism laws and policies enacted since September 11, 2001, affect Americans’ constitutional rights. The new laws are organized into chapters corresponding to sections of the U.S. Constitution and articles of the Bill of Rights. Stories in each chapter show how the lives of innocent Americans and foreign detainees have been affected. BORDC is issuing the 24-page booklet on Constitution Day, the 220th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution.

Nancy Talanian, BORDC’s director and the booklet’s author, sees the booklet as a roadmap to show Americans the current status of their rights and liberties compared to where they should be according to the Constitution. “Armed with that knowledge,” she said, “they can work with one another and with their legislators to restore the essential rights they have come to expect.”

Nat Hentoff, a nationally recognized authority on the Bill of Rights, agrees. “No matter who the next president is or what the composition of the next Congress is,” he said, “the extent and the depth of what the Bush administration has done to the Constitution and to our standing in the world will remain unless and until enough Americans know how much remains to be done-and this booklet by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee provides the basic tools with which the citizenry can begin to act to make this America again.”

According to Talanian, “We now have substantial proof that human failures within our government, not the laws and policies in place prior to September 11, 2001, contributed to the terrorist attacks on that day. Furthermore, no proof has been offered to substantiate executive branch claims that new laws and policies such as the USA PATRIOT Act have made this country safer. One could argue that the government is wasting resources prying into the lives of innocent people and storing millions of their private records in databases and treating potentially all of us as terrorism suspects.”

“The ‘War on Terror’ and the Constitution” (24 pages, $3.00) is available from the Bill of Rights Defense Committee at www.bordc.org/store.php. Download the booklet (PDF, 6.7 MB) at www.bordc.org/resources/war_on_terror.pdf.

In 2002, BORDC spearheaded a nationwide campaign that put city, county, and state governments on record for upholding their residents’ constitutional rights. The passage of eight statewide resolutions and more than 400 local resolutions and ordinances led Congress to strengthen its oversight when it reauthorized the PATRIOT Act in 2006. BORDC’s current focus is on the People’s Campaign for the Constitution, a grassroots effort to hold members of Congress accountable to their oaths to uphold the Constitution.

# # #

Links:

Download high and low resolution PDFs of The “War on Terror” and the Constitution: www.bordc.org/press/war_on_terror.php

Order booklets online: www.bordc.org/store.php

Bill of Rights Defense Committee, www.bordc.org

People’s Campaign for the Constitution, www.constitutioncampaign.org

Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Address: 8 Bridge Street, Suite A, Northampton, MA 01060
Web: www.bordc.org/
Email: info [at] bordc.org
Telephone: 413-582-0110
Fax: 413-582-0116

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Tagged: Bill of Rights Defense Committee bordc booklet civil liberties war on terra war on terror terrorism

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