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December 3, 2009

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Letter: Patriot Act search abuses disturbing

Monday, Nov. 17, 2003 | 9:51 a.m.

I read the story about the FBI using Patriot Act provisions to obtain financial records of the subjects of the strip-club briberies. These private records are in their banks, brokerage accounts, etc. The same thing is going on in Philadelphia, where the mayor discovered a listening device that had been placed in his office by the FBI.

The Bush administration sold the Congress on the Patriot Act as a weapon in the war on terrorism amid assurances that it would not be used or abused in domestic criminal cases. I fail to understand how the activities of county commissioners, city councilmen and owners of strip clubs qualify as terrorism.

Have we entered into a new era of Big Brother peeking into our bedroom windows, breaking into our homes without warning or announcement, imprisoning us without warrants and with no right to an attorney, the Fifth Amendment or a prompt hearing?

What have we wrought with the election of George W. Bush?

DON MCDONALD

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