Also this issue:

$afe Streets
Security is an investment.
-Daryl Gale

First Strike
-Mary F. Patel

The Bell Curve
City Paper's weekly gauge of Philly's Quality of Life

March 6-12, 2003

hall monitor

by Daryl Gale

The annals of Philadelphia history are rife with tales of selfless courage in defense of freedom and liberty. The names of the men and women who sacrificed everything to insure the continuation of the glorious republic are known to every schoolchild Thomas Paine, Betsy Ross, Thomas Jefferson, Angel Ortiz okay, we slipped that one in to see if you were paying attention. But itâs true that lately Ortiz, the vociferous councilman at-large, has been sounding the fife and drum in defense of personal liberty and against the USA Patriot Act, passed by Congress in the weeks following 9/11. The USA Patriot Act gives the government expanded powers to follow suspicious types, monitor their movements, listen in on phone conversations and arrest and detain folks without benefit of legal counsel, all in the name of national security. And this, to Ortiz, is totally unacceptable.

"The real irony of the Patriot Act is that it's just plain unpatriotic," Ortiz laughs. "The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence grants every American unalienable rights, and we've allowed the Patriot Act to erode those rights without question. And the worst of it is, if you dare to question the Patriot Act you're immediately labeled unpatriotic. What could be more patriotic than standing up for the rights of citizens and taxpayers? And what could be more unpatriotic than to happily watch those rights trampled upon?"

So passionate is Ortiz about the issue that he's drafted a resolution, to be voted on today in City Council, that denounces the sections of the USA Patriot Act that violate individual rights and calls on City Council to affirm its commitment to freedom and civil liberties. The first line of Ortiz's resolution reads: " the city of Philadelphia recognizes that a threat to any one person's constitutional rights is a threat to the rights of all." But what about the very real threat of terrorism that sparked the Patriot Act in the first place?

"Where are the threats today?" Ortiz asks sarcastically. "What you have today is hysteria and fear, and that's what fueled the Patriot Act. We have the FBI, the NSA [National Security Agency], the Department of Homeland Security and various agencies and departments on heightened alert. We have the most well-trained internal and external security people in the world ready to act. The threat to our personal liberties is far greater than the threat of terrorism. Ben Franklin said those who sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security. I'm paraphrasing him, but that was his point and I agree with it."

According to Ortiz, the USA Patriot Act was nothing more than a well-timed maneuver by the Bush administration to advance the conservative agenda without the sting of public criticism.