If you havent read the transcript of Al Gores speech yesterday to the American Constitution Society, you might want to. The speech, on the true relationship between freedom and security, is actually quite good In case youre not going to follow the link, heres a section that I thought was particularly worth sharing.
I want to challenge the Bush Administrations implicit assumption that we have to give up many of our traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists.
Because it is simply not true.
In fact, in my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama Bin Laden.
In both cases, the Administration has attacked the wrong target.
In both cases they have recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger, while avoiding and neglecting obvious and much more important challenges that would actually help to protect the country.
In both cases, the administration has fostered false impressions and misled the nation with superficial, emotional and manipulative presentations that are not worthy of American Democracy.
In both cases they have exploited public fears for partisan political gain and postured themselves as bold defenders of our country while actually weakening not strengthening America .
In both cases, they have used unprecedented secrecy and deception in order to avoid accountability to the Congress, the Courts, the press and the people.
Al does a nice job of drawing parallels between the increasing privacy within the Executive branch and their demand, at the same time, to know more and more about the American citizens, their reading habits, their shopping records, the websites they visit, etc And he also makes it a point to remind everyone in the audience that existing measures would have foiled the 9/11 attacks had they been implemented correctly Its a very good speech – the kind I wish one of our Democratic presidential contenders were giving.
