A Prayer for America: on Civil Rights

Prayer for America: Why put aside Constitutional justice?

I offer this prayer for America.
• Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask, Why should America put aside guarantees of Constitutional justice?
• How can we justify in effect canceling the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments?
• We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and Internet surveillance with judicial supervision, let alone without it.
• We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.
• We cannot justify giving the attorney general the ability to designate domestic terror groups.
• We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere, such as medical records and financial records.
• We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance.