Interviews with Truthout.org: on Homeland Security

Patriot Act ends the right to judicial review

A: Yes. The Bill of Rights is on life support. The Patriot Act symbolizes the death of the 4th Amendment and the right to judicial review, and the right to a trial has just been sabotaged by Obama. It is as if a coup has occurred. Any one of these alone is bad enough, but when you add them all up, we are on some pretty thin ice right now as a free society. Our freedom is hanging in thin air right now. There is now a legal basis for curtailing that freedom.

Bloated military budget enables knee-jerk military solutions

A: Well, the bloated military budget is first of all, not good for our safety, and neither is the militarization of our foreign policy. Neither is a good thing and I think they enable a knee-jerk military solution to all problems and it is not a good thing for us to have this ready default to engage militarily. It's extremely expensive and we can't sustain it, and again, the more we create renewable, secure energy sources domestically, the less we need to do what we're doing internationally. Our program is to downsize our military by at least 50%, if not more.

Q: And you say use it more for defense, rather than offense?

A: Yes, and not make it the crux of our international relations and use international law and working through international governmental bodies to resolve conflicts.