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Riva Enteen is the program director for the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.  She spoke with KPFA's Guns and Butter radio team for a show that aired today, January 15, 2003.  Topics covered include the rise of police state powers, and the fact that restrictions serve interests other than so-called security, that in fact were the government interested in long-term security radically different measures would need to be taken.  She discusses how elements of the USA Patriot Act and 30 executive orders (as of August, 2002) directly violate the Constitution to such an extent that they are grounds for impeachment.  She speaks about the local communities passing resolutions to protest and limit the USA Patriot Act's power, but cautions that with the executive orders and the passage of the Homeland Security Act, the threats we face are coming from multiple fronts.

Some media commentators have attempted to spin the issue about legislators not reading the so-called USA Patriot Act before passing it.  Riva Enteen researched what happened, and notes that we were not just dealing with lazy legislators, but an actual and explicit political decision to ram the legislation through without review.  She notes:

"There is a requirement that legislation be available to read before voting ... But that requirement can be suspended by the rules committee, and the rules committee voted to suspend that requirement.  And that rules committee decision had to be voted on by the Congress.  What was interesting is that it was a closed vote in the House;  it was eight votes apart.  So, almost half the House said, "Excuse me, but can we just get a chance to read it before we vote on it?"  It was close, but we lost by eight votes.  And when it came to an up or down vote (the final vote for the bill), it was a landslide because everybody is lockstep with this government because it's all in the name of fighting terrorism."

Listen to the program.  Burn CDs of the MP3 and share it with friends.  The program runs for just under 59 minutes.  It's a large mp3:  about 24 megs.  But it's well worth the download time.  This is one of the most fact filled interviews I've heard on the subject to date.

It's also worth pointing out an ACLU press release and report -- also released on January 15th.  The ACLU details the fact that "Big Brother Is No Longer A Fiction."  Click here to pull up an Indymedia page for further reading.