We’re in danger of losing some of our most fundamental liberties. Our government can now spy on us, take away our property, even lock us up without conditions of release.

While some Democrats have fought this erosion of our rights, this isn’t a problem that began with the current Bush administration.

Many of these laws were put in place when we had a Democratic President and/or a Democratic Legislature. Laws like the 1995 Clinton Anti-Crime Bill, the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act were given to us by the Clinton administration before the events of 9.11.01. These laws gave us almost everything we have under the PATRIOT Act.  (these were all things Paul Richmond critiqued and lobbied against at the time.)

While he has taken some good stands on issues of individual rights, Congressman Norm Dicks has been a booster of many of these policies that undercut all our rights. He voted in favor of the Patriot Act.  Most recently he Co-Sponsored something called the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act (http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml) .” This will create a study group that will create even more dangerous bureaucracy and more crimes under the label of “terrorism.”  It will even look at ways "ideology" can be criminalized as "terrorism."

Historically, times of war, (whether the war was necessary or manufactured,) have been times when liberties are lost.  This isn’t far out left wing thinking, the late, very conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist wrote an entire book on this premise called “All the Laws but One.”

While Congressman Dicks has given a lot to this district, his approach is the wrong one here.  We don’t need to keep looking for enemies.  Our present actions create many of them. One example is that those we are calling “terrorists” were actually created largely with funding by the U.S. government.  Dicks was on the committee that actually voted to give funding to Bin Laden and others, and by some accounts, led the effort.  If one were to apply laws Mr. Dicks has voted for, including the PATRIOT Act, he and others could be found in violation of federal law for this alone.  This illustrates much of what’s wrong with the process.

The Democratic Party which gave us the landmark Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's has lost its way.  We now have nearly as many Black people in prison as we had in slavery prior to the Civil War.  And yet too many of our candidates are basing their campaigns around building more jails.  Enough!

We don’t need our government to keep taking away liberties.  Many, many brave people fought to long and hard for us to get them.

What are needed are people who will look critically at what we are facing and then both speak and act honestly.  People who are willing to put themselves on the line to turn this around. 

This is why we need Paul Richmond in Congress.  Paul is someone who has fought for these rights and liberties all his life and gotten results. If elected Paul will bring this lifelong commitment to justice to Congress.  He will move to revoke PATRIOT and the other laws that take away our rights.

With your help, we can get Paul Richmond in Congress.

We Can Do Better.