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Your LEGAL RIGHTS to basic American freedoms are being eroded, infringed, and violated. What are *you* going to do about it?

In the midst of the Democratic presidential primaries, we still have not heard enough from the candidates about something of fundamental importance to us all: our basic freedoms as Americans. Those freedoms, supposedly inalienable, are guaranteed by the Bill of Rights but have been endangered by federal policies since 9/11.

Yet it is the core American rights and freedoms - freedom of speech, of assembly, and of the press, and rights to privacy and a fair trial, that allow us to be advocates for the environment, for peace and justice, for business or healthcare or children, nuclear safety or sustainable energy, right, left, or independent. These rights and freedoms are the political ground we walk on: they provide the stability for us to speak without fear and to act from our conscience on matters we care about. As the War on Terror erodes these freedoms, our ability to access government information, to speak on behalf of our causes, and to organize without fear, are being undermined.

If we wish to maintain our freedoms, we must elect candidates that will uphold the Bill of Rights and assert that freedom is at least as important as security. Yet most of the Democratic presidential candidates have not made promises about exactly HOW they will protect our rights while maintaining our security. Many of them have gone from voting for the Patriot Act to assailing it; few have said whether they would repeal or rescind unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act, of Presidential Executive Orders, or of FBI edicts.

What is important is that we know for certain which candidates will best safeguard the freedoms and rights we hold dear, and that we obtain specific guarantees from the candidates as to what actions they are willing to take. Without these, we run the risk of a new President who allows the loss of our freedoms and the stripping of the Bill of Rights.

So, please, if you care at all about the freedom you have been blessed by as an American, protect those rights for yourself and your children by demanding answers from the Democratic candidates about how *they* will protect them if elected. For us to be assured that our basic freedoms will NOT be compromised, we need explicit promises on how these candidates will uphold the Bill of Rights, and how they will maintain the freedoms that define America.

Therefore we call on you, TODAY, to immediately contact the campaign headquarters of one or more candidates and ask for specifics of how they will protect our freedoms. Ask them if they will repeal the unconstitutional parts of the Patriot Act. Ask them if they will rescind FBI edicts which allow domestic spying on American citizens without a warrant. Ask them if they will put a stop to the parts of Patriot Act II that are already passing Congress. Ask them what they will do to make good on the sacred oath they swear to uphold the Constitution. We all deserve to know their answers.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

• contact both local and national campaigns of one or more of the Democratic presidential candidates; find contact information at http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/candidates.html
• You can use some or all of our suggested questions for the candidates at http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/questions.html
  Sample letter to presidential candidates:

• 3. Contact the media and demand they report on this issue - see our sample letter to the media : http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/Letter.media.html
  Media contact list: http://www.global-dialog.org/democracy/mediacontacts.html
• 4. Forward this message to all of your friends and connections NOW!

New Mexico State Legislative Session 2004

This is it. This is the year that we, as citizens and as a nation, decide whether we will uphold the Bill of Rights - or not. This is the year we will decide whether we will affirm our constitutional rights as American citizens - or not. The year we will claim freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and rights to bear arms, to privacy, and to fair trial - or the year we allow these freedoms to be infringed, degraded, and violated.

It is up to us to decide if we truly care about freedom, about truth, and about the rights that have defined being 'American'. It is up to us to decide if we will hold our elected officials accountable to protect those rights, as they have sworn to do. It is up to us to take action to safeguard these freedoms and to raise our voices in their support - for voices in federal and state government have been cowed, silenced, or deluded into believing that we must give up our rights. Those that shuold be leading us in the tradition of Jeffersno and Madison, to a nation under the rule and protection of law, of and by and for the people, are now actively destroyhing the rights we take for granted.

The Bill of Rights was written as a statement of rights NEVER to be diminished in any way - these rights were the bottom line for the formation of our union, and the contract that holds us together as a people and a culture of freedom.

Now those rights are threatened - by illegal searches made legal, by removal of judicial checks and balances, by wholesale invasions of privacy of every person, business, and organization in this country. They are threatened when our right to dissent is targeted by the FBI, when our email and phones can be tapped at will, when our financial, medical, educational, and all other records can be accessed by merely a letter from the FBI demanding that information, with no justification or proof of wrongdoing. (This last power was granted the FBI when President Bush signed the Intelligence Authorization Act on the day Saddam Hussein was captured).