Koppel rips on PATRIOT

Cory Doctorow 2:03 pm Sat Sep 6, 2003

Ted Koppel went gloriously mad on air last week, tearing apart the dread USA PATRIOT Act. Lisa Rein has the video and the transcript.

The men who drafted our constitution, who framed our civil rights and protected our various freedoms under the law would, I suspect, retch at some of the bone headed, self-serving, misinterpretations of their intentions that they so often use these days to undermine the very freedoms they pretend to safeguard. The miracle of American Law is not that it protects popular speech, or the privacy of the powerful, or the homes of the privileged, but rather, that the least among us, those with the fewest defenses thoses suspected of the worst crimes — the most despised in our midst, are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

That remains as revolutionary a concept now as it was in the 1780s. It makes protecting the country against terrorism excruciatingly difficult, but we cannot arbitrarily suspend the rights of one catagory of suspects without endangering all the others.

(Thanks, Lisa!)

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