kritter

Dear Mr. President,

I, an active duty member of the armed services, wish to voice my support of the Constituitional right from unreasonable and unlawful search. When I joined the military, I took an oath to defend the Constituition of the United States of America against all enemies , foreign and domestic. You also have taken these oaths with the same promise, once in Air National Guard and twice in your terms as president.

The recent domestic spying scandals, in which the National Security Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and our military leaders in the Pentagon monitored, infiltrated, tracked, and investigated fellow U.S. citizens for exercising their Constitutional rights and participating in the American political dialog, worries me. It worries me because it shows that the very freedoms which I volunteered to defend are shouldered aside to protect our country at any cost from terrorism; to drive a nation-state to turn against it's own citizens by creating a state of emergency, to let fear destry freedom. This creates distrust of the government, a problem that is now generations old in this country.

You often state that terrorism cannjot be allowed to win, yet when we marginalize our own freedoms due to fear of attack, we have let the terrorist win. This is not a statement from the fringe; members of the military are trained to fight terrorist worldwide. We know more about thier goals and techniquies then most Americans, and we know that when we spy upon each other, when we attack each other politically and refuse to allow any dissent, they laugh at us. They know they are winning, and their goals will be attained.

The groups that have been spied upon are not threats to the security of the United States. They are quite obviously not connected to violent international terrorism. Some of their opinions are strong, and far from the political mainstream, but they are joining in the centuries-old political discussion that makes the gears of democracy turn in the United States. If they disagree with you, it's not because they don't love America. They have a different vision in mind of the way things should be, and they want to be heard and respected, their ideas considered, not marginilized and made criminal. Stop the spying now; there is nothing we have to fear from fellow Americans.

This is not a mutiny, and neither I nor anyone I know in the military have any intention of disobeying orders, stopping work or otherwise breaking that same oath that I am citing in defense of the Constitution. I only wish to voice my concern with the direction our country has taken, and the eroding of freedom that has resulted from our fears of terrorism. We can defend ourselves while maintaining the rights all Americans had before September 11. Many Amrican warriors have fallen throughout our history to defend our Constitution, and to defend freedom around the world. Don't let their sacrifice lose it's meaning now.



PEACE!!!!!!!!