Steve Quayle News Alerts

August 19, 2003
Contact: Ellie McDaniel
703-321-8585

Larry Pratt, Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, put out
the following statement in response to today's Bush administration
advocacy of the Patriot Acts I & II. (Patriot II is currently under
consideration.)

"Attorney General John Ashcroft claims that Patriot I has saved the
country from additional September 11-style attacks, and that we
should have passed it before the attack. When the bill was still
before the Congress, Ashcroft was asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
which of the new powers being given the federal government would
have helped ward off September 11. Ashcroft answered that none
would have.

"If Patriot II had been law of the land when Deacons for Defense
were using guns to defend civil rights workers in the 1960's, they
would have been declared a terrorist organization. As such they
could have been arrested without charges, entitled to no lawyer, and
kept incommunicado as long as the government chose," Pratt said.

"If Patriot II had been the law of the land two years ago, Klamath
Falls farmers would have suffered the same fate. In that case,
using 'scientific findings' subsequently shown to be fraudulent,
federal officials shut down the water supply of Klamath farmers.
This was ostensibly to protect fish stocks. Farmers (typically with
guns in their trucks) participated in civil disobedience at the site
of the main water valve. Somehow unknown individuals were able to
open up the water supply from time to time.

"The Klamath farmers would have been declared a terrorist
organization and suffered the same fate as the Deacons for Defense.

"Under Patriot II, the Civil Rights movement would have failed, and
the Klamath farmers would have lost their family farms.

"If Patriot II passes, a substantial number of political lobbies
(including Gun Owners of America) could be declared terrorist
organizations by an administration that simply dislikes their methods
and goals. For details, please see http://gunowners.org/patriotii.htm
on the GOA website.

"All this in the name of fighting terrorism?"

-GOA-

-----------------------------------

Larry Pratt is the Executive Director for Gun Owners of
America, a national gun lobby with over 350,000 members located at
8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151 and at
http://www.gunowners.org on the web.

Either Larry Pratt or another GOA spokesman is available for
press interviews or talk shows.