Liberty Bell - June Edition

Welcome

It has been a while since our last newsletter. We had some challenges with our newsletter delivery system but I am happy to report that we are now using a different system which is much more reliable than our old system. In this issue you will want to read Norm Farley’s article on the Patriot Act. This is part one; part two will be in a future issue. Norm has done a lot of research on this subject and you will benefit from his analysis. We also have important news and a legislative alert. So enjoy and be informed.

Legislative Alert Update

The California Senate has passed SB 906 and is now up for consideration in the Assembly. You can read the details in our legislative alert on the website but we need your action now with the Assembly. Please read up and take action!

NARLA News

NARLA-West had its annual board gathering in Sacramento on May 2. The board voted to add representatives from the three Adventist centers for higher education in the Pacific Union: Pacific Union College, La Sierra University, and Loma Linda University. Norman Knight was voted as the representative from Pacific Union College and the others will be voted after consulting with the leadership of those institutions.

Probably the biggest news from the May meeting is a renewed emphasis on the lay leadership of NARLA. “My Values, My Vision, My Voice” is the motto of NARLA. With that in mind, a think tank will be held on June 22 at the Pacific Union Office with key leaders of NARLA-West and National NARLA to begin to put together a plan to make NARLA most effective in its mission.

In the News

A Middle School Student Has Been Suspended for Wearing Rosary Beads to Class

 13-year old wears the rosary to honor his brother and uncle who have both passed away. However, the Code of Conduct states beads are not allowed because they could potentially indicate a connection to a gang. A rosary is a religious symbol, the kid has the constitutional right to wear it. The superintendent of the school stated that 'Beads are beads' on whether a rosary and beads are the same thing.  Read Full Article

Workplace Religious Freedom Bill

More than a decade after it was first introduced, an on-again off-again bill to protect employees' religious expression in the workplace is attracting renewed attention that could lead to action on Capitol Hill in coming weeks. The Workplace Religious Freedom Act would revise and strengthen the existing requirements imposed on employers to accommodate the religious practices of their employees.  Read Full  Article

Religious Protection Bill Freed from Senate Committee

An attempt to derail a bill that would expand the state's religious freedom protections was reversed by the state Senate on Wednesday. Sen. Danny Martiny's Senate Bill 606 would prohibit government from burdening the free exercise of religion, unless it can prove "it has a compelling governmental interest. 
Read Full Article

Idaho Charter School's Bid to Use the Bible as Text Falls Short

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the state by a Nampa charter school over plans by school administrators to use the Bible and other religious texts as a classroom teaching tool. U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge dismissed the case May 17 filed by the Nampa Classical Academy.  Read Full Article

U.S. Supreme Court Says Mojave Cross Veteran's Memorial Can Stay

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a cross-shaped veterans’ memorial currently covered up by a box in California’s Mojave Desert can stay right where it is.  In a 5–4 decision, the court determined that an act of Congress transferring the land under the memorial to a veterans’ group was constitutional and additionally noted that “the Constitution does not oblige government to avoid any public acknowledgment of religion’s role in society.”  Read Full Article

Church Wins Zoning Dispute

As Rocky Mountain Christian Church is growing, the congregation was running out of room for its church and school. So the church made plans to make more room and went through the legal process to build a future 240,000-square-foot facility.  Read Full Article

Conservative Rabbi Wins Fight Against Kosher Law

Governor Sonny Purdue signed into law a bill repealing the unconstitutional Kosher Food Labeling Act and replacing it with a new law mandating that consumers be fully informed about the standards under which any kosher food product is certified as being kosher.  Read Full Article

Religious Freedom is Fundamental to Human Rights

Americans understand that freedom to worship as they choose, or not at all, is a fundamental component of democracy itself, and a few hundred residents of Bradford County demonstrated support for the concept of freedom of religion in observing National Day of Prayer last week on the steps of the county courthouse in Towanda despite a controversial ruling by a judge declaring the observances illegal.  Read Full Article

Religious Liberty Blogs 

The Paper Chase that not All Can Run

By Barry Bussey
Many of us did it when we were young and in school. Not all our friends wanted to but those who were willing to abide by the rules joined. That’s how it was done – how we made our own club with our own rules. It wasn’t complicated. But try to do that in law school. That is a different kettle of fish altogether. There the obvious is not so obvious - the uncomplicated becomes very complicated and convoluted.   Read Blog

The Patriot Act - Part I

C. Norman Farley – Member, NARLA West Board of Directors

“Power begets power. Powerlessness begets zilch, nada, nothing, oblivion” 

The Patriot Act is possibly one of the most controversial and misunderstood laws congress has ever enacted. For many Americans it represents an unjustifiable invasion of the Bill of Rights affecting not only surveillance and clandestine physical searches, but “religious liberty, freedom of association, freedom of the press, and freedom of inquiry.”[1]

The Monthly Review observes this:

“The function of criminal law has been altered within the context of the anti-terror struggle. Normally, criminal law treats prosecuted persons as individuals. The criminalization of terrorist organizations and the criminalization of participation in or support for such organizations create offenses of collective responsibility. . . it is no longer just the act of committing a crime or even the intention of doing so that is prosecuted. Merely belonging to a group that is considered terrorist by the government is sufficient for punishment.  . . . It legitimizes a change in the political system, granting to the executive power the prerogative of the judiciary. To achieve this objective, the Patriot Act undertakes a twofold erasure of the boundaries between police functions and intelligence work by means of measures that authorize surveillance and the seizure of information that were originally established for counter-espionage activities by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978.”[2]

However, In the light of 9-11 the Patriot Act makes some citizens feel more secure.  Following 9-11 a large percentage of Americans were willing to abandon their “rights” in exchange for the guarantee of security. According to a Gallup poll in 2003 “the vast majority of Americans do not think the Patriot Act is trampling constitutional rights in the process of fighting terrorism.”[3]

There is however, one issue upon which “We the People” will mostly all agree it is this; we have vested enormous authority in the Federal government.   However, as the years have passed there is rising popular concern that this shift of power and authority calls for more transparency and a system of checks and balances.  The war on terrorism which we are currently involved in should not diminish the importance of accountability which is best monitored by checks and balances. Security at home and in the developing global atmosphere is best enhanced by building confidence, accountability, transparency and checks and balances both at home and in the marketplace.

Power, Corruption and Terrorism

Lord Acton (1834-1902) wrote: “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. . . .”[4] Daniel Webster was even more precise, he stated: “Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular government under the pretense of public safety.”[5]   Before proceeding to more particulars of the Patriot Act we need to emotionally come to grips with the power of “unlimited” power. History teaches us how corrupt “unlimited” power often becomes. It also teaches us how equally corrupt reactions against “unlimited” power often pan out.

 But we must do more than review history we must remember that human nature does not change and that power in the hands of even the well meaning powerful often becomes coercive and tyrannical.  We must also add to the equation that without power there is nothing, nada, zilch. This is why checks and balances, accountability and responsible transparency must constitute the underpinnings of freedom.

A history lesson from the past will serve to illustrate how power begets “unlimited” power. It will demonstrate that human nature does not change and in the long run that power often ends up corrupt, tyrannical and coercive regardless of its initial motives.

Following the death of Alexander the Great, Antiochus III defeated the Egyptians and annexed Judaea to his empire. He began a systematic program of Hellenization by removing Monotheism and substituting Greek paganism which threatened both Jewish culture and their religion.  After his father’s death, Antiochus IV inherited the throne in 176 BCE. He began a coercive, hard core, tyrannical and unlimited power program of Hellenization to force the Jews into cultural submission. He defied the central teachings of Judaism by outlawing the Sabbath, feast days and circumcision. It is reported that he even required the eating of pork. Children who were circumcised were slain and hung around their mother’s neck. Antiochus even went so far as to erect an Altar in the Jewish temple to the pagan deity, Olympian Zeus. The Jews referred to this as the “abomination of desolation.”

“But Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, members of the priestly Hasmonian family, led the nation to arms.”[6]

Now Judas didn’t just wage war - he also waged guerilla warfare. First he and his brothers silently and secretly destroyed the pagan altars. Next he circumcised the children to re- establish Jewish cultural and religious identity. He routed a larger Seleucid army due to his better choice of a battlefield. He eluded the forces of Gorgias and while Gorgias searched for him in the mountains Judas made a surprise attack upon the Seleucid camp and defeated Seleucid. He followed military strategies similar to those invented by Sun Tzu in 544 BCE. These strategies reflect those currently utilized by the Taliban and Al Queida. They are taught in most military academies but surprisingly also in the business world. More astounding is the fact that they form the basic strategy on how to operate the government in an atmosphere of crisis.

We saw this in the recent famous statement “Never let a crisis pass.”  This signals that governments understands that citizens are the most vulnerable to change in the midst of a crisis. Governments utilize crisis to manipulate power in their favor.

Naturally, Jewish joy was great with the routing of Seleucid and eventually Judas drove out the Jewish foes from Jerusalem. There was great jubilation and a re-consecration of the temple at Jerusalem.  In honor of Judas Maccabeus and his brothers, the Jews instituted the Feast of Lights (Hanukkah). It is not difficult to connect the dots of how or why Judas and his brothers gained control of the office of High Priest which was known as the Hasmonean Dynasty. They were not only members of the priestly family but men of power and military strategy.  But right here is where the story turns.  “The Hasmoneans proved to be almost as tyrannical as many of their pagan masters had been.”[7]

Human nature had reasserted itself not in politics but in politics united with religion!  Beware America; recall the recent marriage of Neo Conservatism to politics and morality.  Bill Moyers told an audience at Harvard Medical School:  “One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress.  For the first time in our history ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.”[8]  

We live in an age of a swinging political pendulum from Neo Conservatism to Democratic Socialism; power is not zilch or nada it is “unlimited” on both sides of the isle. Remember this; the Patriot Act has limited the power of “we the people” regardless of which party reigns.

In Defense of the Patriot Act

 While there are numerous things to be said against the Patriot Act there are many to be said for it. There was an urgent need for reform among the agencies responsible for defending this nation. Communication between federal agencies was in disarray. Speed is essential in a world of computers utilizing satellite transmission; technology was in urgent need of updating. However, 9-11 did not occur because of a “lack of surveillance, authority or even a failure to pick up the telltale facts, rather, it was the failure to understand the information already gathered, a failure that was, in part, the product of the FBI’s and CIA’s unwillingness to share leads within and between their agencies.  . . . agents did receive  highly revealing information but failed to pass it along to others who would have been in a position to connect the dots.”[9]

A serious problem existed between interagency communications. It was a case of guarding one’s own chicken coup. Surveillance powers are necessary in a world of terrorism but there needs to be equal privacy protections for citizens and The Patriot Act is significantly weak in that area. Here are some of its requirements: 

• indefinite incarceration if the President deems you are an “enemy combatant;”
• courts whose power to restrain police abuse is limited;
• secret searches of your property;
• government access  to your medical, financial, library, and educational records;
• surveillance of religious services, internet chat rooms, political demonstrations and other public meetings;
• secret immigration hearings; and
• restricted speech due to overbroad definitions of “terrorism.”[10]

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was useful in 2001 but it was overlooked by the Bush administration and information gathering of both foreign and American citizens was instituted without a court order.  A “Sunset Clause” was added to the bill to be met by December 31, 2005. The “sunset clause” was to permit the possible restoration of lost basic freedoms.

In Part II we will discover what the sun went down on in Patriot Act II in 2005. We will also discover what the sun set on in March of 2010 - or are we in a permanent state of emergency on which the sun may never set?

Quotable Quotes

"The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion."  Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)

Justine John Paul Stevens, for the Majority
472 U.S. 38

"Recognition that freedom of religion for all  implies official sponsorship of none has grown with the growing diversity of the nation itself."  Cooper v. Eugene School District (1987)

Justice Hands Linde, Oregon Supreme Court