Longmont Citzens for Justice and Democracy - Media

Introduction

Resources

The following website is a good way to send letters to the editor for Colorado newspapers.
http://www.lpboulder.com/articles/lte/howto.html

To compose letters against the invasion of Iraq, look at sample letters at www.moveon.org/iraqletters.html

For our veterans the following web site is useful for connecting to other veterans in Colorado (such as the contact in Louisville mentioned on the web site) and getting ideas of letters from a veteran’s point of view. www.veteransforcommonsense.org/a and www.veteransforcommonsense.org/contacts.asp

It may also be important to criticize Powell’s presentation to the United Nations since it was headlined in all the local newspapers. It would meet the criterion of most newspapers that the letter be in reference to a recent article in their newspaper.

Samples

Here is a letter that Judy Green sent to the New York Times and is revising now to send to local newspapers.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

The New York Times
February 10, 2003

The New York Times report of February 7 from London revealing misinformation perpetrated by Prime Minister Tony Blair and Secretary of State Colin Powell is blood chilling. During my years as a college professor few students attempted such a charade---they were dropped from the course, there were no global consequences. When statesmen of great powers plagiarize and misinform in an effort to persuade other nations to support a preemptive strike, intended global consequences result. I never warned students about plagiarism, everyone knew---you plagiarize, you're out. But some tried. One student caught plagiarizing said "Sorry, lets just drop it." Not a chance. But I did say a thousand times, "Check your source, do not give me information that you cannot verify, and never go beyond the data." In using Blair's report Powell committed all three errors---there is no excuse. If they were my students I would expel them both.

Here is another letter on the Patriot Act that Judy sent to US senators.

Dear Senator:

Since 9/11 the words "freedom" "threat" and "security" have been used effectively by President Bush. But ask yourself-what measure of our freedom did the 9/11 t errorists actually destroy? Atrocious acts of terror destroy lives and property and provoke great fear, but they can never harness that fear, nor destroy our constitutional rights and civil liberties-the foundation of our freedom. Only our own government can do that. Since 9/11 the Patriot Act was approved, the Freedom of Information Act weakened, "enemy combatant" redefined, the Department of Justice wrote the recently disclosed "Patriot Act 2" which would cut deeper into the heart of the Bill of Rights and enable secrecy previously unknown in this country, secrecy that you will be unable to penetrate, and the Information Awareness Office was created giving the US government hi-tech access to every citizens' personal records, email and telephone conversations. These "security measures" give power to government that the framers of the constitution tried to prevent by adopting the Bill of Rights.

Many people who know of these measures are unconcerned. They argue that national security necessitates such actions and that good citizens like themselves have nothing to fear-they will never be accused of antiAmerican activities by the Attorney General or searched without a warrant or secretly incarcerated and held without trial. They are probably right. Many others who also have nothing to fear personally, are deeply concerned and see the weakening of the Bill of Rights and expansion of executive power as serious homeland threats to the security and freedom of law-abiding citizens.

As you know, there is no evidence that weakening the Bill of Rights and strengthening executive power has any impact on terrorists or would have made the clues to 9/11 more certain, but there is abundant historical evidence that power is inevitably abused-in the name of freedom and security. Therefore, just as the Bush administration argues that invasion of Iraq is to prevent a day of horror that might never happen but possibly could, there is strong argument for prevention of a constitutional day of horror for citizens that might never happen but possibly could. The Senate should take the path of prevention and repeal the Patriot Act and similar measures that threaten our rights without securing our lives. The time to do this is now, right now.

You know that the framers of the constitution meant for government to be limited, transparent and beholden to the people. As a member of the legislative branch it is your constitutional mandate to preserve these principles, in peace and especially in times of real or imagined threats to security when they are most likely to be transgressed, as they are now.

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