Resolving to Resist
Local governments are refusing to comply with the Patriot ActWhen, shortly after September 11, the U.S.A. Patriot Act first arrived in our midst, its very title seemed to deliver an injury: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." The name of the country (U.S.A.) and of those responsible for creating and sustaining it (patriots) had been turned into a Justice Department acronym. One might have thought that "United States of America" would be regarded as a sufficient referent for the letters U.S.A. and that no one would presume to bestow a new set of words on those letters—or attach a new meaning to the word patriot, with its heavy freight of history (Paul Revere, Patrick Henry, Emma Lazarus) and its always fresh aspiration ("O beautiful for patriot dream").
In the two years since its passage by Congress, on October 25, 2001, the U.S.A. Patriot Act has become the locus of resistance against the unceasing injuries of the Bush-Rumsfeld-Ashcroft triumvirate, as first one community, then two, then eleven, then 27, then 238 have passed resolutions against it, as have three state legislatures. Many more councils and legislatures have draft resolutions pending. The letters U.S.A. and the word patriot have gradually reacquired their earlier solidity and sufficiency, as local and state governments reanimate the practice of self-rule by opposing the Patriot Act's assault on the personal privacy, free flow of information, and freedom of association that lie at the heart of democracy. Each of the resolutions affirms the town's obligation to uphold the constitutional rights of all persons who live there, and many of them explicitly direct police and other residents to refrain from carrying out the provisions of the Patriot Act, even when approached by a federal officer and explicitly instructed to do so.
This article has become a book!
Rule of Law, Misrule of Men
Elaine Scarry
MIT / Cloth / $14.95 / April 2010
A passionate call for citizen action to uphold the rule of law when government does not. Arguing that post-9/11 legislation and foreign policy severed the executive branch from the will of the people, Scarry offers a fierce defense of the people’s will as guarantor of our democracy.
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About the Author
Elaine Scarry, Walter M. Cabot Professor of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University, is author of On Beauty and Being Just and Rule of Law, Misrule of Men, from Boston Review Books.
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