Repeating myself

Dude arrested [1] for telling Dick Cheney his Iraq policy was reprehensible, leaving his eight-year-old child to fend for himself.

Matthew Rothschild tells that story in his new book [2]. Here's the Amazon blurb:

Chilling true stories of ordinary Americans whose everyday liberties have been violated since September 11.

"I'm very liberal and sometimes my friends say I'm giving them some kind of paranoid, nutty stuff, and I agree, but then the FBI show up."—Marc Schultz, reported to the FBI for reading an article called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity: Fox News hits a new lowest common denominator" while he stood in line at a coffee shop.

In West Virginia, Renee Jensen put up a yard sign saying "Mr. Bush: You're Fired." She's questioned by the Secret Service. In Alabama, Lynne Gobbell put a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on her car. She's fired from her job. In Vermont, Tom Treece had his high school students write essays and make posters either defending or criticizing the Iraq War. After midnight, the police entered his classroom and took photos of the student artwork.

The heated debates about the Patriot Act, about extensive registration and arrest programs for immigrants, and about domestic spying by the FBI, Pentagon, and National Security Agency have all been front-page news. But less understood are the effects of ramped-up national security policies on ordinary people across the country.

In this hard-to-put-down book, Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, shows that post-9/11 America has entered a repressive age. Through dozens of engrossing and disturbing individual stories, You Have No Rights makes clear that America is now a country that is both less safe and less free.

Like I said, maybe we should hope the Secret Service keeps at it. One time [3] something like this happened, the miscreant rode her arrest all the way to congress [4].