Take a look at this video.    (I got the link from EclecticsAnonymous.)  It is put together by Amnesty International, the ACLU, and The National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA.  It features interviews with some of the people that our country has nabbed, disappeared, and handed over to other countries for torture in the “War on Terror”.  Also note that this program was operating long before the Patriot Act, and before George "W" Bush was our president.  The guy who is identified as the "Chief Archetect of the Extraordinary Rendition program" talks about what they were doing in 1995.

Then contemplate these quotes from Thomas Pain:

Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, nor to have fewer rights than he had before, but to have those rights better secured. His natural rights are the foundation of all his civil rights. (The Rights of Man)

Immediate necessity makes many things convenient, which if continued would grow into oppressions. Expedience and right are different things. ( Common Sense)

As well as this from Thomas Jefferson:

“Freedom of the person under the protection of the habeas corpus I deem [to be one of the] essential principles of our government." (1st Inaugural Address)

So I wonder, how are we better off if our government can simply take us from our homes, our families, hold us without charges for months on end, remand us to the custody of other countries to be tortured, and allow no possible recourse?

Is this superior to living in a situation with no government, where people can be kidnapped and brutalized by thugs off the street?

Isn’t it a greater insult for our government to do this, when we give them the power and money and other means to do it?

I’ve talked to a few people who have said “I don’t want to know about it because there’s nothing I can do about it.”

While it’s true that there is very little you can do about it…KNOWING about it is probably the most important thing you CAN do.  Having people know about it HURTS the people who are doing it.  The more people who know about it, the harder it is for them to work without accountability.

But beyond that, if you are a citizen of this country, you have a duty to know what is being done in your name, with your tax money and the power you invest in your government.