The Village Voice: Nation: Nat Hentoff: The New American Freedom Fighters by Nat Hentoff

Now that Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department's Office of Information Awareness is organizing what John Markoff (The New York Times, November 9) accurately describes as "a vast electronic dragnet" - without search warrants - that will result in "a system of national surveillance of the American public," I expect that General Ashcroft will be confronted with more Bill of Rights defense committees.



But right now this Orwellian monster can be stopped only if citizens' pressure results in hearings before the Intelligence, Appropriations, Armed Forces, and Governmental Operations committees.

And from an email sent by an alert reader during a brief site outage last week:

Dear Jeremy,

I noticed today that your website www.strenturgent.com was down. I can only assume that the government finally looked at the site and monitored your e-mail due to your lack of patriotism.

I am sending this as a reminder that I told you to be more supportive of the government. John Ashcroft is not as bad as you have said. He is simply cautious in his defense of America. I wholeheartedly support suspending a few rights if it means the capture of criminals and arabs (terrorists). The president is right on track.

Please always remember that I tried to get you to see the importance of not saying anything against the current regime/administration. I hope your website is back up soon after you are reprogrammed. I consider you a friend because America is about tolerance. But really, you must change your radical views and support this great war on terrorism.

God bless you.

Your Patriot Friend,

He was kidding (I hope), but I still didn't know whether to laugh or cry...