Titled: The unlikely ACLU-gun-nut alliance

When the American Civil Liberties Union and gun-nut lobbies make common cause, it is time to pay attention. That is exactly the case with the new Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances, an improbable coalition of liberal and conservative - nay, arch conservative - organizations cobbled together to contest the thoughtless renewal of the Patriot Act that President Bush has called for.

Why are the pro gun lobbies described as nuts? And why does the ACLU get a nuttiness pass? Could it possibly be a bias on the part of the author?

The ACLU is bedded down here with, among still more, the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum, the Free Congress Foundation and Citizens for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Republican former congressman Bob Barr chairs the unlikely affair.

I get the feeling this author don't think much about those of us on the conservative side of politics.

Unlikely but welcome. Slammed through Congress in panic and without serious hearings or debate in just six weeks after 9/11, the act mowed down traditional civil liberties wholesale and concentrated new, dangerous powers in the executive branch.
  
Key provisions, particularly ones dealing with surveillance, are scheduled to sunset at the end of this year unless Congress extends them. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are pushing for a quick endorsement of the act as it is.

Blah blah blah

Some of the innovations in the act are reasonable and probably were overdue even before the terrorist attack - roaming wire taps under judicial supervision, for instance, that focus on the subject and are not limited to just this or that form or place of communication.
  
But many provisions are way over the top. Section 802 defines terrorism so broadly it could be used to criminalize ordinary political activity and subject citizens who are exercising protected political rights to secret surveillance and their political organizations to police infiltration.
  
Section 215 allows the government to rummage through citizens' medical, library and gun-purchase records without probable cause and without informing the subject of the snooping. Section 213 allows secret searches of homes and businesses - "creep and peep," in opponents' shorthand. Gag orders keep even legal challenges to parts of the act secret, a truly Orwellian scenario.
  
Barr's organization argues that America "can wage an effective war on terrorism without locking up its own citizens without access to their families and attorneys, and without trial or charges."

Yup.

Barr was one of the howling right-wingers of the GOP's Gingrich generation, but out of office he has become arguably the leading conservative voice for principled defense of individual liberties and for protecting citizens' besieged zone of privacy.

So why all the "attacks" on conservatives in the beginning of this article?

Conservatives should oppose much of the Patriot Act just on principle alone. However as the author of this article pointed out not all of it is bad and some of it is way over due.

I think the preservation of Liberty is one area where conservatives, libertarians and liberals should join forces. Save the "attacks" for the social security debate.