REJECT METH BILL

Just as former First Lady Nancy Reagan urged Americans to just say no
to drugs, Congress should just say no to H.R. 2987, the
Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act.

Though ostensibly aimed at hindering the illicit meth trade, this
legislative proposal is, in fact, a pernicious attack upon the civil
liberties that this republic's founders so venerated that they put
them in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

The problem with the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act is that it
includes provisions for such things as secret searches in which law
enforcement officers can enter private homes and businesses, seize
property or even copy materials from personal computers, and not
bother telling the owner about it for months.

In addition, the proposal allows government agents to seize property
without giving its owner a list of the items taken, a radical
expansion of current law which requires law enforcement personnel to
give the property owner an itemized list of property seized
immediately after the search.

Drug use and methamphetamine production in makeshift, clandestine labs
are serious problems. However, neither they nor any other government
cause should be sufficient to trash the Constitution -- specifically
in this case the Fourth Amendment -- and the independence and liberty
of the people this nation's founders were so concerned about
maintaining.

The freedom of individuals to be secure in their persons, property and
effects is so important that every search and seizure procedure should
follow the standard the Constitution's framers laid out in the Fourth
Amendment, however cumbersome authorities may feel this procedure is.

The fact that the spirit of this amendment already has been assailed
in the name of the drug war and the fact that many citizens have
become so indolent that they accept the dilution of their liberty in
the name of security makes no difference. The Constitution, not
personal caprice, is the supreme law of the land.

All who value freedom, all who understand and venerate the governance
system this nation's founders expressly created, all who cherish the
idea that government is the creature of the people, and all who value
the Constitution should resist such bills as this and demand that
their representatives, all of whom swore an oath to protect and defend
the Constitution, do just that in practice and spirit.