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Editor, 

President Bush, in asking for the power to establish military courts to try terrorism suspects, is rapidly laying the groundwork for martial law in America – for the suspension of the very rights that make our flag worth defending. Do we trust the people now in control of our government to properly discriminate between real terrorists and those who are, instead, honorable citizens with contrary opinions to express non-violently? The people who now protect us from airborne nail clippers and tweezers will soon be protecting us from members of the Green and Reform parties – then our neighbors and then members of our own families. If this comment seems like a rash overreaction, note that 91 year-old cross-country walker Doris “Granny D” Haddock, who dared suggest that campaign finance reform is needed to clean up the corruption of Congress, is now singled out for hand searches and frisking at every airport. Once it begins, it moves quickly. Surely our freedoms, and the civil rights that guarantee our freedoms, are more endangered by extremists in government than extremists who are, after all, only trying to kill us. 

Dennis Burke 

Phoenix, Arizona