Shadows of US PATRIOT Act Seen in Mubarak's Government

The government has maintained what it calls an Emergency Law, passed first in 1981 to combat terrorism after former President Anwar el-Sadat was assassinated. The law allows police to arrest people without charge, detain prisoners indefinitely, limit freedom of expression and assembly, and maintain a special security court. In 2010, the government promised that it would only use the law to combat terrorism and drug trafficking, but terrorism was defined so broadly as to render that promise largely meaningless, according to human rights activists and political prisoners.  http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/egypt/index.html


The above is an excerpt from the New York Times story about the day's uprisings in Egypt.  The United States government, through its mouthpiece Clinton and Walker, spent the better part of the day criticizing President Mubarak's failure to "regain control of the Egyptian people," and his poor "record on human rights."  Mind you, this is the same president that has been a close United States ally since President Sadat was murdered.  Today, however, both Hillary Clinton and Ambassador Walker both hinted, no said outright, that it was time for Mubarak to think about leaving his position and allowing the people to pick a new government.  Well, the civil unrest is just one major incident away from civil war.  At this very moment President Mubarak is not certain of his military force's loyalty, should civil war break out.

What happens in Egypt remains to be seen.  The thing I wanted to point out were the items listed by various reporters and summed up in the New York Times report as the "causes" of unrest.  Of course the latest and greatest cause appears to be Mubarak's decision to close the Internet to the Egyptian people.  But some other causes bear a quick look as well.

We can gather from the press report that the people in Egypt are violently confronting the government because President Mubarak established secret military courts, the arrest of "terrorists" without warrant, detention of such prisoners indefinitely and without lodging criminal charges, limiting freedom of speech and communication, and searches without warrant.  Does this not sound like the very guts of our own US PATRIOT Act?  Think about it.  And think about those Egyptians, who without the aid of the greatest document ever written by humans, the United States Constitution, are willing to stand up their government and demand their rights.  I just wonder if you and I would be willing to do the same?