Will Grigg's Liberty Minute

March 21, 2008

Disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer built a political career atop the rubble of the Bill of Rights.

As state Attorney General, Spitzer specialized in the creative use of the law to criminalize innocuous business activities.

Spitzer?s habitual use of prostitutes cost him more than $80,000 and his political future. Unlike the wife and daughters he betrayed, Spitzer deserves none of our sympathy. But his case illustrates the ominous federal powers granted under the so-called Patriot Act. That law requires banks to file suspicious activity reports (or SARs) on unusual transactions, like the cash withdrawals Spitzer used to pay for his assignations with prostitutes.

Banks filed more than one million SARs last year, the vast majority of which have nothing to do with suspected terrorism or other serious crimes. The data thus collected can be used against practically anybody. And as Spitzer demonstrated before his political demise, prosecutors can find some way to put practically anybody behind bars.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.