PATRIOT Act violating human rights, threat to privacy

Thank God for the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act.

My friend is a computer science engineer. His favorite… Thank God for the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act.

My friend is a computer science engineer. His favorite book of the Bible is Deuteronomy. We watch soccer together as much as possible and stay together during work weeks. I couldn’t ask for a better roommate.

But he’s Pakistani by descent. Sure, he was born in England, but he lived in Saudi Arabia for a while. As a result, in accordance with the PATRIOT Act, the government forced him to drive to Baltimore two weeks ago to interview for the National Terrorist Database. They detained him for three days once he was there, taking away all means of communication and keeping him locked down at night.

That made me feel pretty safe, because he couldn’t release any anthrax while he was in there — though now that I think about it, he seems more like the sarin gas type. Sure, we couldn’t get in touch with him to tell him his work schedule for the next week, but hey, as long as he’s not releasing Ebola in a shopping mall…

Also, government officials reminded him that they could put him on trial on the basis of top-secret evidence at any time, which would prevent his lawyer from preparing a defense. And frankly, I’m glad. The last thing we want in a system based on the assumption that someone is innocent until proven guilty is someone getting a fair trial.

You see, on Sept. 11, 2001, Muslim extremists flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The government took the opportunity to teach us a valuable lesson: We should discriminate against all Muslims, and, beyond that, all Arabs. Furthermore, we should distrust Indians and Pakistanis, who could be mistaken for Arabs if you haven’t ever seen them. Any of these folks may be terrorists, and we should make sure they can’t hurt us.

My friend is no exception. Sure, he’s my roommate, but who knows what he does when I’m not around. As soon as I get my hands on a screwdriver, I’m opening up the air conditioning vent and making sure there aren’t any thermonuclear devices hidden up there.

I go through his desk while he’s gone too, to make sure he doesn’t have any messages from Osama. Also, I lift his wallet from time to time to make sure none of his family photos match the ones on my “terrorist face” playing cards my buddy from the Army gave me. Extreme? Nah. The government has taught me I can’t be too safe around these monsters.

That’s why I’m sure my friend was plotting an attack on the way down to Baltimore. We’re lucky he was forbidden to fly. After all, terrorists only use planes. They wouldn’t use trains — except in Tokyo and in Madrid. They don’t use boats — Oh, right, the Cole bombing. And they definitely wouldn’t use cars. Well, except for the Oklahoma City bombing. And Beirut. And in Iraq. And on the Israel-Palestine border. And…well, look, the government knows what it’s doing.

But why discriminate against only people from Middle Eastern countries? Remember, my friend is a British citizen. What we should probably do is detain all of them, especially those in college, the ones trying to get an education. We can make them wait without telling them why they’re being held, or how long they’ll be held there. That’ll teach them to bring their terrorist selves into the land of the free.

But lots of different nationalities live in the United States, as well. Frankly, I don’t think we’re safe from any of them. Take me, for example. I’m an American citizen, but there’s German in my blood. As we all know, Germans played a huge part in not one, but two world wars.

What scares me is that my ancestors came to the States before all of that happened. They might have carried the evil gene that ended up in people like Hitler, and that gene could be in me or any one of my family members. We should all turn ourselves in, and, for the sake of American safety, remain in custody until someone can prove we’re not going to start any trouble.

I know I’ve made only a few suggestions here, but this is just a start. We all need to do our part to ensure that terrorism is stopped. So discriminate against your foreign neighbors, and treat anyone who looks different or worships God in a different way as a threat to your security and the security of those around you.

Your government needs you.

Brian Weaver is the assistant sports editor for the Pitt News. Send your comments to bweaves_pittnews@hotmail.com, but make sure you identify yourself as a non-terrorist American, or he’ll report you to the proper authorities.