September 12, 2003 - (CNSNews.com) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld Thursday offered his definition of patriots - of which America has plenty, he said. "A patriot is one who loves his land, prizes its principles and cherishes its creed. A patriot so reveres the ideals of his home country that he is willing to lay down his life to ensure that those ideals endure."

It is a fine definition. I wonder if the Secretary of Defense has ever read it to the President or to the Attorney General. I wonder if he realizes that the creed of this land is embodied in the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution – The Bill of Rights. I wonder if he has reminded the Attorney General that there are plenty of patriots in America who are willing to lay down their live that the Bill of Rights may endure.

I wonder if the Secretary has recently read our American creed. If he has then he knows that a person in America has the right to be secure in his person and property, free from unreasonable searches and seizures and that a warrant may only issue only upon probable cause and which must specify the exact place to be searched and the article that may be seized. Is that an ideal for which the Secretary is willing to lay down his own life?

I wonder if Secretary Rumsfeld has reminded those whose activities he directs that nobody in America may be deprived of his life, liberty or property without having been accorded due process of law. I wonder if he told anyone that due process of law requires among other things, that a person in the United States be informed of the charges against him; that he not be denied bail; that he be given the opportunity to call witnesses in his own defense in a trial before a jury of his peers; and that he is entitled to the assistance of counsel in his own defense? Is that an ideal that he is willing to defend with his life?

Or does he believe that American creed includes a provision that the Federal government is entitled to compel a librarian to provide it with a list of the books I have read and make it a criminal offense for the librarian to reveal that the government is asking? Is that part of the creed for which an American patriot is expected to be willing to die? Does the Secretary believe that the government is entitled to know what I have bought and where; what places I have visited and how I paid for the trip? Is that part of the creed for which an American patriot is expected to be willing to die?

September 11, 2003 was the thirtieth anniversary of the American sponsored Pinochet coup when American agents were complicit in the murder, torture and disappearance of thousands including innocent Americans. Was that part of the American Creed as well?

At least one American Citizen, Jose Padilla, knows the answer. Are there other American citizens who are held without charges; without bail; without trail or even a preliminary hearing simply because of an arbitrarily applied label? Ask Attorney General Ashcroft or the Defense Secretary and you will hear silence as their reply. Is that part of their American creed?