The USA PATRIOT ACT is due to expire on June 1. Now that we have a woman running for president, maybe it’s time to introduce a MATRIOT ACT instead.

A MATRIOT ACT would state that the greatest threat to our future national and global security is the degradation of the biosphere of Mother Earth. To this end, extreme measures need to be put into place in order to protect ourselves from environmental collapse, and the economic and social collapse that would ensue. A MATRIOT Act would procure government funds for addressing such issues as climate change, air quality, topsoil depletion, ocean acidification, water purification, population control, food shortages, and other environmental issues. It would support green technologies, conservation efforts, and public education in these matters.

The Patriot Act was passed in October, 2001, with little debate or public comment, allegedly enacted in response to perceived threats to our national security by acts of terrorism. It has cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars (the true budget is classified), threatened our civil liberties, and accomplished very little in combating  terrorism. This act passed by a wide majority in both houses of Congress, 357-66 in the House, and 98-1 in the Senate, and was extended by Obama for four years in 2011. It’s time to let it expire and channel its prodigious cost into something that really does protect our future.

The USA PATRIOT ACT is an acronym that stands for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism.

The USA MATRIOT ACT could stand for: Uniting and Strengthening All by Making Alternative Tools Ready to Invest in Our Transformation.

The PATRIOT ACT increased the ability of law enforcement agencies to spy on its citizens, by searching telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records. It expanded the Secretary of the Treasury’s authority to regulate financial transactions, particularly those involving foreign individuals and entities. It enhanced the discretion of law enforcement and immigration authorities in detaining and deporting immigrants suspected of terrorism-related acts. The act also expanded the definition of terrorism to include domestic terrorism, expanding the powers of domestic law enforcement against its own citizens.

The MATRIOT ACT would be designed as a document of protection for the life-giving qualities of our natural resources. It could fuel the economy with the production of jobs in eco-technologies and scientific research. It could enhance public understanding through funding educational films, television broadcasts, and school programs designed to teach ecological awareness and conservation. It could enforce environmental laws to prevent corporate pollution. It could fund birth control programs in overpopulated areas of the world.

It could be a document that really does make us safer, healthier, and happier.

How do we write and circulate such a document? Anybody want to run with this?