“The willingness to trade civil liberties for protection” 2001 Mixed media 12 x 12 x 18 1/2”
I was at a dinner party of artists after the Patriot Act was passed by congress and they were up at arms. My feeling was whatever price our safety costs, it’s worth it and there will be enough checks and balances in place to prevent any agency of the government from abusing the powers contained in that act. I was in a small, reviled minority around that dinner table of libertarian alarmists.
Gradually, as the details of the act came to light, I saw that my Chicken Little friends were right. The act impinges on numerous civil liberties and gives the government and its agencies powers that would have our founding fathers turning in their graves.
With the Patriot Act, the Bush administration used fear to rush through sweeping diminishments of individual rights to privacy and increases to governmental snooping, even into the lives of ordinary citizens.
This piece was made from a plaster cast of an Israeli gas mask for children. It has been covered with the American Constitution and Bill of Rights.
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