Traffic gridlock will stifle us. Those of us who have lived in this area for a long time can see what's been happening. The increased load of traffic on all our streets and highways has produced a congestion that is frightening. People who must commute to work all tell us that serious traffic tie-ups are inevitable.

Authorities in the traffic control field warn us that building new highways is not the answer. The one-person-per-auto load that we are now using cannot move enough people.

Before serious gridlock ties everything up, we should be planning for fast mass transportation. And the only effort that has been made so far is light rail, which has become the slow motion champion of our generation.

Eventually the answer to our problems will be elevated light rail—street cars that will speed over the street-level intersections that are now slowing traffic.

High-speed mass public transit is the only thing that will persuade our people to leave their cars at home when they travel. Elevated street cars have been working in Chicago for 75 years. Why not here?

Walter Ballard

Swarthmore Drive

No drive-throughs for Saratoga

We leave the issue of whether Krispy Kreme donuts are part of a healthy diet to prospective buyers, their doctors and their tailors. We object to the drive-through feature of the proposed shop because we have seen the air pollution studies which show a pall of pollutants above drive-throughs. We think that air pollution is not good for our children and elderly citizens and that we should not permit Krispy Kreme to operate a drive-through establishment. After all, Saratoga was formed because we didn't want to be another San Jose—and we don't need to start copying San Jose's unhealthy drive-through permitting of business establishments now.

Dr. Henry and Marcia Kaplan

Sevilla Lane

Citizens should judge Act for themselves

We are led astray by the recent comments found in the "Speak Out" columns (letters, Dec. 17) regarding the USA Patriot Act. It is perhaps because the Act is not plain and clear in its language. All American citizens are welcome to judge for themselves.

The Act and its legislative background can be found without the spin from the left or the right at: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162:, but very few of us have bothered to read the Act and to follow all the changes it makes to older federal statutes. Whatever conclusion one might draw from a careful review of the Act, I would offer a few of my own observations:

1) The Act was passed by Congress merely a month after Sept. 11, 2001. It was not written in response to Afghanistan or Iraq or Liberia. And in fact it was not composed in response to 9-11. Instead, it had been thought over and assembled long before Sept. 11. Its need had been anticipated. It was "rolled out." And it was rewritten into a piece of legislation in that short time. It could not have been composed in one month. If you read it, I'm afraid that you can reach no other conclusion.

2) It is the Act itself, and not its critics, that alters the Constitution of the United States. In particular, the Act gives new meaning to the First, the Fourth, the Fifth, and the Sixth Amendments. Whether one looks upon this favorably or otherwise is irrelevant. It is simply so.

3) I do not understand Tom Ferguson's comment in defense of the Act that terrorism's "only comparison is to that of the black plague." Plague has no terror when people are informed of the disease. Only the ignorant are terrorized by the plague. The effect of the Act is not to enlighten us about the threat of terrorism but to allow law enforcement to engage in secret operations to more effectively deter terrorists and their crimes. The effect of that, of course, is to bring most of us into ignorance. It is not that I disagree with Mr. Ferguson. I merely do not understand his reasoning.

4) Martin Kavanagh's concerns about privacy are understandable, I suppose, but he fails to acknowledge that this is the price he and all of us pay for living a convenient and comfortable existence in today's society. But privacy is only one element of society's concern about the Act. The larger issue here is whether we should trust those in power always to act in our very best interests. Our Founding Fathers did not have that trust and that is why they insisted on the Bill of Rights.

Mr. Kavanagh asserts that "the Patriot Act is narrowly aimed toward terrorism." The Act itself makes no such statement. Mr. Kavanagh tells us that "it seems logical that we must employ new and creative ways to effectively fight the war on terror" when we have not been able to adequately explain what might have been wrong with the existing ways.

This assumes, of course, that our law enforcement and intelligence communities have resolved to wake up, communicate, cooperate and be effective in their jobs.

Mr. Kavanagh further writes that "the Patriot Act certainly contains some provisions that are worrisome and if, or when, the Act is used to prosecute non-terrorist activities, it will assuredly be taken to the courts." He even suggests that the abused and violated may even be able to argue their cases in the United States Supreme Court.

But I wonder how this might be possible when the Act specifies that any report of a search or an arrest or other action by law enforcement is itself a criminal act. Yes, when the FBI walks into the local library with a search warrant to investigate what you have been reading, the man or woman at the circulation desk can go to prison for letting you know that they were looking into your reading habits. Please explain how that abuse is going to make it into the courts.

I won't make any judgment here of the men and women who proposed and approved the USA Patriot Act. In this moment I assume that their intentions were good and focused on the common welfare of the people—in Saratoga and around our nation.

There are no well-defined and obvious limits to what liberties the people have given up by the passage of this Act. The terms and definitions found in the Act are vague. The due process and open oversight we embrace as central to our society, to our way of discussing and deciding the issues of our lives, are not beyond the reach of this legislation.

Personally, I do not believe that this Act strengthens us. The only real strength of our nation is its people. And our people are only strong when they are free to speak, to listen, to read, to believe, and to act without fear.

Robin Oliver

Mill Valley

(Robin Oliver is a Saratoga native who still visits locally and has been a regular reader of the Saratoga News for about 45 years.)