If you’re worried about the state of your civil liberties, don’t blame the Patriot Act.

It’s not strong enough, and it’s not unprecedented.

“It’s something that’s happened since the president became president,” said Mike Hoeflich, a Kansas University law professor. “My sense is, the executive has gone too far.”

As part of The September Project, a series of lectures put on by the League of Women Voters of Lawrence-Douglas County and the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vt., Hoeflich told an audience of about 25 Monday at the library that concerns about the erosion of civil liberties shouldn’t hinge on what happened since Sept. 11, 2001, or since the passage of the Patriot Act three weeks later. In fact, in his estimation, the discussion shouldn’t really be about privacy at all.

Instead, Hoeflich said, the country should discuss how President Bush has repeatedly signed letters attached to important legislation – including the act’s reapproval in 2004 – saying that he won’t follow the law if he doesn’t want to.

The public’s privacy, he said, now rests in the hands of the Bush administration rather than the representatives the public elects.

“He’s not bound by Congress or even his own signature,” he said. “It’s really very different than anything we’ve ever had, probably since (Franklin Roosevelt).”

Privacy never has been guaranteed, save for maybe the Fourth Amendment, Hoeflich explained, but Bush has rolled back many privacy safeguards put in place after spying and wiretapping programs under Richard Nixon’s administration riled the country in the early 1970s.

That’s true even if it means infringing on the typical balance of powers shared by the president and Congress – even so far as spying in spite of protections guaranteed in the Patriot Act, he said.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales has defended the administration’s polices toward wiretapping on several occasions – for example, saying last December that many clandestine programs such as wiretapping are authorized under the president’s wartime powers.

But as with Roosevelt and other wartime presidents in the past, the power of the executive office often goes too far without congressional approval or knowledge.

Which is why the terrorist attacks of 9/11 became so important, Hoeflich said.

“What we have now is a system where one branch is either ignoring or attacking the other branches,” he said. “If you take away the war, you can’t do that.”

So what happens now?

Hoeflich, who has been speaking about the Patriot Act since it passed five years ago, suggested the nature of debate in the country has to change.

Civil liberties versus security – it’s an important question, he said, regardless of your frequency on the political dial. But before that conversation happens, the country should ask: “How do we decide to keep America safe?” rather than simply question safety itself.

Sure, the Patriot Act isn’t perfect, he said. But within it, provisions exist that don’t allow warrantless wiretapping and other kinds of electronic surveillance.

And what it does allow – for example, permitting the search of library records – are rarely if ever used for fighting terrorism, he said.

But at least it’s the law.

“As bad as Congress was when they passed it,” he said, “at least it was passed by Congress.”