Now that Ohio has a proven-corrupt Governor's office, a Secretary of State who cheats voters out of their right to vote and Republicans in control of both houses of the legislature, the state is beginning to look like a microcosm of the federal government. So what else do Ohioans need? Their own Patriot Act.

The Toledo Blade editorializes—

WHILE Congress debates whether to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, Ohio lawmakers are quietly - and unnecessarily - creating a state counterpart of the draconian anti-terrorist law.

The legislation, substitute Senate Bill 9, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Jacobson, a Dayton-area Republican, would waste state resources by duplicating federal anti-terrorism laws, make Ohioans less free than they are now, and would do little or nothing to actually make anyone safer from terrorists.
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New police powers conferred under the bill would give local authorities nearly free rein to stop, question, and arrest anyone at almost any time, and would broadly target immigrants by requiring state officials to report "suspected aliens" to federal immigration officials.

In addition to seriously abridging the civil liberties of every Ohioan, the measure would appear to require a new and expensive bureaucracy within the state Department of Public Safety that would be given sweeping authority to screen applicants for state licenses for would-be terrorists.

Applicants for any state license except a driver's license would be denied and could be charged with a felony if they failed (or refused) to swear that they had not given "material assistance" to any organization on the U.S. State Department's terrorism exclusion list.

The first problem is that a licensee who had knowingly provided terrorist aid would never answer yes. The second is that this "have you now or have you ever been" line of questioning was discredited during the anti-communist scares of the 1950s as an unconstitutional abridgement of the right against self-incrimination.

In addition, those who were denied licenses but later were found to have done nothing wrong would have to negotiate a murky appeals process. They would be considered guilty until proven innocent, standing the Constitution on its head.

With the advent of the federal Department of Homeland Security, Congress already has created what may be the biggest government bureaucracy of all time without demonstrating that anyone is actually safer. We see no need to duplicate that sense of insecurity at the state level.