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Oh, and by the way, if you still manage to confuse the moderators on this site, artor3, who is either the biggest fool or is a shill, I am going to quote ACLU and they have lawyers who read this same bill that I am reading and that you are supposedly reading.

Let's see what ACLU says

WASHINGTON â" President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had âoeserious reservationsâ about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

âoePresident Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,â said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. âoeThe statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.â

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAAâ(TM)s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

âoeWe are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,â said Romero. âoeAny hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAAâ(TM)s detention authority.â

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.

Anyway, artor3, I am sure you are going to have a rebuttal now not only for MY comments, but for ACLU's as well.

Do it, you shill or idiot or both.

example

Also, anywhere less than 100 miles from the border is effectively a constitutional rights-free zone anyway - see for example
http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map/

That will take you to a blog post about SOPA and ACLU's opposition to it. The last link in the article is a link to a form where you fill in the blanks and it will send off a letter to your representatives. It is one of the easiest ways to contact your representatives about your concerns. Forget your feelings about the ACLU or other such crap. This bill/legislation/power-grab needs to be stopped, and it is your duty as an American to let your representatives know that you oppose it.

The new National Defense Authorization Act contains an amendment allowing the military the authority to detain American citizens, on American soil, indefinitely and without access to an attorney. The President has said he'll veto it; write to him and hold him to it! This has wide bipartisan support, and while I'm typically hesitant of doomsaying about America becoming a police state, this is the legal codification of one!

http://www.aclu.org/blog/tag/NDAA

The Border Patrol claims to be authorized to operate anywhere within 100 miles of the border. Conveniently, considering coast line, this covers a great deal of the population of the USA.

The ACLU calls it "Living in a Constitution Free Zone"

http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

You are almost correct. US Constitution only applies to certain parts of the US.

To believe that the TSA will only stop traffic in Tennessee is unreasonable. That the TSA is now stopping traffic on an Interstate highway means that ANY Interstate highway can be a target for their abuse of the 4th Amendment. The Tennessee experiment is just a trial balloon to see if the public will roll over and go back to sleep. It looks like they will, so you can count on the TSA stopping YOU sometime in the near future on ANY Interstate you travel. After that will come traffic stops on main traffic arteries in major cities, followed by stops set up at traffic nexus points in smaller communities.
"I have nothing to hide", you say? You'd better read:
http://www.aclu.org/drug-law-reform-immigrants-rights-racial-justice/know-your-rights-what-do-if-you
or
http://www.instructables.com/id/What-to-do-if-the-police-stop-you-1/

IF this is just a type of Federal work program, employing people as TSA agents, I'd rather have a restoration of the CCC. At least we'd get our infrastructure restored in the process.

They're USCBP / DHS. They don't have to give a badge number and are by and large above the law. You have no Fourth Amendment rights against them since according to the Government, CBP can do suspicionless searches under the "border search" exemption anywhere within 100 miles of the border (which of course includes most populated areas of the United States). The ACLU calls it the Constitution-Free Zone and if you don't like it, you might want to consider donating as they're trying to fight it.

Uhhh...how EXACTLY will there be "public outrage" when the public will never hear about any of it? You think if it was more than hippies on Wall Street your ass would hear shit? it would be "some crazy nuts were rounded up today, next on Dancing with The Stars" and THAT would be all she wrote friend. We have 'free speech zones" now, or have you forgotten? that keeps the rabble away from the camera. if you get too uppity you better hope you aren't in Constitution-Free Zone or your ass can just disappear pal, no rights officially there.

so until the American people are ready to turn their Fords into technicals like our friends in Libya did I'm afraid you won't be getting very far. As long as the top 1%ers can make great profits off this crap you and the rest of us have ZERO say in the matter. After all look how many said NO to the bailouts, NO to going and starting a third war, NO to leaving our troops in the desert, but did they listen? They frankly don't give a fuck WHAT you think friend, you'll be given the choice of "rich insider corporate ass kisser" A or B and you damned well better like it!

Last I checked, Tennessee was further than 100 miles from the national border.

Or are they including foreign embassies and Native American territories in the US as right-to-search borders now? And of the former, I don't just mean static buildings but also ambassadorial mobile vehicles. Want to search without a warrant? Invite a foreign ambassador to visit a nearby county.

People sue the government all the time:
Google Sued the US Government
ACLU Sues the NSA for domestic spying
Suits against the Federal Government are handled in The US Court of Federal Claims

http://www.aclu.org/organization-news-and-highlights/second-amendment

From the horse's mouth, 2A is "collective" meaning it doesn't exist.

I will sleep better tonight in southern California because my electricity and cell phone feel good when their together?

Or maybe someone at DHS has funny way of doing their job; but how American citizens were helped after Katrina is something I still clinch my remaining teeth about.

Right now, in our courts. Copyright violation is a greater crime than rape. Think about that before you reply...

Of course it is! What else is US manufacturing? Sorry, is that an oxymoron.

90% of the US economy is service jobs. A lot of these that have anything to do with exports hinge on the idea of copyright. Undermining copyright or patents is akin of kicking the foundation under that house of cards.

I believe that in the future, maybe in my lifetime, intellectual property will be the same as real property. You will buy a limited run blueprint copy for a car, go to local nanoassembler (3D printer shop, whatever) and they will build your custom car for the price of the materials within a day, maybe before you leave the store. You want a pair of shoes? Go to the same place and print those. Price tag will be related to intellectual property price of the blueprint copy and raw material charge to the nanoassembler. Once you don't want the car or shoes or whatever, you go back to the nanoassembler and sell your car back for 50% or 80% of the original material cost and they disassemble it to original molecules for re-use.

That's the future, where the principal costs will be intellectual property.

All this aside, there is a lot more unconstitutional things going on in the US right now. For starters,

http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Miller#Interpretations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2nd_amendment#Meaning_of_.22the_right_of_the_People.22

Wikipedia doesn't suggest it was clear cut as the ACLU makes out.
Regardless, it is odd for the ACLU to take a position that an individual's freedoms in what they can own or do, especially in their own home, should be restricted to that extent, especially when there are good reasons to allow it, and reasonable interpretations of the bill of rights to support it.

In my opinion, although I can hardly prove it, it was a cowardly position merely to ensure they did not piss off certain donors.

The response on the ACLU blog was... emphatic.
http://www.aclu.org/2008/07/01/heller-decision-and-the-second-amendment
1361 responses, many from libertarians, civil or otherwise, who once advocated for the ACLU.

Obviously the ACLU has the right to take this position, just as my friends and I had the right to stop supporting the ACLU, and find other organisations to give our money to.

http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-rights_drug-law-reform_immigrants-rights/second-amendment

The Second Amendment provides: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

ACLU POSITION
Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

The Supreme Court has now ruled otherwise. In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's 2008 decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia.

The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. We do not, however, take a position on gun control itself. In our view, neither the possession of guns nor the regulation of guns raises a civil liberties issue.

ANALYSIS
Although ACLU policy cites the Supreme Court's decision in U.S. v. Miller as support for our position on the Second Amendment, our policy was never dependent on Miller. Rather, like all ACLU policies, it reflects the ACLU's own understanding of the Constitution and civil liberties.

Heller takes a different approach than the ACLU has advocated. At the same time, it leaves many unresolved questions, including what firearms are protected by the Second Amendment, what regulations (short of an outright ban) may be upheld, and how that determination will be made.

Those questions will, presumably, be answered over time.

Although the state secrets privilege has existed in some form since the early 19th century, its modern use, and the rules governing its invocation, derive from the landmark Supreme Court case United States v. Reynolds, 345 U.S. 1 (1953). In Reynolds, the widows of three civilians who died in the crash of a military plane in Georgia filed a wrongful death action against the government. In response to their request for the accident report, the government insisted that the report could not be disclosed because it contained information about secret military equipment that was being tested aboard the aircraft during the fatal flight. When the accident report was finally declassified in 2004, it contained no details whatsoever about secret equipment. The government's true motivation in asserting the state secrets privilege was to cover up its own negligence.

US ISPs, (and most other democratic countries as well) can refuse and go to court to fight the requirement. ultimately, the supreme Court can rule and the government must comply.

unfortunately this is not exactly true, National Security Letters are (disclaimer: IANAL) neither refusable nor you are allowed to make it public. One example was this case of an ISP owener, he had the guts to disclose it to the ACLU.

Nicholas Merrill talk about the NSL and the gag order is informative, interesting and disturbing

You could, right now, get on a bus and travel 3 states over, then jump on a train and go somewhere.

Tell that to someone from Hawaii or Alaska. I'm pretty sure both ship and airline passage require ID.

Regardless, my threshold of "starting to worry about police state" is when they start trying to stick cameras all over DC, or having permenant police checkpoints.

You haven't traveled on any interstate highways that happen to travel by the border with Mexico lately, have you. Try driving from Yuma to Los Angeles on I-8. You will encounter no less than TWO *permanent* US Border Patrol (DHS) checkpoints along the way, where you have to stop and provide identification in the form of a driver's license and submit to a search of your vehicle if they feel like it.

No, this isn't because the US-Mexico border magically moved north a few miles. You didn't cross an international border without realizing it. It's because DHS claims authority over areas 100 miles from all US borders, including sea borders. In this case, you must show papers to travel within the US... and it's not a small case, it's actually a very broadly applicable area.

Seriously man, are you trolling, or are you really THAT ignorant? The noose isn't getting any looser. Start worrying!

That's why any citizen who wants to hire an attorney should automatically have standing to challenge the Constitutionality of any law.

You can already do this, more or less. If you have the money, you can fund a group of brilliant lawyers who will go through the list of every single person charged with this crime, find the perfect sympathetic defendant and then litigate the Hell out of it. Since this is a First Amendment/Technology issue, I'd start here or here.

There's a reason why the Constitution requires an "actual case and controversy" for the courts to find jurisdiction. This law may go into effect and subsequently never get enforced. The founding fathers knew that the judiciary would be so busy solving actual problems, that they didn't want to bother them with philosophical debates that may or may not every actually be resolved.

And I would be, if they were interested in one specific right that I believe must be protected in order to protect the all other rights. I can see why they don't want to be conflated with it, but I disagree with them strongly enough to distrust them as a result.

I presume you're referring to the Second.
I wonder about that too: the ACLU certainly seem to think they should cherry-pick which rights to defend.
Check out the ACLU page on their position on the Second Amendment.

They kinda already did... there's a 100 mile radius of all "border crossings" that's considered outside of Constitutional protections, so the north border, the south border, the coasts, and everywhere close enough to an airport, and the government has declared it can violate its founding document there. The courts upheld challenges to this. Here, found it: http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

La-and of the Freeee, and the Ho-ome of the Brrrraaaaave.

If you live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders (along with ~70% of the US), your data is going to be gone for many of the people you may want to interact with.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone
and the map http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map of where inland Border Patrol checkpoints can be used.

If you live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders (along with ~70% of the US), your data is going to be gone for many of the people you may want to interact with.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone
and the map http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map of where inland Border Patrol checkpoints can be used.

How does Starbucks and other venues that provide free Wifi shield themselves from liability?

This incident alone makes me want to offer up free Wifi from my own home access point (yes, I know I may be violating my ISP's ToS, but I don't see that as a huge threat, especially with some rate-limiting to make it unattractive for large-scale downloads and port-25 blocking to make it unattractive for sending spam).

Does putting up that ubiquitous clickthrough screen that makes people promise not do anything bad give any legal protection?

What if I log MAC addresses from the DHCP server?

I'm not too worried about what the feds could find on my computer if they seized it - I'd even give them the decryption key to the hard drives if they ask nicely. If they break down my door and seize my equipment, my hope is that I can gain support from the EFF or ACLU (both of whom I've supported for many years) to lawyer up.

It's actually worse than that. The FBI has for the past several years been demanding librarians turn over records of who's reading what and trying to place the library staff under a gag regarding the whole thing. Some librarians have been able to make a fight of it. Some have not. The ones who lost this battle are precisely the ones we'll never hear from.

Tin foil hats aside, if you've been doing a term paper on Islam or the Haber process, the American Library Association reports the FBI wants to know about you.

As a visitor you do not have as many rights as a US citizen.
And, if you are within 100 miles of the border you are in the constitution-free zone where you have no rights, citizen or not.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=constitution-free+zone
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone

The fourth amendment does not apply in Michigan as 100% of the state is within the US constitution free zone. http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map Thanks, G Dubya!

You're missing the point. whether or not my data is worth compromising (which I whole heatedly believe that it is), is irrelevant.
Setting aside the fact that I may have cached passwords and financial information stored on my hard drive, the fourth amendment
is meant to guard against unreasonable searches and seizures. Since the US government has chosen to ignore the constitution, I believe that a "better safe than sorry" approach is quite prudent to say the least. You might want to check if you're currently located in a Constitution Free Zone as well.

Apparently the "border" has been extended inland 200 miles.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty/are-you-living-constitution-free-zone/

Based on the treatment of Wikileaks, the US citizens accused of terrorism, police spying on purely political organizations, etc, etc, it looks like their website already has such a map here.

Also consider that an international airport qualifies as a border for customs and immigration purposes, so presumably the next argument will be that arbitrary searches are allowed within 100 miles of one.

This is the one to ram the point home!
http://www.aclu.org/constitution-free-zone-map

live in the orange? then this story applies to you!

they can search whatever the hell they want if you live there.

no warrant

no recourse

As someone else above mentioned it's about this: Constitution Free Zone . They are basically validating that the Constitution Free Zone pertains to computers/data just as much as it pertains to your pockets, bag, car trunk, etc.

Mind, I don't agree with it and never have but there is a lot of precedence for this. I'd like to see the whole shebang overturned but we're definitely only going to see the digital aspect of it get worse unless all this "close to the border" BS is completely overturned.

Detroit is in the Constitution-Free Zone, so this isn't much of a surprise. It's sad what we threw away in the War on Drugs, and will of course perpetuate in the Wars on Whatever's Handy.

Amending the Constitution is so difficult, comrade. Better if we merely ignore or reinterpret the Constitution per our whims. For the good of the country, of course.

Two-thirds of the US population lives in the "border zone". I guess it's reasonable for 200 million Americans to be subject to warrantless searches. http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/fact-sheet-us-constitution-free-zone

Here you go:

http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/audacity-grope-tsas-new-pat-down

I mean that was ridiculously easy to find. Did you even try looking?

The problem with socialism in America is this: It only applies to the rich. Socialism is allowed and indeed encouraged for the rich with "too big to fail" bailouts, TARP, lowering the "burden" on the top 1% through both tax breaks and the looking the other way at tax dodges like the "double dutch". But socialism for the poor such as free or low cost medical care, ensuring that all have adequate food, shelter, and clothing, help for the indigent, these things are frowned upon and looked upon as somehow bad or evil. Personally after seeing how bad the corporatist mindset has run this country into the ground I'd be all for socialism of the second sort.

As for TFA, cops do what they want, film (and excuses) at 11. Here in the USA we have ICE and the FBI used as a private "copyright police" while being paid for by the taxpayers, we have cops that do truly heinous crimes (just look up "police abuse" on Youtube to see how prevalent it is) and walk away with a slap on the wrist if they get anything at all, and thanks to 9/11 we now have Constitution-Free Zones that cover 2/3rds of all US citizens.

News flash: All cops WILL abuse their authority if left unchecked, full stop. For every decent cop you probably have 4 "bully with a badge" types that thanks to the code of silence will be protected by their fellow cops no matter what they do. Until we demand of our elected officials and the MSM that police have to follow the constitution and laws we citizens have to abide by along with REAL punishment for those that run roughshod over peoples' rights then stories like this will sadly be all too common.

Too many have been allowed to get away with too much for too long and it is time to start reining in their power or ALL of us in the west will end up in police states.

First sentence of this article from wired: "...an internal audit found that FBI agents abused a Patriot Act power more than 1,000 times...".

I guess you said "much serious abuse of the law" which is full of qualifiers, making it hard to tell what kind of abuse would be excessive for you.

What's sad yet amusing is that the ACLU's report on the abuses talks about many instances of the FBI going beyond what the patriot act allows. At least the ACLU got them to slacken their use of gag orders though.

Educate yourself.
The ACLU is a friend of religious freedom.
unfortunatly the world is full of people who want to force other people to conform to their own religon.
I'm guessing you're one such person who is annoyed that he can't take away the religious freedoms of others.
http://www.acluutah.org/defenseofreligion.htm

* The ACLU of New Jersey (2006) filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking a federal court to uphold an elementary school student's right to sing "Awesome God" in a voluntary, after-school talent show for which students selected their own material.
http://www.aclu.org/religion/schools/25799prs20060605.html

* The ACLU of Louisiana (2006) filed a lawsuit defending the free speech rights of a Christian who was protesting based on his religious beliefs. The man was chased away from the front of a Wal-Mart store where he was carrying a sign that read: "Christians: Wal-Mart Supports Gay Marriage and Gay Lifestyles. Don't Shop There."
www.aclu.org/freespeech/protest/27266prs20061027.html

The ACLU of Rhode Island (2006) filed an appeal in federal court on behalf of an inmate who was barred from preaching during Christian religious services, as he had done for the past seven years under the supervision and support of prison clergy. The prisoner, Wesley Spratt, believes his preaching is a calling from God. Prison officials cited vague and unsubstantiated security reasons for imposing the preaching ban on Mr. Spratt. The ACLU argued that the ban violates the religious freedom guaranteed to Mr. Spratt under federal law.
www.riaclu.org/20060111.html

* The ACLU of Georgia (2006) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Tabernacle Community Baptist Church charging that the city of East Point, Georgia violated a federal religious discrimination law when it denied the church a zoning permit needed to establish its house of worship.
www.aclu.org/religion/discrim/25518prs20060419.html

* The New York Civil Liberties Union (2006) challenged a New York State policy forbidding New York State prison guards to wear religious head coverings. The plaintiff, a devout Muslim, had worn a kufi while on duty for many years before he was told to remove it. Many other state agencies allow employees to wear religious head coverings while performing employment duties.
www.nyclu.org/haqq_complaint_pr_100506.html

* The ACLU (2006) filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan who seeks to have a Wiccan symbol included on her husband's headstone. The suit challenges the constitutionality of a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs policy that allows inclusion of many religious symbols on headstones in military cemeteries but excludes Wiccan symbols.
www.aclu.org/religion/discrim/26970prs20060929.html
www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/13/widows.suit.ap/index.html

* The ACLU of Maryland (2006) wrote a letter urging Howard County school officials to allow Muslim students to leave school to pray each Friday.
www.aclu-md.org/aPress/News%202006/060806_HCT.html

* The ACLU of Southern California (2006) filed suit on behalf of a Vietnamese Buddhist Temple (Quan Am Temple) against the City of Garden Grove and its officials for violating the congregation's First Amendment rights to free religious exercise and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000. The complaint challenges the constitutionality of the City's zoning codes, as well as the City's application of the zoning codes to Quan Am Temple. In October, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction allowing the congregation to assemble and practice their religion.
www.aclu-sc.org/News/Releases/2006/102100/

* The ACLU and its affiliates (1999-2006) have been instrumental supporters of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which gives religious organizations added protections in erecting religious

They have a link on that page to send messages to the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. This message will also be sent to your senators and members of congress. If all of us sends one than our voices can be heard.

Injustice happens. Complain to the authorities as much as you can and they'll get the idea that we do not enjoy it and will be an annoyance until they do listen. Especially the elected officials.

Ok, if you read headlines, here are some

IMO, if the case with Khalid El-Masri is pretty darn criminal. Let's see, a guy is kidnapped, kept in prison for months, tortured, then dumped somewhere in Albania when they figure out he's not the one they want. Which part of kidnapping and torture isn't criminal enough for you?

To top it off, the US requests to Germany to "weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S." if they were thinking of issuing international arrest warrants against the kidnappers. That, if it isn't illegal, definitely should be.

Do you allege such a conspiracy, or at the least gross incompetence by the major news companies?

Well I don't know what the press publishes where you are, but IMO it's generally tending towards incompetence these days.

For example, what if a male heterosexual soldier discusses his sexual exploits in front of a woman soldier after she has made clear that she doesn't want to hear this, and she then lodges an official complaint?

Rightfully so, but notice that there isn't a law saying that the braggart should be discharged immediately, regardless of the presence or absence of extenuating circumstances.

This is actually quite sensible, as such a betrayal undermines the mutual trust that is an absolute requirement for soldiers who may go into battle.

In exactly the same way asking gay soldiers to hide their identities undermines that trust. In fact, "don't ask, don't tell" makes gay soldiers susceptible to blackmail for that very reason!

If the facts of the case are indeed as they are presented by the blogger that you linked, then I agree that the woman officer's punishment was outrageous and unjust. However, the link from the blog to the original news article is broken, so I'm left in some doubt about what really happened.

MSNBC covered the story, then the ACLU challenged the police department only to receive this reply which makes it clear that the police officer saw the marriage license through the window. Clearly Ms. Newsome's wife needs to answer the charges brought against her (who knows if they're valid?) but as far as I can tell Ms. Newsome didn't ask and didn't tell.

But now as I think about it, I wonder why there should be special rules for homosexuals. I think everyone should be bound by the common rules of courtesy and mutual respect.

EXACTLY.

What I'm afraid of is that the gay rights crowd wants to make homosexuals immune from all rules—perhaps permitting flagrant sexual acts in the barracks, and (oh, the horror) pink underwear. OK, maybe I'm being silly, but the activists don't seem to have made their goals clear.

That silliness is probably a result of the fact that social conservatives routinely say that gays want "special rights". Recently, a friend's younger brother realized he was gay after graduating from college. He's a very committed Republican, and I was horrified to hear him repeat similarly silly notions like "gays already have the right to get married." Later, he claimed that legalizing gay marriage would destabilize society, which seems absurd considering that only ~4% of the population is gay.

By the way, do you mind if I post this conversation to my gay marriage article? That's the place on my website where I'm putting topics like "don't ask, don't tell", and it's refreshing to talk to someone civilized.

Please look into "asset forfeiture", especually for drug related offenses. The ACLU is already active in this, as described at http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/easy-money-civil-asset-forfeiture-abuse-police. Neither a conviction, nor a court order, is required for these seizures, and you _can_ have your assets or vehicle seized without a charge ever being filed.

And people say there is no slippery slope.

The War on Drugs has brought some of the most serious abuses of government power in this country. It demands to be rolled back, not pointed to as precedent to be emulated.

Please look into "asset forfeiture", especually for drug related offenses. The ACLU is already active in this, as described at http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice/easy-money-civil-asset-forfeiture-abuse-police. Neither a conviction, nor a court order, is required for these seizures, and you _can_ have your assets or vehicle seized without a charge ever being filed.

Is Salon.com any better? http://open.salon.com/blog/dennis_loo/2009/06/22/dod_deletes_protest_terrorism_problems_remain
How about the ACLU? http://www.aclu.org/national-security/fbi-investigation-thomas-merton-center-anti-war-investigation

How in the FUCK is what I said a troll?

I see all of your points, but I have to say I'm against the death penalty. I have many reasons for this, but I'll tell you the main one.

Many convicted people on death row have been later found innocent and exonerated due to newly found evidence, or after discovering prosecutorial misconduct or whatever. These are innocent people that all of us, as members of this club called the United States, who allow the death penalty, would have murdered. If we haven't done this already, which we almost certainly have, we will, at some point, know for a fact that we murdered an innocent person. At that point, we are all murders. And we, in turn, deserve to die.

That's the paradox of the death penalty. Lock the murderers up forever, definitely. But if we kill people that we're "pretty sure" killed someone else, even if the evidence seems terribly conclusive and emotions run high, it remains an incredibly dangerous legal environment. And if you don't think it happens, it does: http://www.aclu.org/capital-punishment/innocent-north-carolina-man-exonerated-after-14-years-death-row

To paraphrase your post "People in the UK look at stuff that goes on in the US... teens being charged as sex offenders for taking pictures of themselves, or strip searched at school for carrying a headache pill...".

The prosecution backed down on that first one; they didn't get off scot-free (as they should have) but they were not convicted of any sex offense.
Cite

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the strip search was wrong

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In the UK, not only was the Robin Hood tweeter convicted, but his conviction was upheld on appeal. So I'm afraid that while the US is indeed fucked up, the UK is more fucked up.

OK; one example: everyone knows that the 2nd Amendment just doesn't float ACLU's ultra liberal boat. They're quite up front about this. See their own words. Take a good look at that URL, which files the page under "racial justice" and a bunch of other crap, but they are up front about their views on gun control.

They think it doesn't protect the rights of INDIVIDUALS to own guns; the Supreme Court disagrees; they disapprove of the Supreme Court's decision.