Slashdot Mirror
Senate Trashes Civil Liberties; House to Vote Today
The U.S. Senate passed its version of the "anti-terrorism" legislation last night. The Washington Post, CNN, and Wired all have stories. There are terrorists under every rock, and we must destroy our freedom in order to save it. Remember: gamblers are terrorists too. The House is apparently going to drop their version of the legislation and vote on a copy of the Senate bill.
http://www.house.gov/writerep/ is the address to go to if you want to send a quick email. Letters are best but the vote is today.
US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says she foresees unprecedented restrictions on democratic rights in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. She declared flatly, "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country." Read the article here, or find it on yahoo etc - it was widely reported.
Do you see a check or balance anywhere in sight? I see a big blank check being handed to Congress by one of the justices on the Supreme Court, but besides that...
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
but nobody even seems to care about the fact that Anthrax has been confirmed in New York City
So how will these laws prevent someone from putting some Anthrax spores in an envelope and mailing them to you? This is how the NBC reporter supposedly got the disease in case you didn't know.
Ok, we'll get them back after all this is over. Most of these provisions (the one the Senate passed in particular) has a SUNSET clause. Nobody seems to mention that. These are temporary restrictions to aid in the keeping the people safe.
This is incorrect. Read the Reuters article about the bill passing or any other major news story about the USA act. The Senate voted for No SUNSET on their version of the bill. That's right, congress believes ecret searches of the homes of suspects and treating people like the US is soviet Russia should become the new American way of life.
The House is pressing for sunset provisions to this law but the Senate is trying to convince them otherwise and according to the current slashdot article (you read the links right?), it looks like the House may have been convinced to throw out their objections except for a token disagreement about the wiretap sections expiring in 2004 but even that has provisions that allow it to be overruled if the government feels that it violates "national security".
We can expect precisely the same behavior over here in the States. Power needs to control. The government will never willingly return power to the populace -- such an act is simply not in its nature. It is only returned by massive, sustained acts of civil disobedience, for instance, in the legal viewpoint, the 60's were a reaction to the laws passed during the World Wars. It took an entire generation to restore some liberties lost during the previous decades of crisis. With this bill, we have just plotted a course for our children to follow.
Other posters rebutted you, but I should reiterate: civil liberties are in fact endowed, natural rights -- read the Declaration of Independence. Moreover, freedom and security are not polar opposities. It is largely because of our freedoms that America has developed into a vibrant, productive society capable of providing for everyone and thus removing the desperate incentives that drive terrorism. There are many places in the world far less free, with far less safety.
Oh, and I'm not worried about anthrax -- the infection rate is too low to be effective in the face of our fully mobilized medical resources. But there are other, simpler bateriums that can be spread in other fashions. My advice to you -- drink filtered water.
Authorization of "roving wiretaps," so that law enforcement officials can get court order to wiretap any phone a suspected terrorist would use. Current law requires a court order for each phone number, which most say is outdated with the advent of cellular and disposable phones.
Allows the federal government to detain non-U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism for up to seven days without specific charges. The administration originally wanted to hold them indefinitely.
Allows law enforcement officials greater subpoena power for e-mail records of terrorist suspects.
Relaxes restrictions on information sharing between U.S. law enforcement and intelligence
officers about suspected terrorists.
Makes it illegal to knowingly harbor a terrorist.
Triples the number of Border Patrol, Customs Service Inspectors and Immigration and Naturalization Service inspectors at the northern border of the United States, and provides $100 million to improve technology and equipment on the U.S. border with Canada.
Expands current measures against money laundering by requiring additional record keeping and reports for certain transactions and requiring identification of account holders.
Eliminates the statute of limitations for prosecuting the most egregious terrorist acts, but maintains the statute of limitation on most crimes at five to eight years.
/. fear so much?
I don't feel any safer, but I don't feel any less free either! Exactly what is it about more border guards do all the
First off, obviously Hatch doesn't know the differences between a hacker and a cracker.
No, he is using EXACTLY the right word. I'm so tired of people redefining this word, and then getting pissed when others don't recognize their attempts to redefine it.
One of the original definitions of hacker was one who breaks into computers. ESR has attempted to "deprecate" this meaning, but I don't recognize his right to deprecate, and no one else should either.
That's one of the definitions of hacker. Get over it.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
you said it. I won't give up any of my freedom for any amount of safety
So you didn't give up your freedom to own a nuclear weapon so that you are safe from your neighbor blowing up your town?
Everyone always screams the Benjamin Franklin quote that "anyone who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserves neither" doesn't realize that Ben didn't live in the friggin 21st century. Back in the 1780s, there wasn't too much of a harm in having your neighbor own a musket (and there isn't much harm in that now). Up that musket to a 10 megaton bomb and you have a problem.
Everyone has give up some liberties for safety. 8 year olds don't have the liberty to drive a car, people under 21 (in most states) give up the liberty to drink themselves into a stupor, and YOU have given up liberties to provide for the safety of society as a whole.
The problem is in striking the perfect balance between the two--and this is something that may never be found. This goverment is about always tweaking to provide for the times. Look at amendments to the constitution, that allows for the goverment to make a small change that was not anticipated at the signing in 1787 without having to trash the whole thing every few years.
That's exacly how the Talibans took over Afghanistan, they said they would guarantee the people's safety and look at them now, look at them.
As a side note, I don't think that is how the Taliban took over--that was basically a small band of rebels who used force to take over the government.
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Wrong. I watched the entire amendment debate last night on CSPAN. I saw the lack of logic. I saw people openly admit that this bill was un-constitutional (I swear). They are trying to trash the forth. They really don't care.
Feingold was very well spoken. He was very direct. No one gave a single valid objection to any of his amendments. They simply tabled them. Something wierd is going down. There is more to this than just a knee-jerk reaction to the bombings. And for once, Slashdot is not being inflammatory.
I hate resoning by example (people always choose extreme ones either way), but Feingold reasoned that this bill would allow the Feds to wiretap you w/o a warrant if you use the Library's or a work computer in a way other then directed. In other words using your work computer to look at monster.com causes you to fall under the definition of a terrorist and thus you give up all forth amendment protections when dealing w/ and work computer indefinetly. This is not good. The senators understood this example. They did not disagree with it. They went ahead and tabled the amendments anyway. The fix was in. I don't know why but the whole attitude on the floor was wierd. ( I watch alot of CSPAN, things were out of place )
Moderators, please recognize that what Archfeld said, in the parent post, is true.
Archfeld says, "in the middle east for ONE purpose ONLY, oil as we all know it..."
"REALITY says people do not just become SUICIDE bombers for NO REASON."
and
"IF our government had not systematically SCREWED everyone they've ever dealt with in the Middle East maybe things would be different."
This is a quote from the official testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives of Unocal Vice President John J. Maresca, on February 12, 1998. He said, in part, "CentGas cannot begin construction until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place."
For a link to this document on the House of Representatives government web site, and a document about the pipeline route, search on the word Unocal in: What should be the Response to Violence?
Bush's education improvements were