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ACLU Campaign Challenges Patriot Act
Nept sent in a pointer to this story about the ACLU starting a media campaign challenging the PATRIOT Act. Good to hear.
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From the article: Ashcroft: "I consider it my job as attorney general to make sure that this and all our freedoms endure"
Which freedoms endure exactly? Ones like not being able to round up US citizens and hold them in perpetuity without charges? Or maybe the freedom to be free from unreasonable search & seizure?
Sorry, but the only freedom I see consistently protected is my country is the freedom to use as much damn oil as you please.
Their only client is the Constitution. You may not believe this, but if those people do not have rights, guess what? You don't either.
Kickin' it self-righteous school.
in QUITE different modes of thinking. the bush administration only has in mind, well, if anything, is its short term goals. the whole patriot act is very similar to drm and palladium, as well as the eulas. basically:
"we take people's rights away and pretend we give them more"
how is this any different?? it is very nice to hear that the aclu is taking note of it and launching a campaign, but it would also be nice if they did the same on the digital front, where weight of such names (esp. in large campaigns) is very helpful.
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
Seems strange that they want to prevent the people who know how to stop snipers from helping. As long as the assistance is purely technical, I have no problem with it. Now if the military was setting up roadblocks and detaining citizenz, it'd be another matter.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
I hold a strong contempt for the USA/Patriot Act because it places the United States in a state of war, with no formal declaration of war.
The US Constitution has specific terms dealing with our country being in a state of war, and it also specifies that when the war is over, those limitations on our freedom also disappear. Instead, Congress has declared a "sort-of, kinda war" with no specifics, and with many permanent limitations placed on our freedoms. Similarly, Congress has not declared war on Iraq, it has merely authorized the President to order an attack on that country.
Listen, just because they call themselves "the American Civil Liberties Union" does not mean they defend all civil liberties, mostly just the politically correct ones. When is the last time you saw the ACLU take a pro-second amendment stance? Whether or not you believe in it yourself, you have to admit their name should be "Selective Civil Liberties Union" at most.
I am sad to see that some at slashdot are marks for a vaguely disguised political fronts, or maybe they arent marks but have an agenda of their own?
Maybe saying this halves my fan list, but really - you should be alarmed in there in the US!
Wow, I'm sorry your sex life is so bad.
More generally, the ACLU's constant preference for grandstanding over action and action in support of dubious `rights' such as the `right' to affirmative action or the `right' to welfare payments has driven away a lot of their former supporters (myself included).
If your looking for a group doing actual work toward civil liberties, you may want to check out the Institute for Justice.
These people are best freedom fighters we have in American today! I give all I can to them whenever I can. Like Kurt Vonegutt said, this is not charity, it is insurance!
Thanks you, ALCU. I will send more when I can.
It's nice to see that the $50 I recently gave 'em when I joined is being put to good use. Perhaps it's time for another donation.
For those complaining about the ACLU and what they do, just remember that you don't have to like it for it to be just and Constitutionally correct. We may not like that Tim McVeigh got a fair trial, (I'm sure plenty would have liked to have seen him strung up in the middle of town and set on fire), but you've got to admit that it's what our laws, our traditions, and our Constitution mandate.
When I was considering joining the ACLU a few months ago, I looked through their various legal battles as part of my consideration. Some of the battles they fought quite frankly pissed me off (as I didn't agree in the least bit with what was being done), but when I sat down and thought about it from a Constitutional standpoint, I couldn't argue against that for which they fought. Just remember, that when the rights of any one citizen are in danger, no matter how scummy or worthless they may seem to us, all of us have our rights endangered.
I, for one, and a very proud member of the ACLU. I'm proud to be a part of an organization of folks who, above all else, believe that our laws, our freedoms, and our Constitution must be protected at all costs. To live without freedom is to not live at all. Every man and woman who has fought in a war for this country has laid their life on the line protecting the freedom that we now enjoy. Obviously, to them (as it was to the founders of our nation), freedom is more important than life. If you ever question that ideal, ask yourself this question: Would you want your children to live in a society such as that which existed under the Taliban, or even that which exists today in communist China; where freedom of thought, word, and deed are rare? Assuming you don't, ask yourself if you'd be willing to give your life; if you're prepared to die to ensure your children have the freedoms you grew up with...
Think about that for a while...
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
In John Ashcroft's first big privacy test, he passed! Forces tried to get Ashcroft to open up the background check database for firearms (essentially turning the database into a firewarms registration database) and he opposed it. His perpetual politically motivated critics actually called this "responding to the gun lobby". And yes, I saw some of that very shilling on slashdot.
Never overestimate the end user. -jeramy b. smith
" I don't think that the American people actually care about forking over their civil liberties in the name of national security."
The sad thing is that 90% of the people in this country dont know what there civil rights are, and because of that the police or whoever can trick* the average American into forfeiting those rights without their knowledge. It is a sad thing when the people that are passing our laws take advantage of this.
This is why representative government just doesnt work. When I elect a politician (mostly based on who slings the least crap) I have no idea wheather he gives a rats diseased ass about my rights. Go Here for a fix. Give them support or you are a bad american, you arent a bad american are you?
*an example of this crooked corrupt trickery is when police say things like "mind if I take a look inside" instead of "do you consent to a search of your house" because most people dont know that they can even deny a search
The military is a sledge hammer by comparison. Or to quote the movie, The Seige: "The United States military is a sword when what you need a scapel". The only thing these orginizations have in common are guns.
This is utter nonsense. The military has all sorts of capabilities beyond the ability to exert large amounts of brute force. Many of these are technical means which are not available to other agencies.
US law enforcement, for example, is unlikely to have aircraft that can track thousands of targets at once (like JSTARS can), but this may be exactly what is needed to sort out a fleeing sniper from the rest of metropolitan traffic.
That is only one example of many capabilities the military has. These have no relationship at all to a "sledge hammer."
As far as slippery slopes go, there are very few areas of human behavior where there are clean boundaries. Almost everything we do involves "slippery slopes" with something innocuous on one end of a continuum and something horrible at the other. Thus the slippery slope argument is a silly way to look at things. It is simply an excuse for extremism - to stay at one extreme end of the continuum - and is often used to substitude for actual reasoning.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Um...the point of posting on /. was that the piece of the P.A. the ACLU is concerned with allows the police to monitor what websites are being accessed from a given computer. Never hurts to read the post to which you're responding.
"declare war against countries which actively shield Al Quaeda."
t c that we've had laying around for so long that they've gotten lost. We're so used to having things around that could destroy the planet, that we don't even think twice when they turn up missing. I tend to wonder if any fully intact ICBMs are missing from their silos. Somehow, it just wouldn't surprise me at this point.
Excellent idea! Now we just need to get Congress to approve declarations of war against... Afghanistan, Indonesia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Palestine... oh wait, doesn't exist yet... Egypt, Jordan, Chechnya, Georgia (the country - relax you southerners...), and about a dozen or so other countries I can't think of offhand. You were talking about going after every single member of Al Qaeda who's being shielded by a recognized government, right? And don't forget to throw in France, Germany, and most of the rest of Europe, when they refuse to extradite suspected members of Al Qaeda to the US because they know we'll almost certainly execute them.
As for us declaring war on terrorism, let me summerize what that means. When using the phrase, "The War on ______ ", you have to understand what it means. To fully understand the situation, look at all the other "The War on _____"'s that we already have: The War on crime|AIDS|cancer|drugs|etc. Basically, when we don't like something, our politicians (usually the resident president) declare "war" on it. We never actually do anything to address the problem, the causes, or treat the effects; we just declare war on it. We've not cleaned up (or even made a difference in) crime, AIDS, drugs, or most others. We've only made progress in cancer treatment because there's so many different kinds of cancer, so the cancer industry doesn't have to worry about wiping out its cash-cow. So yes, "The War on terrorism" is going to last forever, will never end, will never get better, and will continue costing us, the taxpayers, money. Why? There's a hell of allot more money in "treating" the problem (biometric scanners, dBases, baggage screeners, radiation detection, bomb detection, etc) then there is in solving it.
Should we sit here and do nothing after Sept 11? Absolutely not; we should do something about it, but declaring "war" on it to make Americans feel warm and fuzzy again doesn't solve a thing. Find the causes, work to eliminate them; find the instigators, stop them from gathering followers; and for God's sake, find the missing anthrax/bombs/cesium/uranium/plutonium/smallpox/e
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
A friend of mind was talking the other night about a topic like this and the talk switched to what a "right" really was. The way he likes to look at it a right is something that even your enemy deservers. Even the guy who pushed you down in school. As much as many of us Americans claim to love our freedom many do not seem to really believe it is a right guaranteed just because they are human any more.
It truly bothers me when I see the ex-military types posting about how they protected this country with their life and are then willing to watch others give up their rights. What did you fight for if not those 10 rights guaranteed to all men because they are human. It just so happens that the Bill of Rights is part of US law but the founders believed that all people were granted those rights.
One of my favorite movies is about a president who falls in love with a lobbyist. At one point his opponent ridicules him for being a member of the ACLU. The president stands up for himself and the ACLU and questions why any person serving this country is not also a member. It is a beautiful scene.
What about it? We don't have people walking around with automatic weapons, rifles or shotguns. At least i can walk down to the Supermarket without fear of being shot.
But i don't want to start a debate on gun control here. My original point was that Australia (being behind the 8 ball in technology) has an opportunity to see how the rest of the world runs and then learn from their errors. With the exception Senator Alston, Australia is quite open to new Technology and doesnt see fit to censor it as some here say.
(Also, no Australian drinks Fosters, contrary to what the international marketing boffins would have you believe.)
I refuse to have a sig... dammit!
"The back pedofiles, murderers, rapists, terrorists, etc. The little good they do is negated by all the bullshit they do. The liberal bastards can kiss my ass and will never get my support on anything."
"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time, there was no one left to speak up for me."
-- Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945
Justice is blind, and all persons are innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. If the rights of the lowest members of society are recognized, then everyone else doesn't have to worry about their rights. If you don't like the fact that our laws, our government, and our Constitution were created with the recognition that all (wo)men were created equal, then perhaps a country such as China is better suited for you.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Democracy, even the representational democracy of the United States, is only an experiment. Government as usual in most of the world is not as slow, cumbersome, or as checked. That is the beauty of this democratic experiment.
So when a zealot starts pushing laws (Ashcroft is the only attorney general--to date--who is so ashamed of breasts that he had the statue of Lady Justice draped because of her secondary sexual characteristcs) and starts proposing the slippery-slope of using the military for civil police action, or the scanning and logging and 3rd. party databasing of digital citizen information while telling us that it's for our own good then everyone under such a government has a right to be concerned.
The ACLU recieves a great deal of bad press from members of the entertainment industry (News Corporations affiliated with even bigger corporations who often seek to marginalize any opponents to legislation which benefits the parent companies of said corporations) masquarading as reporters and editors. They're often paid to perform a hack-job on the issues. What matters is that the ACLU lawyers involved are often broaching a case which may seem very unpopular, while at the same time seeking to overturn or have amended the technical flaws behind legislation which is sometimes passed with such carelessness and behind schedule that legislators have no time to fix it...then such repair falls to the courts and groups like the ACLU. Remember, laws in this country are passed for mostly the wrong reasons--money, or turning the high-tech ratchet of mind and movement control a notch or two tighter.
As consumers of the media, we only see what the big players want us to see. The ACLU is an easy target for the WhiteHouse press to use in order to build concensus, incite the patriotic, and then using sound-bytes like a preacher on crack; willing the soldiers of gawd onto glory, completely obscures the real issues that will matter once the crisis is behind us.
I've heard smarter people than me remark, "Trouble at home, make trouble abroad." It's supposed to be a Machivelli quote that should have us all understanding the current state of things. If you're not worried, then you don't understand what is happening.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Let's get this straight once and for all: Giving up our rights will not make us any safer. Every one of the terrorists who hijacked planes last September was already under surveillance without sneak-and-peek laws. Every one of them had a valid ID without national ID card laws. Not one of them made public speeches denouncing the US, without extra restrictions on political speech. All of them got money from known terrorist sources, without crackdowns on Muslim charities. It's already illegal to commit mass murder, without having extra penalties for vaguely defined "terrorist" activities. The PATRIOT act was a wish list that Ashcroft had mostly compiled before 9/11. And they got it from Congressional leaders without debate while they were still jittery about anthrax. (Just like Bush got a blank check for unilateral preventive war from Congressional leaders with little debate while they're jittery about elections.) Make no mistake: Ashcroft and Co. are hijacking the country, in plain view of the American public, and our elected representatives are doing nothing to stop it. By painting anyone who objects as unpatriotic, they're scaring people into accepting the destruction of our most precious values.
I'm an optimist though - it may take a few years, even a decade, but America will survive this assault in the end, because liberty is stronger than its enemies. History will not smile on those orchestrating the current mess; this period will be a blotch like the Red Scare, a time when America lost its wits.
There comes a time, when one has to put aside one's normal political affiliations and realise that a government (any government of whatever political color) is drastically overstepping its mark. Clearly the Bush administration is such a regime. Committed Republicans should be just as (if not more) aghast at the inroads to current government is making into civil liberties
Positing Ashcroft's predictable repsonse to firearms registrations as his "first big privacy test" is simply too disingenuous.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Who would dare vote against something called the "USA Patriot act"? Imagine what would happen come election time:
/against/ the USA Patriot act to defend you and your families. Senator Sensible voted /against/ the war on Iraq to safeguard this country. Senator Sensible voted /against/ the CBDTPA to improve the quality of your Internet experience and bring digital television to your living room. We want this godless unAmerican traitor shot or deported. We'll settle for voting him out of office. VOTE SENATOR PARTYLINE."
"Senator Sensible voted
Face it people, democracy is about swaying the masses and doing what's popular - not what's right.
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright
Spain has ETA, the UK has the IRA (and where does most of the funding for that come from... oh yes the citizens of the USA). And before someone says "That is just inside the borders of the country" remember that the IRA have commited acts of terrorism in other countries, have trained in Libya and have helped train terrorists in Columbia.
Yet only when the US faces a threat is terrorism something new....
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Ooooo! Look mom! The ACLU is spending $3.5 million on television ads! Hmmmm... just before an election too. Exactly how are these ads supposed to help us anyway? This is just smoke and mirrors. Make John Ashcroft the bad guy when Congress and a Democratic Senate passed the bill. PCWorld doesn't have enough to report on, so they got sux0r3d into pushing propaganda as a news article. Wake me up when there's a real court challenge.
Sure, if you'd like to pretend that the national guard was in place at the time the bill of rights was written. Trouble is, it came into formation about 130 years after the bill of rights was written.
Could you tell me, perhaps, why all the other Bill of Rights amendments- free speech, search and siezure, don't have to self incriminate, etc, speak of undisputed Individual Rights, but the framers just happened to let a State Power slip into a document listing individual rights? Moreover, if you read the entire document, the Bill Of Rights lists Inalienable rights given by our creator, i.e., rights that cannot possibly be revoked by an entitiy that didn't give them- the government. Throughout the constitution, the government, state or local, is assigned "powers" given by the people, whereas the people have "rights." Our Government, National, State, or Local, has no power that it hasn't been granted by the same citizens thereof.
Your "Guns are for pussies" statement is clearly flamebait; since when did trolls get mod points here? Regardless, here are a few quotes from some of the folks who were kinda important in writing the constitution:
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution Proposed BV the Late Convention (1787).
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 46
and you seem to be a fan of gun control; i suggest you check out The Racist Roots of Gun Control
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
If you need something to leap out at you perhaps you should read the first paragraph: I also have an open mind and would like to make sure the FBI et al can do there job without one hand tied behind it's back. But to also blind those that keep an eye on them is just plain stupid. Being accountable does not limit their ability to do their job. It just prevents them from abusing the powers granted to them.
So, where exactly in the second amendment does it say that "people could have armed militias?" Where does it say that the militia is there to "check" the government? The oh so short second amendment reads as follows.
Notice the "well regulated" part? Also, notice that "Arms" is a proper noun? That means that WE can decide what regulations to place upon gun ownership and militias and WE can decide what the definition of "Arms" is. Do fully-automatic machine guns and rocket-launchers count as "Arms?" They most certainly are, but them being prohibited doesn't counter the 2nd Am. because "Arms" is defined by the individual States and by Congress itself.
Also, if you'll check out the bit of Am. 5 that says that persons cannot be held for a capital offense unless the offense is presented to a Grand Jury. One of the exceptions to that rule is if the person in question is "in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger." So, you can see right there in the Bill of Rights, the militia that we all talk about in the 2nd Am. is the same militia of the Revolutionary War. Citizens, non-professional soldiers.
Personally, I don't see a problem with limiting gun ownership to lower-powered hunting rifles. With pistols only for well-regulated (ie. registered and licensed) persons.
As far as the ACLU working against certain aspects of the Patriot Act, I'm all for them. Many people jokingly say the ACLU is the organization that fights for all out Bill of Rights except for Amendment 2. Well, someone has to right? There are so many people out there that think the ONLY right we apparently have is that of bearing arms.
~
When most Americans talk about ensuring freedom, what they really mean is their own freedom--the ones they enjoy, not freedom in general. In reality, most Americans couldn't care less about the freedoms of other Americans. Some of them actively work to take away the freedom of others while classifying such freedoms as "immoral" or "sin." I may be overly pessimistic, but I believe most Americans are too selfish in the way they formulate their personal policies on freedom. In their minds, if they want to do it, it should be free, but if they they don't like others doing it, it should be outlawed. Key word--Hypocrisy.
I was reading a book the other day about the History of of Colonial America, don't recall the title of it this early in the morning though.
Heres the thing I took from it.
In Colonial America all free males HAD to own a musket or a sword or a pike. If they were known to have the money, they had to have a sword and musket. In some towns all males between 16 and 45 had to have a horse and sword and pistol.
So at the time, most free males were part of a militia of some sort, or had served and were out. Thats where the well regulated comes in. The Framers were not talking about an Army being necessary to the security, they were talking about a well regulated militia of free males.
That all said, I think you misunderstand what a hunting rifle is/has to be. It's typically a much more powerful weapon than anything on the battlefield. A 45-70 scout rifle or a 338 or a 375 are all much more powerful than what the DC area gunman uses. They are not "lower-power".
Comment removed based on user account deletion
(...) the ACLU's constant (...) has driven away a lot of their former supporters ( myself included ).
OK, everybody who actually believes the "myself included", raise your hand... hm... yeah, thought so. Ah, the joy of unprovable and unrefutable statements.
Ask the guys who fought in Vietnam what a militia is capable of. They know.
Seems like if they threw $10 million advertising on the horrors of that lame vague piece of legislation they might be able to open voters eyes to somewhat near half-open on the topic. My 2 cents.
today is spelling optional day.
Although I support local Democracy, if you read our Constitution you see that most local rights are overriden by Federal laws. This is one of them. Your local resolution means nothing in force, merely that you are morally disagreeing with the Feds.
You couldn't be more wrong. Such local resolutions are very powerful. They can force a national debate, ultimately ending in a change in a law or policy. US support of apartheid South Africa was changed because of local movements and laws.
These types of resolutions have a fiscal impact as well. Federal agents often rely upon local police support in enforcing these laws. By banning local police support, residents are ensured that their local tax dollars are not used in a way they find distasteful. This has the added effect of shifting the cost to the national level. If enough communities take similar action, the cost on the federal government may make enforcement impractical.
As progressives say "think global, act local."
The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants. - Albert Camus
This is a Good Thing (tm), but it got me wondering. Has anyone else noticed that only the losers of the last election care about freedom at any given point in time? The ACLU didn't seem to mind Janet "The Butcher of Waco" Reno burning down children filled churches, nor sexual harassment at the presidential level a few years ago.
It must just be that the purpose of government, regardless of who is in power, is directly contreverted by the cause of liberty, and that the political ideologies are only so much window dressing used by parties which really are no different from one another.
Ow. Okay, now I'm depressed. I hate epiphanies.
We know now that the strain of anthrax used came from a highly secure US military lab. That greatly narrows what organizations could have planned and executed the attack. Could Al Quida steal biological weapons from Fort Detrick when they could have much more easily gotten anthrax from many other labs scattered throughout the world? In any investigation, the most important consideration is motive. Who stood to gain by passage of the USA-Patriot Act? And will the ACLU's challenge be enough to cause the killers to attack again, to persuade the masses to trade essential liberty for temporary safety? Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion...
(for an extensive analysis of the anthrax attacks)