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Bookseller Purges Records to Avoid PATRIOT Act
Skyshadow writes "Vermont Bookseller Bear Pond Books has announced that they will purge their sales records at the request of customers . This would effectively sidestep typically insideous a provision of the PATRIOT Act which allows government agencies to secretly seize sales records. The store's co-owner, Michael Katzenberg, put it this way: 'When the CIA comes and asks what you've read because they're suspicious of you, we can't tell them because we don't have it... That's just a basic right, to be able to read what you want without fear that somebody is looking over your shoulder to see what you're reading.' Now if only certain other booksellers would show that same conscience, we might have something here."
The CIA does not, and is not allowed, to opperate within the borders of the united states. It may be the FBI or NSA that comes looking but CIA is strictly for international matters.
And I highly doubt they would be interested in what books a person reads, but that's just me.
I was, as a result of this post, going to create a list on Amazon cataloging a number of books that might make the government look at me a little closer. Little did I know, someone had already done just that :\
Here.[amazon.com]
I'm sorry about our government... It's the 1950's all over again and it sucks ass. Everyone is freaked out about all the terrorists that must be living next door, or down the street. Everyone watches CNN and FOX news for their information, and the 6 news agencies in the US are all for these horrible things as it will mean bigger sales in the near future. The government is being run by corporations at the moment, but I think another uprising of protest (ala early 70's) will put the government back in somewhat close to what could kind of be called balance.
The american people are starting to get pissed off and the movements against these insanities are growing as more people are being educated.
-Derick
Lastly: get a clue and toss in some fucking line breaks.
Which politician is man or woman enough to lead the fight to undo these un-American powers? We know that in the Senate only Feingold resisted, although colleagues have become braver since. And yet the nation remains enthralled to right wing fantasies, driven hysterical by an irresponsible administration and its cynical Democratic allies who use fear to control the public as ranchers use cattle prods.
The hour demands a Lincoln; all we have is a Bush! Is there no one in office with love great enough for our freedom to save it?
"Winner takes all" only applies in presidential elections. There are a number of other problems which apply in all elections. The plurality voting system is chief among them.
Bad idea. Learn about the problem with Instant Runoff Voting. The same problem applies in any runoff, instant or not. Sometimes the best "compromise" candidate may get eliminated first, and you're stuck voting between two bad choices - exactly what we have now. Yes, plurality voting is bad, but IRV isn't really any better (even though it seems to be). The system you want is Condorcet voting. Same ranking method, but you consider all preferences simultaneously rather than sequentially.
Not really. True proportional representation by popular vote forgets that the states, as political entities, should be represented in the federal government too. (That's what federal government means, the federation of individual states.) In Congress we have one house that represents the states (at least we did until that lousy 17th Amendment) and one that represents the people. The EC is an attempt to unify the interests of the states and the people when voting for a singular office (president). That's why the number of EC votes a state has is the total number of Senators and Representatives from that state.
I do agree that "winner takes all" is a broken system. The legislators that put it in place were very short-sighted - in giving more power to "their state's party" in presidential elections, they didn't think that the balance of power in their state might swing another way in the future and end up hurting "their party". NE and ME allocate their EC votes (less two) proportionally by congressional district to the plurality winner of that district. That's a good attempt at compromise. I think it would be better if we used Condorcet, better still if the last two EC votes were decided in the state legislature (if they are supposed to represent the state's interest) and we scrapped the 17th Am. while we're at it. Remember, these issues are decided by your state legislators, not DC. This gives you much greater ability to make a change to the system. It's closer to you, and hence more responsive.
I've also heard people say that we don't have enough representatives in Congress. With only 435, each has far too many constituents to respond to. The Constitution originally called for a 1:30k ratio. Maybe several thousand would be a tad excessive, but with modern technology I don't see why the number couldn't be increased without hampering the ability to debate. This means you'd have more chance of your view being represented in Congress, and combined with the idea of allocating EC votes by CD, a better chance of picking the president too.
Constitutionally Correct