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Congress to Make PATRIOT Act Permanent
955301 writes "As if it was unexpected, the New York Times (free reg...) has an article on attempts by our Congressional Republicans to eliminate the expiration of the Patriot Act. Everyone may thank Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah for getting this 9/11 snowball rolling, and the general population for our current leadership." There's another story in the SF Chronicle.
that one day, when the patriot act is finally challenged in the supreme court it will be destroyed.
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Yeah, a few possible terrorists are caught at the tiny expense of the freedom and rights of 250+ million innocent people.
...
How are they going to stop you? Throw you in jail and not let you see a lawyer?
Oh wait...
Can you back this up? Can you document how many terrorists have now been caught that wouldn't have been caught without it? Kindly provide links.
Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase
a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
And how many years before 9/11 did we go without a terrorist act? And how many years before that were we hit by a terrorist act enacted by people who are not American citizens?
So how do you come to the conclusion that the Patriot Act works?
Sweet tap dancing Christ!
I have a rock that keeps tigers away. I haven't seen any tigers lately, so it must be working fairly well.
- A real programmer uses $ cat > a.out
Riiight. So you will only speak on the condition of anonymity but all ordinary citizens are expected to forfeit that right? I'm sure the irony of that situation will go unchecked.
"My fingers Emit sparks of fire in Expectation of my future labours." William Blake
Oh, wait. I said WAI......
You could've hired me.
Anyone remember the last Star Wars movie? The part where the Chancelor (I think) was given supreme power to build a clone army and he said afterwards he would step down. Isn't it sad when power is meant to be instituted upon an individual or group for a limited time, but when that individual or group gains that power they suddenly realize "hey I like this, I wanna keep it." The power of corruption with those in power is amazingly strong. Even worse fact is that those in power don't really think that what they are doing is wrong. We can't allow them to just extend an Act because they feel it is right. The people I'm sure don't feel like it is right.
Question everything.
Simply linking to someone else's work and putting a spin on it is NOT journalism!
So we've had the patriot act for about a year and a half now. The best justification I read in the article was that it MIGHT have "allowed the F.B.I. to get a warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui." There's a big difference between MIGHT have and definately would have.
Somehow I don't feel any safer.
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Squirrel
But didn't the general population vote for Gore?
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
The parent asks for a specific example, and you respond with a quote. The question remains, what liberties are you referring to? Or can you name none?
One thing about "rights" is that for normal people to get them usually involves war, death, revolution, and lots of beheadings.
Rights like the access to a fair trial in a reasonable amount of time. To be represented in court with a competent lawyer in the field. To be proven of guilt by a jury of peers.
Rights like anonymous freedom of speech. Anonymous freedom of association. And anonymous dissemination and learning of information.
What rights we lose now we will eventually regain in the mass deaths of some group. But that's just a "terrorist" act in and of itself.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
So by this argument, and the discussion that will follow, upon the next act of terrorism on US soil that succeeds without prior detection will prove this Act misguided?
I doubt it. This thing is here to stay. Until some progressive leadership realizes our immigrant population is dwindling because of harassment. "Thank God" the nationalists cry. But lets not forget, these are the people are outrank us in any tests of the maths and sciences, and they include some of the best entrepreneurs we have.
Why not outsource then? If I can pay for the same skills overseas, I'll take it. Not all skills are outsourcable, I've commented on this already. What a great help to the EU and Asia! We're going to pump more corporate dollars overseas, meanwhile we try to shut down the surreptitious church funds and money transfer shops. Ironic.
We're closing ours doors through fear. The effects are going to be subtle and long-felt. There's a marketing aspect here. Each time, regardless of usage, the Ashcrofts of the administration argue for "war time infrigements", we're fueling a isolationist platform. History has proven these moves to be limiting to only growth, and not much good otherwise.
mug
Dude, you just referenced two liberal rags claiming the Republicans are pulling the sky down.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
and do the following:
s/communism/terrorism;
s/USSR/Al Qaeda;
s/Russia/Iraq;
and you will see what the United States is about to become again.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
It's much easier for our government to protect our freedoms if you're willing to give up all but a few, so that they need only concentrate on protecting those few.
The PATRIOT is our most anti-constitutional act to date that most people can name. By nature of the erosion of liberties contained within it becomes quite possible to violate several aspects of the 4th amendment (among many others) to the point that they may as well negate it. Our government seems hell-bent on amassing as much power as it possibly can. With Ashcroft et al. in charge of defending our liberties, I can only hope that someone in government will wake up and propose a counter-act to this. That we stand by and have allowed this to occur is miserable, that government continues to exploit it borders on criminal. Laws are not always inherently moral, and this law is among the greatest examples of how ethics and law do not always correlate. How many "terrorists" this law has caught may never be known since the government has not authorized release of information of the people involved. Secret trials, evidence allowed based on word-of-mouth and witness testimony only, and imprisonment without due process are against the Constitution but allowed under the PATRIOT act. This fascist law must be eliminated to protect our nation's freedoms and prevent our overbearing, paternal government from becoming merely a Big Brother.
We cannot allow this to continue. I will be writing my Congressmen and saking others to do the same. Laws like this are how Hitler, Mussolini, and numerous other dictators got started. Law is built on precedence, so if we allow this to continue the envelope will be pushed until new even more intrusive laws are allowed. Seriously, if we are allowed to treat non-citizens like lawbreakers without reprisal, how long will it be before we are allowed to treat citizens like lawbreakers mere for speaking against the government? Oregon is already proposing legislature that would allow peace protestors to be arrested on terrorism charges. How long before this is carried nationwide?
Our rights are under serious threat from a government led by certain people that thirst for power. If we don't act now, it may well be illegal to act later. Call your reps and senators, spread the word, and let's try to kill this thing now before it becomes permanent law.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
The ACLU is too busy making sure no schoolchildren do anything to celebrate Christmas, and persecuting anyone who believes in a Christian god. They haven't said boo shit about PATRIOT, and it's doubtful they ever will.
You misunderstand the purpose of the ACLU. They defend civil liberties equally for Americans of all races and religions. If you are a member of religion X and the government does something that (likely uses your money) to endorse religion Y, you have a problem. This is where the ACLU steps in.
I assume you're Christian, so I imagine you would be offended if the government insisted that public schools engage in Buddhist meditations every morning. Now imagine how a Buddhist would feel if he had to participate in Christian prayers every morning. You get the picture yet?
The ACLU interprets the Constitution and the rights and liberties protected by it. They work to support it without bias. One of those freedoms is freedom of (and from) religion.
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I love how these types of post are always Anonymous. If you love this country so much, why post Anonymously?
Christian Churches were banned because they were breeders of Terrorists.
White Men with short haircuts were interviewed by the CIA to determine their Official Level of Loyalty.
The military was disbanded because it gave Would-be-Terrorists skills and training to do their work.
???
.sig
Oh wait, back in Reality, Totalitarianism and Fear Mongering only works when the boogie-man is OUTSIDE the borders and easily picked-out...
America has always loved to rally in hate against an Enemy, how lucky this new one is so Evil(tm). Read my
"Congress to Make PATRIOT Act Permanent"
Well that's not at all accurate.
It's not been voted on. Hell all the articles about this story state clearly "the move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress." Or that "Congressional Republicans, working with the Bush administration, are maneuvering to make permanent."
Where are we at in this process? Is the President signing it? Hell no it's being discussed. Discussed, not being voted on as we speak, discussed.
The best part is down at the bottom of the SF Gate piece.
"But political jockeying over separate, bipartisan legislation sponsored by Sens. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., appears to have given Hatch the chance to move on the issue much earlier than expected. The Kyl-Schumer measure would eliminate the need for federal agents seeking secret surveillance warrants to show that a suspect is affiliated with a foreign power or agent, such as a terrorist group."
What about that nut who shot up the Airport in CA last July 4?
What about the DC sniper?? Those dudes ran around a highly populated metro for nearly a month before they got nabbed on a lucky break.
Neither was prevented by this act that was SPECIFICALLY designed to combat this type of "lone wolf" terrorists.
And, BTW, I don't care what the media calls them; these two examples are terrorist acts.
CNN? The Clinton News Network? Yeah... they're not biased at all... *sarcasm* Are you serious? Get a life and forget about world issues entirely? My god. You're actually advocating a dictatorship by saying that. Think about it. If everybody "forgot about world issues", then nobody would care what the government did, and a dictatorship would eventually arise, like it always does when nobody stops them. The only way to change things for the better is to NOT forget about issues.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
Another secret warrant law, this one to help speed the capture of "lone wolves," that is, terrorists who work without affiliation to a terrorist group. See the problem here? This is all about targeting individuals and making it even more secretive than it already is.
The decent into madness continues, unabated.
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Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
that Gore wouldn't have done the same thing, had he won.
For those who don't have time/inclination to read the article: Congress is not making the PATRIOT act permanent. The article says that Orrin Hatch is attempting to make the act permanent. Many Congressmen agree; many disagree. Let your representatives know what you think. But know that this is not in the works already. This article's title is horribly misleading.
At the risk of my karma:
Liberal bias in Slashdot. Bah. Set up another straw man, I'm tired of hearing about liberal bias. Have you looked out the window recently? This country is so far right, we can't see left from here.
If it's really a burden for you, there are plenty of sources for you. I would recomend FOX and CNN for starters. They are very right-friendly, and you will feel very comfy there. No one will question government motives, no one will ask embarrasing questions about corporations. You can safely dream that this is the same country portrayed in "Leave it To Beaver."
Thanks for stopping by, and sorry for making all this liberal noise about rights & privacy. I mean really, what were we thinking?
As a final note, I'd caution you about the internet, it's a rough neighborhood, and you may bump into some ideas that aren't the same as yours. I wouldn't worry though, It'll all be cleaned up in a couple of years. I hear Disney's buying it.
What were you expecting?
They act as if sunset provisions = not caring about the law. Quite the opposite, I think. Sunset provisions mean that a law is so important that it is worth coming back to, over and over again. Is it such a hard thing to ask that Congress spend at least as much time on "Review of Changes to Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights in Response to Terrorism" once a year as they do to "What Shall We Call Deep Fried Potato Strips In Our Cafeteria?"? Or that they spend as much time each year reviewing it as they did in passing it in the first place? (which was, unfortunately, just a few hours as I recall: Congresspersons didn't even get a chance to read it, not all 300+ pages)
That is actually untrue. When Christian students cannot have a Bible Study at school during free time, but all other groups can meet, I don't see our local ACLU joinging in to help protect these student's freedoms.
Care to back this up? I've witnessed several Christian groups forming at my school, without difficulty. They were simply not school sanctioned, which is good. I've never seen reports otherwise.
When someone wants to post porn of 5 year old kids on the internet, the ACLU will fight tooth and nail to defend their freedoms.
When the ACLU engages in battles like this, they are not defending the perpetrator's freedoms and they are certainly not defending the perpetrator. They are defending the person's right to due process. Law enforcement is often overzealous in dealing with particularly disgusting cases. But in a free state, even the most disgusting of crimes demands due process be follwed within the bounds of the law, and not the mind of enraged law enforcement.
The ACLU is not for freedom, they are for anything Anti-Christian.
Unsubstantiated.
Join Tor today!
Muslim clerics have been calling for Jihad since the late 1970's to no avail. Members of Al Qaeda commit terrorist acts because they're terrorists, not because they're Muslim.
This is my sig.
You should learn from europe. We had our own internal "terrorist groups" to deal with, but we never stoped being a somewhat carefree society, oposed to the current state of North-American paranoia. Try visiting europe *preferably with a Canadian passport right now*, and you can feel the lack of fear in the air, other than the concern about the current US administration. We dont give more importance to any "terrorist" than we would give to "organized crime" and "serial killers".
The difference is pretty moot.
Nope.
Gore won Florida, and with it, the election. Florida was, however, declared as being a Bush win. When the recount was about to show that Gore did win, the Supreme Court stopped the recount, saying it would 'make things very difficult for Bush to go on with his presidency.' Paraphrase, but that's the idea.
An independant recount by media, later, showed that Gore won.
Also, when the Dems tried to point things out like, oh, most of the military absentee ballots were illegally cast, the Republicans would cry foul; 'How dare you try to deny our fighting men and women of their votes?'
Folks, Bush ain't your president.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
when i got home and raised the alarm, people accepted it mutely, almost like sheep. no one seemed to care
you are close. go visit a slaughter house and watch the cows marching in to their doom. they AREN'T forced they happily line up and walk in to their death because they are conditioned to their entire lives.
This is the general american public.
welcome to america.. Mooooooooo.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What did the Supreme Court have to do with the 2002 election?
All of you had the chance to vote out any and every House member that supported the USA PATRIOT Act. Many of you also had the ability to get rid of any Senator. And yet you don't want any of the blame, you want to blame the Supreme Court that "appointed" President Bush, the very same president that has yet to veto anything Congress gave him since his term began. If you quit bitching about the 2000 election for five minutes and realized that this White House has literally allowed Congress to do whatever it damned well pleased, you might have seen this law coming to begin with.
I also find it amusing that you blame the Electoral College, when the people, allowed to vote without thinking thanks to the Seventeenth Amendment, were the ones that overwhelimingly supported the incumbents that composed and passed the USA PATRIOT Act to begin with. Hey, it's not like over 90% of the folks you got to elect directly supported the bill or anything...
No, what we have here is not a "break down" of democracy. The USA PATRIOT Act happened because of democracy! Both chambers of Congress are full of people who got their position not because of merit, but because they looked good on TV and had catchy campaign slogans. Why should they avoid knee-jerk reactions when they're there because of knee-jerk reactions? For the USA PATRIOT Act, you can thank both yourselves and your 1913 compatriots that gave you the ability to shoot yourselves in the foot like this to begin with.
Did you even vote last year?
WTF is this modded "informative"? Maybe you should all go to "how stuff works" and find out how the Electoral College works. Then consider whether the practice of assigning at least one house rep per state is fair. After all, that gives Alaska a lot more represenation per person than, say, New Mexico.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Totally aside from the stupidity of the name, it's declared objective, which is the "worldwide elimination of terrorism", is both logically impossible to achieve, as well as unprovable whether or not it ever has been achieved. Exactly like the war on drugs, which it's often compated too. Both are little more than political fictions to allow expanded police powers with less oversight. From a historical point of view, consider the war on organized crime, another total flop which gives us crap like the material witness laws.
Please tell me where in the patriot act they did away with the ENTIRE CONSTITUTION? I found nothing in my reading of it that says persons may be detained indefinately without charge. I noticed that there is an increase in wiretap ability of the government, but anything that says you can be held without charge indefinately is not only ludicrous (sp?), but facially unconstitutional.
Yes, it is clear that the powers of the government to spy via this law are greatly expanded, and may not be constitutional. However, I simply do not buy into the FUD that so many have that the US can just whisk you away in the middle of the night on secret charges, and do it legally. This is not communist russia.
You're right, there are better reasons why those are bad. More like they're EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN by the constitution. Neat trick they pulled though, you can't challenge the PATRIOT act as unconstitutional because you're effectively tried by secret tribunal.. i.e. no way for it to get to the supreme court to be ruled unconstitutional.
All we need to do is find one law-enforcement dude to arrest every single congressman that would be likely to vote in favour of this.
Do we need a reason? Nope : cite the Patriot act.
The unlimited detainment period need only last until after the bill gets crushed like the rights of the people under it.
People will say that's an abuse of the Act and we'll win by demonstration of the very thing we're protesting against. If they don't complain then the bill will vetoed anyways. It's a win-win situation.
Why bother even posting a link for this type of weekly bashing? Just call the story "Let the Bush bashing begin" and then have all you liberal morons start whining about how Bush stole the election, is evil and has done x, y and z to destroy the US.
As much as i hate the Patriot Act it was BIPARTISAN that means both parties were for it and the majority of both voted for it in Congress. Even now, according to the story, Schumer (D-NY) is in on making this shit permament.
And while your slaming the Dept. of Homeland Security as a Republican Gestapo remember that the department was proposed by a Democrat (Leiberman) and the Republicans were initially against it but gave in on it because they knew it would be political suicide to oppose it at the time.
I hate the patriot act and i'm not in favor of the Homeland Security Department either but you can't lay this at the feet of just one party, both are responsible. Call your elected representatives and tell them you are against the extension of the Patriot Act and Patriot Act II instead of sitting around whining about how Bush "stole" the election.
[The Patriot Act] grants the executive branch almost police state powers,
How do you justify the word "almost" in that sentence? In the USA today, the government can make people simply disappear. The USA already imprisons a larger fraction of its population than any other developed country, and the Patriot Act has barely started to have an effect. What more do you want before you are willing to describe the USA as a police state?
"...and the general population for our current leadership..."
Excuse me! Didn't the "general population" ask for a different leader of the free world??
The dope currently at the head of the US was appointed by the Supreme Court. Don't blame the rest of us for any messes him and his fascist puppetmasters have gotten us into.
Here's a brief rundown - it's the idea that people are important. That by being a member of society, you have an obligation to all the other members of that society. That people should work together to provide for the common good. You would be dead right now if it weren't for the things you're poo-pooing. You didn't educate yourself - nobody does. You can't.
I DO work 60 hours a week (often) with no overtime. I'm forced into that work model because this country treats people as a resource rather than citizens, and thus I'm expected to compete to keep my job. I'm sure your father is a very worthwhile person, but it's a simple fact of economics that not everyone can be successfull - in fact most people can't. Think about it sometime. And, to a liberal, that fact means that we have an obligation to make sure that our own ambition doesn't take the food from anyone elses mouth or the roof from over thier head.
I don't have any solid figures, but I would be astonished if I were wrong when I said that 90% of the people making over, say, 100k a year (not rich, but upper middle class) came from (at least) lower middle class backgrounds. This is where your taxes go - to provide opportunities for people without rich parents.
Now, it's not done perfectly and I'm as annoyed as you with the amount of taxes taken out of my check, although military spending accounts for more of it than anything else, so if you support that you might want to re-think your ranting. But the principles, the concepts that lead to this sort of thing, are perfectlly sound, and, in fact, are one of the reasons our country even still exists. Take a look at history, with the massive gap (far more than in America today, although it's growing) in the standard of living between the upper class and the poor. The American Dream was the rise of the middle class.
Guessing from the synopsis of your life story, I'd bet that you've never been truly poor - that while you may have worked hard, you've never needed to make choices like whether to feed your children or clothe them. Those are hard choices - the kind that nobody should ever have to make, and they pretty much take the wind right our of arguments like "work harder and everything will be okay".
If you were TRULY a libertarian, you'd want to do away with inheritence. Think you have what it takes to make it on your own? How about, at birth, all children are placed in a big pit (we can use Texas) and only the strongest are able to dig themselves out. That way, your parents won't provide you with anything. Your success won't be measured by the accidents of your birth.
Lastly, let me just address this little tidbit of bullcrap: ""Liberals" believe that the government should take care of the people, and the people should thank and worship the government."
Bunk. Liberals believe that the goverment should take care of the people, period. It's that simple. I certainly don't worship or thank my government, but my social beliefs are liberal by any definition. I believe it's my obligation, as it is yours, that by being a member of society, and a citizen of this nation, to support everyone. To provide for common education. To provide a path for people to better themselves. The "free market" does not and cannot do any of this, because it inherently does not produce a profit.
"Another senior official who also demanded anonymity"
Funny how these senior officials demand the same right to anonymity that they wish to take from us.
I don't like somebody. Therefore we should violate their rights! The American Civil Liberties Union should not defend people we don't like! They don't deserve civil liberties. You are confusing defense of a group's rights with defense of what they do. I don't like what you are saying. Therefore I should not defend your rights???
This sort of thing is like the first step in negotiations. "How much? A million. A dollar. How about 500k? Done." What if you had asked for two million?
The negotiations are happening up-front in congress:
"we almost had the votes for this, we can probably accomplish that."
and more deceptively in the public:
"Look how we compromised! There's three awful bills we didn't even pass!"
This, of course is like a murderer saying, "I'm not a bad guy, look at all the people I didn't shoot!"
I like the poster that referenced a bumper sticker:
I love my country. Its the government I'm afraid of.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
No, seriously, how's the job market up there?
People here can joke all they want, and make their flag-wavin'-'merikun "love-it-or-leave-it" snide remarks about Canadian immigration, but the way our country's been going lately has make me take a hard look at immigration.
I'm older, and making a life change like this would be very difficult, but I'm sick and tired of all the bile out of the so-called "patriots" who've backed this so-called "administration". GWB and his cronies are looking more like Saddam than not. All this talk of "If you're not with us, you're against us", and "...all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do..." is starting to sound a lot more fascist than democratic.
The "War on Terrorism" is a power play, just like the "War on Drugs" is. Each is used as an excuse to furter erode our rights and freedoms. Each is used to increase the powers of the Executiv Branch at the expense of the others. Each is used to grant even greater powers to law enforcement agencies. Each is used to remove judicial oversight from the actions of law enforcement.
The War on Drugs is a dismal failure. Drug use has not abated. The War or Terror(ism) will also be a failure. It will not make the world a safer place. But neither of these "wars" was meant to do what they told us they were for.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I'm "phatdawg", I just can't log in right now.
.com era.
I was a peace protestor until I realized the peace protestors were becoming extremists in their own right, for once the war started, not having a war or simply stopping the war became unrealistic options. But they continue protesting for no war instead of moving on to the next fight. We lost that battle. The best we can do now is win the war and mobilize all that now-wasted energy into fighting to get the power to wage war back into the hands of the people... and the senate.
The great thing about Clinton was that he didn't really do much other than go around the world smiling, as if he was on tour, and telling everybody how great things were. What better for a president to do! He let the larger body of congress make decisions and went about his business in the oval office.
Ah, but that was before 9-11 you say. The same 9-11 perpetrated by mainly Saudi Arabians? Led by a former CIA weapons recipient cum revolutionary? The same 9-11 in which airliners were out of range for over a 1/2 hour before the disaster when common protocol is to intercept those out of contact for 10 minutes? The same 9-11 in which all the scrape was sent off so fast as to make an investigation impossible? The same 9-11 that was to be investigated by an unprosectucted war criminal? The same 9-11 timed to hit symbolic targets on a symbolic day?
Sorry big brother, I do not love you (props to Orwell). This country, with movies that average several cuts a second and an internet that allows for instant access to everything, has forgotten how to synthesize information horizontally. Sure, we can understand an electron and scale that up to a supercomputer, but... well, connect the dots.
One of the most profitable periods in world history. Tons of money was moved around. The
A power crisis orchestrated by Texans.
An election in which the results were very very close... so close, the supreme court had to call it in favor of the losing candidate (popular votes).
The largest bankruptcy in history without a solid investigation. A bankruptcy connected to the White House.
The bubble bursts. Tons of people are out of work. Bad for the people, great for businesses.
A spectre of campaign financing reform with a very important gap, "soft money", left out.
9/11. the stock market is closed. America stops.
When it restarts:
Patriot Act, allowing for people to disappear.
A War on afghanistan (central in a pipeline from the mideast to the far east/russia)
Labeling countries moving the the Euro as a backing of their economy as an Axis of Evil.
Invading Iraq.
Missles astray in Iran.
How many pieces do you people need?
We operate on a worldwide interconnected network where everything can be traced. Cell phones (which are more personal than a home phone), the internet, email, ODBCII (the car stuff that keeps service records)... 1984 is here. I was in san francisco and counted 26 cameras from the Hilton to the convention center. And your not going to tell me that those cameras are all on secure networks.
The Patriot Act and it's part II are just the next in a long line of bullshit, living under the guise of patriotism.
Free thought is dangerous to control, hence why we have schools that don't teach as much as acclimate people for the business world. When I went through college, my ideas mattered less than if they were in on time. Be a good worker. Pay your taxes. Shop. Consume.
Do you see a pattern?
We had the control, until we stopped voting becuase the political action campaigns promised to corrupt whomever we voted for.
And the best part? We foot the bill for our own enslavement in the form of 28% or more of our weekly paychecks... while the elected loot social security.
I respect homeless people who choose to be homeless (other than by drugs or situation). They at least have go
Riight... it's obvious which glass of cool-aid YOU drank. If you really believe that, ask yourself where your last two presedents were when the country was calling for them. If serving in the forces and fighting in far off lands is such an act of patriotism, why do all the successful americans (ie: the rich ones) avoid it like the plague? Shouldn't they be proud to serve their country and pay back for all it gave them?
My brother, 13, recently went to a mock UN conference for middle school students. The question under debate was biased reporting in the media about Islam. The suggested resolution that a committe of several dozen of these young teens came to was that some limited censorship of the media by the UN would be an acceptable price to pay to get rid of bias in the media. These were all intelligent kids, who know far more about the political world (they still remember their American history classes and like learning about international subjects) than most adults. They're all well-meaning, idealistic young people. Yet, the still made a very stupid resolution. My point is that it does not take dumb people with evil intentions to make bad laws. Rather, it takes exeptional people with the noblest of intentions to make good ones. Something important like the Patriot act should not be written under duress. Decisions about how long it should last should not be made in the middle of a patriotic frenzy during a war. The rather low-caliber individuals already in Congress are barely qualified as it is to write something this important. Having them do it, under these conditions is a sure recepie for disaster. If we need any law right now, we need one that prevents the government from making permanent legislation during times of war.
In summary: the Constitution is hard to amend because the founding fathers realized that few of their sucessors would be up to the task of changing such an important document. Only those that can convience not only a majority that voted for them, but most of those that didn't as well, should be able to make such a change. Only those people are qualified enough to do so.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
trying to attaching it to another antiterrorism bill that would make it easier for the government to use secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" terrorism suspects.
Lone wolf, better known as "common criminal".
Opps, correction: Lone wolf suspect, better known as a suspect. For any given crime you gererally have several suspects. Therefore most suspects are in fact innocent. Also note that they they are particularly interested in targeting people in advance of a crime that may or may not occure at some point in the future.
The primary effect of the antiterrorism bill would be to make it easier for the government to use secret surveillance warrants against innocent people.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.