Deconstructing the Patriot Act PR Campaign

Aaron writes "The Center for Democracy and Technology offers up an interesting point for point rebuttal to the the claims made via the 'rah-rah-esque' DOJ's website, part of the PR campaign (including Ashcroft speaking tours) to convince the public the Act is good for them. I think this Broadband Reports article also brings up a good point: among the groups attacking the Act, why do so few of them bring up Echelon? It already gives the government much of the surveillance ability they claim they're lacking, and without congressional oversight. The UN this year even launched an investigation into the use of the system to spy on UN diplomats without much fanfare."

Comments

Re:The PATRIOT act might suck

[DAldredge]

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JP ost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1066287147759&p=1008596 981749

Re:Ben Franklin quote

[DAldredge]

FROM: http://www.wernercohn.com/Chomsky.html

"It is late August of 2001 as I revisit the activities of Noam Chomsky concerning Israel and the Jewish people.

Has Chomsky perhaps mellowed somewhat, as I hoped when I last wrote about him in 1995 ? Has he perhaps tried to see something of both sides in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, some merit, no matter how small, in the cause of the Israeli people ?

The answer, to put it bluntly, is fat chance.

Eleven months since the beginning of what the Arabs call the Al Aqsa Intifada, hundreds of Arab and Jewish lives have been lost. It has been a year of great suffering for all. But for Chomsky it has been suffering for the Palestinians, period. In a speech he gave at MIT last December 14, he is concerned over what he calls "killings" and "atrocities," all of which, according to him, are killings of Arabs by Jews. No, not a word whatever of the televised sickening lynchings, two months before Chomsky's speech, of Corporal Vadim Novesche and Sergeant Yosef Avrahami, which shocked the world. Not a word of any suffering by Jews, not a word of Arab violence. Instead, a repeated demand for a Palestinian "right to resist," and a criticism of Arafat for having signed away that right at Oslo. Arafat, as Chomsky has opined many times before, is far too easy on the Jews. On August 13, just about two weeks before I write this, Chomsky revs up his hysteria even more, this time charging Israel with "a repetition of Nazi crimes" (op-ed piece, Los Angeles Times).

Since I wrote my analysis of him in 1985 and again in 1995, Chomsky and his friends have attempted to reply by saying a) Cohn is a liar, b) Cohn is a Zionist, c) Cohn misquotes.

Insofar as these attacks are in any way concrete, they concern my disclosures of the political relationship between Chomsky and the French neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers. The basic documents, including Chomsky's own charming "Cohn is a pathological liar," are now on line. I give the links to the original materials, so anyone can determine exactly who the liar is:"

Re:ACLU fights against basic rights.

[MoneyT]

That would be their problem now wouldn't it. It's not my responsibility to protect people from their own stupidity. Espesialy in a conversation that they are not a part of.