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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."
I get all my political news from BroadbandReports.com --- accept no substitutes!
we wouldn't be in this situation. Shrub used the "fear card" America gave him after 9/11/01 to rip up parts of our constitution. IANAL, but how codified law can supplant the Law of the Land doesn't make sense to me. Anyone else?
Last night on the West Wing, there was an inspiring quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. "
This came to mind earlier today when I walked past an ACLU table on campus. They were gathering signatures for a petition against the "Patriot" Act. I'm glad someone is fighting for my freedom.
"Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001". I don't think the article gets it right once.
Thats all we need, hrm I think this guy is a spy, lets spy on him... No privacy, nothing. This concerns me. I thought all the proceedures were put into place to protect ones freedoms, and privacy?
"The same thing we do every night, try to take over the world" -The Brain (Pinky&the Brian)
1) It will keep us safe. We must abandon all rights. We need it. 2 ). It'll destroy us. Our rights are gone, we must stop it. -- Is there a middle ground? How do we find it and what is it?
The Patriot Act has served it's purpose. It's time for it to go now.
-- $G
Are government agencies really allowed to do this? I suppose the DOJ is allowed to "educate" people about the law, and propogate the legal positions of the justice department - but any five year old can see that this monolog is advocating legislative policy (the extension of the PATRIOT act, among other things), using federal money.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
forget it. organise your community, overthrow the corporate government.
I agree. What in the hell is the middle ground? Everybody says NO to the patriot act, but does this have to be polar?
How would YOU change the patriot act?
Life is like pants... fit in or you don't fit in.
nothing to see here, move along
I also wish that those folks who argued against the PATRIOT Act would get more publicity. These are things people need to be aware of and to think about. If it wasn't for /., I would never have known those people even existed or have read their arguments.
There is no spoon or sig.
Yes, but the enemy (ACLU) of my enemy (George W. Hitler) is my friend.
I would not have ANY problem with the Patriot Act... IF ONLY THEY WOULD ONLY USE IT AGAINST FORIGNERS! How the hell could you have prevented 9/11 by spying on citizens of the US? Please, for the love of the gods someone tell me? Anyone?
The US goverment doesn't want to protect us, they want to get reelected.
If they wanted to protect the USA they would do something to secure our borders. It does no good to post a guard at your door/airports and leave the network/borders unprotected.
I think that many people are finally latching onto the concept that freedom to live safely is more important than freedom to be a criminal.
I like that.
Personally, the govt spying on me doesnt bother me a lick, its what is done with the info they collect is where it gets sticky. I have no problem with the govt expanding its powers to spy/probe whatever as long as they are used legitimately. AFAIK (though i could be wrong), no one really undeserving has had the PATRIOT act invoked against them?
A friend of mine was getting a security clearance. One day he came home and told his wife not to give money to Greenpeace any longer. Appearantly, just donating money to them was enough to cause concern. I wonder what it would be like for us "little people". Some file is kept on us and phone calls monitored every once in a while?
You're a terrorist now. Prepare for Guantanamo.
DOJ CLAIM: Peaceful political organizations engaging in political advocacy cannot be considered terrorists under the PATRIOT Act's new definition of domestic terrorism.
Under the PATRIOT Act, a violation of some criminal law involving risk of serious injury must occur before a person can be labeled a domestic terrorist. But it is easy to see how if an anti-abortion activist blocks traffic as part of a protest, or swings a sign and hits someone on the head, he could be labeled a terrorist. Such activities should be illegal, but they should not be subject to the threat of being labeled terrorism, triggering application of draconian law enforcement powers, such as the power to seize property D including cars, boats and homes.
My reply
DOJ CLAIM: Peaceful political organizations engaging in political advocacy cannot be considered terrorists under the PATRIOT Act's new definition of domestic terrorism.
Under the PATRIOT Act, a violation of some criminal law involving risk of serious injury must occur before a person can be labeled a domestic terrorist. But it is easy to see how if an jaywalker blocks traffic as part of a protest, or trips and hits someone on the head, he could be labeled a terrorist. Such activities should be illegal, but they should not be subject to the threat of being labeled terrorism, triggering application of draconian law enforcement powers, such as the power to seize property D including cars, boats and homes.
Of course - A judge still has to ok the jaywalker or abortionist to be a terrorist - But let's not let silly facts get into the way of another overblown attack on the patriot act - which few (if any) of the people against it have actually read it.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
All the privately held guns in the US couldn't stop a military attack by the federal government, if the government really were so inclined to attack its own citizens.
Shrug. The privately-held guns in Iraq seem to be doing a reasonable job.
If the US federal government were to decide to execute a large scale attack on its own citizens, it would be over in short order. Remember the military is made up of our own citizens, and a great many of those personnel would not stand for such an attack.
Privately held guns can still help one to protect themselves or others against intruders. Fortunately, privately held guns cannot allow a single individual to kill a milion people.
Constitutionally Institutionalized
I am the unpatriot,
for not standing behind
the man blind.
You are the patriot,
for standing in line
no questions in mind.
That no patriot can stand such an odius piece of legislation which tears apart our civil liberties and turns the Constitution and freedoms our forefathers fought so hard for into courtroom toilet paper. I love my country, that's why I want a government bound to the Constitution and that doesn't send us abroad, as John Quincy Adams put it, in search of monsters to destroy. We built the beast that seeks to annihilate us because we paid lip service to our founders' timeless advice and made-and empowered-enemies in foreign lands.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
He was saying, don't let the gov't take my gun because I may need it to protect myself from intruders or even the gov't.
Why would you think that anyone would need to protect themselves from the gov't? Could it be because of the threat of tyranny? Let's turn this around, shall we? Couldn't this act be the very sort of thing that you claim he was talking about?
You can quote dead white men all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that in the past two hundred odd years society has changed significantly and a single individual's ability to wreak widespread havoc has been increased million-fold.
First thing. 19 people killed 3,000 people. This is 157.89473684210526315789473684211 people killed per killer. If we assume that your statement about a millionfold is correct, then in Franklin's day, the same killer could have killed about 0.00015789 people. That is, no one could be killed unless 6,333 other people worked together. This is obviously wrong. There were murders without mobs of 6,333 people in the past. OK, so there may be an increase, but not as much as it may seem, I would hazard. Furthermore, if we look at the number of deaths relative to the size of the population, it would likely be lower. Indeed, on 9-11, only one in one hundered thousand people living in America died. More died in car crashes, more died from the flu, more died from alcohol than died on 9/11. Yes, 9/11 was a horrible thing, but let's keep perspective, too. For an example of perspective, consider that anywhere from 7784 to 9596 Iraqi civilians were killed by US troops since the War in Iraq started (source). Given this, how do you think that the Iraqi people should react? I leave you with these thoughts.
#define DRM chmod 000
However, such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC.
Um. Am I the first to suggest that the PATRIOT act wouldn't either?
Terrorists of today could reproduce 9/11 quite well (though with different targets, of course). The only difference is that the government is given more power. The only people subject to the power are innocent.
Not to mention, am I the only one who thought it strange that 9/11 was used a reason to go to war against Iraq? Why not use "I was mugged on my way to the store" as an excuse to go murder everybody in your office....
From the Director of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice:
Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; passed in 1978) court to issue orders for business records in international-terrorism or espionage cases -- just as federal grand juries have long been able to obtain the same records through subpoenas in ordinary criminal cases. Records can be obtained under section 215 only through a court order (not, as Mr. Lynch states, through a "subpoena"), and only if the court determines that the FBI is legally entitled to them (the FBI has no authority to issue such orders unilaterally).
Section 215 of the Patriot Act does not make it "a crime for anyone who has been served with a subpoena to speak to anyone about the matter." However, Section 215's confidentiality rule is necessary to protect our national security, and is based on nondisclosure orders that courts always have been able to enter in ordinary criminal cases. For example, the judge in the Kobe Bryant case may order the news media to refrain from divulging information about the alleged victim's personal life, in order to protect her privacy. In the same way, if we were to serve a court order on a flight-training school to find out if a Mohammed Atta is taking flight lessons, we obviously would not want the school to tell Atta, who might then accelerate his terrorist plot. As with any court order, the FISA-court can consider sanction, but the Patriot Act does not make such violations criminal offenses.
We do enthusiastically welcome debate about the Patriot Act and invite all Americans to learn the facts about this important legislation by logging on to www.lifeandliberty.gov. Our new website includes an overview of the Patriot Act, its entire text, statements from Members of Congress explaining the law, factual information dispelling some of the major myths perpetuated about the act, as well as other information.
Read the whole article here, which is in response to another article on the same website.
Another Patriot Act article.
by giving it up
You do know that the DOJ uses a handful of select judges "specializing" in these kind of cases. Right?
Help fight continental drift.
You do realize that Congress passed the bill right? That is the hundreds of senators that each state sends to congress agreed on and passed this legislation. Bush signed it yes, but more blame falls on congress for failing to do it's job.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Meanwhile, what about the FBI agent who knew and reported about shady characters taking flying lessons? What about those owners of flight schools who called FBI and told them the same? All the information was there, but your president was on vacation, fly-fishing and watching Barney chase armadillos.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
GWB is spending too much but that doesn't stop the wannabe's from trying to get more money into the government. The government doesn't need more money. It needs less bullcrap. And that's what democrats understand even less than republicans.
Thing is, you cannot know, because one of the major provisionso of the act is FBI's ability to conduct entirely secret investigations. Even the person under investigation or his/her lawyer cannot so much as tell anyone that the investogation is ongoing. Still doesn't bother you a lick?
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
" ...such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC..."
I call bullshit on this argument. Don't even try to convince me that if someone had a gun in those airplanes that they would not have been able to stop a bunch of razor toting fanatics.
The biggest fallacy is the assumption that 'times are different' and therefore protections we enjoyed in earlier times do not apply. Again - bullshit.
I have news for you, people have not changed all that much, and one bullet in the forehead will kill you as fast in 1895 as in the year 2003. The destructive power of an airliner was available since the first one flew back in the 1920s. The only difference is the will of someone to try to use it. That does not justify flushing the Constitution down the toilet to make ignorant people feel 'safe'.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Countries are pushed by the US administration to detain people without charge. A Canadian citizen was deported to Syria because the Canadian government refused to detain him. Syria also refused to detain him at first but after some pressure by the US they agreed and emprisoned him for a year, torturing and questioning him until they finally let him go. It's too bad, I'm sure Saddam would've done a better job at torturing that guy.
r ?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid =971358637177&c=Article&cid=1065651010305
article here: http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServe
Where do we draw the line in too much? I mean the government feels now that without the Patriot Act you have no life or freedom, but this isn't the case.
The Patriot Act IMO is too undefined. It talks about terrorism and what powers the justice system has but it doesn't really ever define terrorism. In the long run it's a lot like statistics, you can make the numbers read however you want. The Patriot Act is the same way, the government just has to justify somehow that something is "involved with terrorism" and then its fine to apply the law. Does anyone remeber the ads that said marijuana supported terrorism? How about that recent drug bust that used the powers of the Patriot Act? I hardly doubt 10 years ago people would say a drug dealer was on par with terrorist orgnizations like al qaeda. I believe its already been mentioned that pirating movies and software is an act of terrorism. I mean come on!
It wouldn't at all suprise me if eventually, if we don't stop this, the government gets "paranoid" of the people and believes everyones a terrorist, and who knows what laws might be in affect by then. People just need to wake up and realize that no amount of laws and removal of freedoms is going to make you completly safe in this world.
With that in mind, the presidental elections are coming, do those of us that support having the act removed have any choice of canidates that want the act removed? Probably the better question is: Have any canidates voiced that they too support the removal of the act?
Post Office, HUD, Armed Services, and many other federal agencies and offices have PR budgets; surely, you have seen their TV commercials?
The whole point of delegated federal agenicies is so Congress can delegate its responsibilities. The whole purpose of federal agencies is to operate independently in their respective areas, so Congress doesn't have to do everything. It would kind of defeat the purpose of Congress delegating to agencies if it told them everything to do!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Scrap the "Patriot Act" and replace it with the otherwise identical "Terrorism Surveillance Act". The problem here is that this bill could be about anything and some people will violently defend it because the name implies opposition equates non-patriotism. Others will fight it just as vehemently just because they hate being cornered into someone else's definition of patriotism. See other postings in this forum for examples.
This bill is nothing about patriotism (which cannot be legislated except maybe in Soviet Russia, Communist China, etc) but is instead about expanded law enforcement powers concerning terrorism detection and prevention. So let's rename the thing to something that actually describes what it is about and get on with rational debate about its actual provisions instead of getting all in a bother over the emotions tied up in the name.
Since the mods are on crack.
Please explain.
What would be worse? Our security? GWB doesn't care about our security, if he did something would be done about our border security.
Spending? GWB is spending money like a drunken sailor on his first day back in port.
A WWII veteran said to me one time as we were watching news coverage of a protest:
"Those who compare Bush to Hitler do a disservice to all those who fought and died in WWII and an even greater disservice to their cause
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Unless of course someone on the plane(s) had a gun, and used it to shoot the hijackers. Which might explian why the airline pilots union has been campaigning to let its members carry guns in the cockpit.
Neither you, nor the mods who moded you up, even know what the 2nd adm says!
Please read it, and the rest of the DI and USC before you post/mod on this subject again.
Not unless you consider the Democratic members of the Texas legislature undeserving ;-)
You're right. There isn't a problem with it. Why do *we* need to worry about it as long as we're not breaking the laws right? Well, see, ever heard of a slippery slope? I'm not one to scream "Doom Doom Doom!", but Rome was not built in a day, nor did it fall in a day. "US Patriot Act?. Ok, fair enough! We'll get those terrorists! We know where you are terrorists! Yarr! ...Wh--what? You want to spy on drug trafficers and petty (in comparison [by opinion] to the terrorists)? Well... ok, I guess. I mean, they're bad people anyway. I'm not trafficing drugs, so I'm alrig-- Huh? You don't like the things you're seeing? Wait, so if the police think if I'm doing *anything* wrong they can just come in and take me? What if I'm innocent? It doesn't matter if I'm innoncent?! You're protecting freedom? What the hell?! But I didn't do anyth-- WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS ILLEGAL ACTIVITY?! HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE I AM?! SPYING ON ME?! I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING, I HAVE THE FIRST ADMENDMENT, THE RIGHT TO SPEAK! ...I thought. Hey, who are you? Why are you in here? Where are you taking me? Nuuu!"
In Soviet Russia, the government controls you!
I thought it was different in America. Not at this rate.
Why is it that most (more than 85%) of those who object about my sig, do so as ac? Are you, and people like you, too afraid/unsure of what you believe to post under your own account?
I don't know anyone making that comparison. For one thing, there is no freedom to live safely. You can lose all your freedom and be "safe," or you can have freedom and take the normal risks we all face. But you cannot have freedom and safety, not entirely. So if safety is what you want, kiss your freedom good-bye.
Now back in the real world, the rest of us recognize that freedom and safety exist on opposite sliding scales. The more free you are, the less safe. For example, if you allow people the freedom to cross the street against the light, you take the risk that they will get hit by a car. If you physically prevent them from being able to cross against the light, that risk goes way down. Their safety (at least with that one risk) increases. Of course they could still get hit by a falling safe, but hey, that's life. It's full of risks.
So what you should have said is: Freedom to live means you are less safe. Safety means you are less free. Now all you have to do is figure out where on the sliding scale you would prefer to live.
Are most people willing to give up a lot of their freedom in order to gain safety? Seems that way. Sadly for them, they probably aren't that much safer for true safety is more of an illusion than anything. Life has risks. Deal.
Which I completly disagree with. The CIA knew something was up. They suspected that it had to do with a fairly large cell. Yet, because of the FISA wall between the FBI and the CIA, the FBI failed to clue the CIA in on the fact that there were Islamists taking plane lessons. The CIA had already started thinking about those ideas and might have put 1+1 together where the CIA didn't. Of course, there is still the issue of tracking the money to figure out who else was being sponsered, but that could have been covered by wiretaps.
BTW, before any mock outraged idiot posts, the FBI routinly checks library records for RICO and murder trials (I was on the jury of a murder trial that included just such evidence). The idea that they can't check it if the person is foreign national is insane.
The problem with intelligence:
you never know if you have the right answer untill after the fact. Besides, do you really and truly think that a) the intelligence problems are caused by bush or b) that bush would have even seen this information, much less interpreted it?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Because Echelon pre-dates the Patriot Act by many years? Because the two are not tied together in any way? Because Echelon network is mostly in foreign countries (I have never seen any verifiable proof that Echelon hardware is in US), and therefore cannot be used to intercept strictly domestic US communications (as Patriot can)? From your link,
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
However, such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC.
Oh, I don't know. You sit me on one of those flights with a gun and they are not going to hijack that plane. At least they are not going to order it slammed into a building after they do.
"But you couldn't get on the plane with a gun!!!!" True, but your scenario doesn't make a lot of sense either way. NOT possessing guns wouldn't have prevented 9/11 either. (And may I ask, how did a debate on the Patriot Act turn into one about gun control?)
That's what the Patriot Act is all about, getting these systems to finally work properly so that we can stop another 9/11.
No. As you admitted yourself, we had the intelligence, we simply did not communicate it properly and did not fit all the pieces of the puzzle together properly. The Patriot Act is about increasing the government's ability to spy on us. Once they've decided we're not a threat worth watching, as they evidently did for the 9/11 hijackers, the PA has no effect.
And this one is just ridiculous: I think that many people are finally latching onto the concept that freedom to live safely is more important than freedom to be a criminal.
Do you know that Martin Luther King, JR. was spied on by the FBI? And we all know what a terrible terrorist he was, with all his sit-ins and peaceful protest! The movement to repeal the law isn't about protecting criminals, it is about protecting people who are doing nothing wrong from unjustified surveillance. The entire purpose of the Constitution is to protect us from the government, not from terrorists and regardless of how many more people a single individual nutcase can now kill in one fell swoop. History has proven that government, like most people and organizations, will abuse any power they are given (DMCA, anybody?). The solution is not to give it to them or to ensure what authority they have is locked down so tight it is as hard as possible to abuse.
Apparently these dead white men understood what freedom meant better than people today. If I have to die because a law like the Patriot Act is repealed, I would consider myself lucky to die for freedom. Thank god people like Franklin and Jefferson, true American patriots, were there at the founding of this country and not cowards like yourself.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ahhh, preach it Mr. Dead White Man.
What makes you think your freedom of speech would be worth anything in the event of a government coup?
What I find even more clear than the wording of the Second Amendment (which I disagree with your interpretation on) is the numerous and repeated acknowledgement by our founders that the second amendment is an individual right in their bids to the colonies for ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
By the way, neither the military nor the police are obligated to protect the individual, but the public at large.
Not really. The orders given to the troops in a combat zone, unless they know there are armed hostiles is to not fire until fired upon
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I'm a little confused by the vet's statement. Did he mean that Hitler wasn't in the same league as Bush is, or the other way around?
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
I think that many people are finally latching onto the concept that freedom to live safely is more important than freedom to be a criminal.
I have no objection to you holding an defending that position, but I do have an objection to your warping of the language.
"Freedom to live safely" is like "freedom to have enough to eat." This is freedom as a rhetorical tool. This isn't "freedom" in the sense of "liberty", which is what we are ostensively talking about when we talking about a tradition of freedom in the USA.
If you're going to argue that the modern world has made it such that safety and a chance of surviving necessitates some giving up of freedoms, then argue that. Don't pretend that you're arguing for some kind of freedom when you argue for that though.
-Rob
[...] Alisa's [a child killed in a bus bombing atatck] father, Steven Flatow, has said, "When you know the resources of your government are committed to right the wrongs committed against your daughter, that instills you with a sense of awe. As a father you can't ask for anything more." [...]
So pathetic. Nothing to do with the natural pain of a father for his demised child, but...
"Come on guys, don't even dare criticize an act that allowed a good father to mourn his daughter"
Fuck the government. They just take everything as propaganda material.
Let's overcome our weakness.
"Well the world is a different place. "
It isn't. What happened on 9/11 is in many ways less severe than what happened on December 7, 1941.
But that's really beside the point. If the act of fighting an enemy makes you like that enemy, than you've lost far more than 2 ugly buildings and 3,000 lives; you've lost the reason that makes you special, different, and better.
We used to hold the moral high ground in so many things, today, I feel like we're no better than China or Russia in terms of how we treat ourselves.
No, the world didn't change on 9/11. What changed is we forgot who we are and who we stand for. And for that reason, we must elect a new president. One who knows what the hell he's doing, and one who has actually read the Constituion.
Perhaps Ashcroft will be tried for treason some day. I think he's the worst thing to happen to this country since McCarthy.
It's clearly being used beyond is "intended" purpose, i.e., to track down terrorists. As this article describes it has been used in hundreds of non-terror cases already.
And if you think that every one it has been used on was guilty, look up bridges in the want ads.
But the First protects stripping and flag-burning, at least according to the ACLU, which takes the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth to ridiculous extremes, but suddenly gets all original intent and textualist on us when it comes to RTBA. I smell an agenda, not a protector of liberties.
Yeah, the states demanded a Bill of Rights to ensure that the government's powers were protected!
The ACLU, for whom the Constitution is a means, not an end.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Franklin was quite correct, and society hasn't changed enough to sacrifice our privacy for the terrorism bogeyman. Freedom does come at the price of a perfectly safe world, but it's not worth giving up for the sake of a problem that can be solved without eliminating people's rights.
"I think so, Brain, but 'instant karma' always gets so lumpy." - Pinky
"Decepticons FOREVER!!!" - Ravage
Ben Franklin and Winston Churchill both said, but in different words:
Those willing to sacrifice freedom in exchange for security will have neither and deserve neither.
the other way arround.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
[The Patriot Act] allows victims of computer hacking to request law enforcement assistance in monitoring the "trespassers" on their computers. This change made the law technology-neutral; it placed electronic trespassers on the same footing as physical trespassers. Now, hacking victims can seek law enforcement assistance to combat hackers, just as burglary victims have been able to invite officers into their homes to catch burglars.
I think they just didn't play the Game of Life enough.
Let's overcome our weakness.
The Bush Administration seems to be having public relations trouble. Besides the creation of LifeAndLiberty.Gov, the administration has also created Freedom.Gov, a site dedicated to glorifying Operation Iraqi Freedom.
I believe that the creation of these sites indicates that the Bush Administration is taking a new approach to their critics. Instead of answering their critics directly, the administration is using websites to bypass them and sell their propaganda to the American Public. By wrapping their issues in pseudo patriotism, they believe that the average American will overlook the opposition and support the administration because it is the "American thing to do".
I also believe that the administration is starting to see opposition in Congress. On the LifeAndLiberty.Gov site, there are two sections dedicated to Congressional Opposition. I believe this indicates that the PATRIOT Act is starting to see more criticism from Congress.
-Valen
The systems were in place, but they didn't communicate the problems effectively. That's what the Patriot Act is all about, getting these systems to finally work properly so that we can stop another 9/11.
Unfortunately, the "PATRIOT" act, as manifested in actual legislation passed by Congress, actually does very little to address the actual problems which enabled 9/11 to happen, while providing a variety of windows for many different government agencies to abuse power without accountability.
While I have some symathy for your general remarks, the actual PATRIOT act is a poorly-reviewed (changes being made up to the last minute) rushed-into-the-law-books piece of legislation that shames even the "making law is like making sausage" school of thought. Very few of those who voted for it have strong knowledge of it's specifics, beyond the political expediency of passing it at that time. It's a faith-based initiative with poorly-defined goals and evern more poorly-defined processes, not an instruction manual.
Really, the thing is damn shame - noone disagrees with the goal of stopping terrorists, just the meanstaken to do so - and the Patirot act's means are frequently not accountable to even the legislators who approved them in the first place, let alone the general American citizenry. How can one oversee and improve something that one is not supposed to have any specific knowledge of?
A system of government fundamentally lacking accountability by the governed cannot insure it's working order; that's an element of truhth in Ben Franklin's argument which is true regardless of whether he's been dead for a minute, 200 years, or a thousand years.
I thought all the proceedures were put into place to protect ones freedoms, and privacy
No, you've got it backwards...they are there to protect you from freedom and privacy.
Not really related but..
On the way to work today, I heard a commercial on the radio about trying to get funding for bridge repair work in DC. The reason they need the funding and the purpose of the bridge repair projects was for none other than terrorism. The line was something like "to ensure the 300,000+ commuters and government officials could use the bridges to evacuate the city following an act of terrorism nearby. Hello!! those same 300,000 commuters and government officials already use those bridges twice a day every day of the year following an attack from the "end of workday". How is a fresh layer of asphalt/concrete and some rust repair going to change the situation for terrorism? I guess I need more bandwidth in case of a terrorism attack so I can reload CNN faster.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Maybe not murder, but if you could link your boss to financially backing that mugger, and other muggers like him, and with support of a significant portion of your office, then yes, being mugged on your way to the store would be an excuse to go after everybody in your office.
According to Gallup, a majority of Americans believe the federal government exerts either the right amount of power or not enough power. It's over 70% total.
Most Americans Don't Feel Government Threatens Civil Rights,
It seems, thankfully, most people would prefer the government actualy do something about terror, rather than complaining about being watched while surfing the Net in libraries, before the next 9-11 happens.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
It wouldn't be, but planning to put up pathetic resistance doesn't change anything. When it comes to an oppresive government, the difference is analogous to having an OS with security holes you're not allowed to patch (restrictive gun laws) and being allowed patches that do nothing or just change the backdoor (permissive gun laws). The only difference in the real world is that the latter means you're putting stupidly overpowered lethal weapons in the hands of citizens. This is not an argument against handguns and hunting rifles. This is an argument against the laws advocated by gun lobbyists intended to allow assault weapons, since these weapons cannot even serve their sole useful purpose, defending against oppresive government.
Note that a militia is not under the direct authority of the U.S. Armed Forces. One could argue that the 2nd amendment does not explicitly guarantee individuals the right to bear arms, but it does explicitly give groups of citizens that right. Of course, those citizens have to stare their weapons somewhere.
In other words... I'm John Q. Public. And I'm a militia of one.
All the more reason for the citizens to be able to defend themselves.
I beg to differ. See my previous comment about being a militia of one.
Disclaimer: I have no end of gratitude and respect for joe who is overseas right now getting sh!t done. Having said that, I think you have a little too much faith in your local police and your state's notional guard. I've personally worked with guardsmen who haven't touched their 20-year old rifles in over a year. And I should trust someone like that to defend me? I've met guardsmen that I wouldn 't trust to load a water pistol without wetting themselves, let alone defend me. As far as police are concerned, I have a friend who was on the police force in my area. While he was in, it was a standard practice for each officer to not only carry a registered sidearm, but each one also carried what they called their "fire and forget" pistol. Each cop had an unregistered handgun, one that could never be traced back to them. I don't trust people like that to defend me, but I do feel a compelling need to be able to defend myself from them.
I'm not saying that every citizen has a clear need to be walking around with a 50-cal. It would make life more interesting, but that's besides the point. The "gun nuts" cling to their weapons for the same reason so many slashdotters cling to the F-bomb. If I don't have the freedom to say "FUCKFUCKFUCKETYFUCKFUCK", then who's to say you have the freedom to say whatever's on your mind? The same is largely true of gun control: what the gun nuts fear is a state where the only people with firearms are the criminals and the police.
Yes, my only tool is a hammer. And you're starting to look like a nail.
I was on the jury of a murder trial that included just such evidence
And what did that evidence tell you? "Oh my god! that person read Stephen King, he MUST be a murderer?!"
What can one possibly read that would be so important to a case that the fact the person had read it had to be entered into evidence? Did they not have any other evidence? "Yeah, we were at a loss and we had exhausted all our leads, so we took a trip to the library and picked up this guy reading an Agatha Christie book about a guy who got stabbed in the back, and well, our stiff got stabbed in the back, so ladies and gentlement of the jury, ignore the wookie and find this man guilty."
In all seriousness, name ONE thing that can be learned from a book that makes it "interesting" to the law enforcement. How to kill a person? CSI is a faster teacher. How to make this poison or that poison? Look under your sink.
And finally, did the FBI have a case against this man, and then got these library records to back it up? Or were the library records their entire case until they pulled more evidence up? If it was the latter, what is to keep them from arresting everyone who checks out a murder mystery at least for conspiracy to commit murder? "They checked out the book, they must have been thinking about killing someone.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Ahhhh, but Echelon is supposed to be for spying on non-US citizens and if it truly exists it is almost certainly illegal. Any evidence Echelon uncovers of a danger to national security is useful as it can be kept secret even from the defense due to national security concerns. But any evidence Echelon uncovers about domestic terrorism, financial or political crimes, etc. cannot be introduced in court lest Echelon be unmasked!
The government needs a 'legal' tool that allows them to spy on the people which is admissable in a domestic court of law.
Come play Moral Decay!
Not to mention, am I the only one who thought it strange that 9/11 was used a reason to go to war against Iraq?
Shockingly, over half of Americans surveyed just before the Iraq war began thought that the terrorists involved in the 9/11 attacks were Iraqi. In reality, 90% of them were Saudi, but some creative language from the White House hype machine (and a lack of clarification from the media) convinced a gullible public otherwise.
(Score:-1, Wrong)
Somewhere in Iraq, five years from now, on al-Jazeeradot, some arrogant and bellicose individual is going to persistently and pointlessly include in his sig something like the following factoid:
And that guy will be just as much of a loser as you are.
Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
I posted a/c because I am not interested in taking sides or debating on the Israel / Palestine issue on Slashdot at all.. somewhere else maybe but not here, not tonight
the only reason I posted is to illustrate how people of any nationality, and religion, can get so swept up in misguided religious extremism and blind patriotism that they will ignore facts, morality, everything that ever really matters to them.
telling you that (about) 75% of americans supported a war on Iraq that killed thousands of innocent men women and children (and the violence continues today) because they believed (wrongly) that Saddam was behind 9/11 seems like a good way to illustrate that
Even worse, most americans now know the truth (no wmd), and yet they still rationalize to themselves that it was justified.
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
Maybe not murder, but if you could link your boss to financially backing that mugger, and other muggers like him, and with support of a significant portion of your office, then yes, being mugged on your way to the store would be an excuse to go after everybody in your office.
I don't see the analogy with Iraq / 9/11 attacks
"The only thing that could have stopped those two airplanes successfully is if the proper surveillance structure were in place to notice that strange things were a'brew"
...at a government that can't solve problems at home, but insists that their way is the best way.
Actually, we could have very easily stopped it and other acts of terrorism against. We (our government) could have kept our noses out of Middle East politics and the other affairs of other countries.
For over 100 years, and most especially since WWII, our government has decided that it should call the shots for the rest of the world. For 50 years, we have cajoled, imtimidated, embargoed, subverted and strong-armed weaker countries into doing what we want, either by force, politics, money or assassination.
We funded the Shah of Iran... We funded Osama Bin Laden... when the Ayatollah took over Iran, we funded Saddam. We constantly seem to play one side against the other.
And like it or not, for better or for worse, we are Isreal's strongest ally which just rubs salt in the wounds of many of the other countries of the Middle East. And that's just the middle east.
There are a lot of folks around the world who are tired of being strong-armed by the bully but don't have the armies or economical power to fight back. So some are doing it in the only manner that they can.
I don't like or approve of it. But I can understand their frustration. It is only matched by mine... at a government that appears to only want to get bigger and more powerful while lining the pockets of the politicians.
"However, such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC."
If that were true, then Air Marshalls would be pointless. Those planes were hijacked because the hijackers were the most heavily armed people on those airplanes. The plane that went down in Pennsylvania didn't make it to its intended target only because the hijackers were foolish enough to let the passengers know that they would be dying anyway.
"All the privately held guns in the US couldn't stop a military attack by the federal government, if the government really were so inclined to attack its own citizens."
Moderately organized militias with almost nothing bigger than small arms quagmired and ultimately defeated the US military in both Vietnam and Somalia.
"The only thing that could have stopped those two airplanes successfully is if the proper surveillance structure"
And just what is a "proper surveillance structure?" There is no such thing as 100% effectiveness in searches, even if you pat down every single person about to board an airplane. It simply makes it more difficult to get contraband on the airplane, not impossible. And if potential hijackers are willing to sacrifice their lives to begin with, why wouldn't they go through the needed effort to sneak something onboard?
Ultimately, all the metal detectors and x-ray machines accomplish is ensure that anybody that has a weapon on an airplane wants to hijack it. Sure, there's the miniscule chance that there's also an Air Marshall on board, but when was the last time there was an attempted hijacking of an airplane with plainclothes law enforcement on boasrd?
I'm sorry if I just don't get it, but I did not really see any mention of anything that actually refuted any of the DOJ claims.
All I see is a bunch of clarification of the points that would not have been appropriate to mention at a press conference (the likes of which the soundbytes were taken from).
I also notice that none of the new powers can simply be used willy-nilly. They all require the permission of a judge (who may well interpret the warrant request as, well, unwarranted).
It still beats getting all your information about patent law from SCO or Acacia.. It really is sad to say that Broadbandreports is probably a more objective source then our own (gasp) attorney general.
And don't give me that shit about nukes killing everyone. As long as the nuclear powers keep track of their warheads, and we keep a decent watch out for enriched Uranium at the borders the risk is pretty damned small. I've studied nuclear physics, and Mohammed Atta wasn't that close to a nuke, believe me. I'd be more worried about an asteroid impact. Or a wildfire.
You can quote dead white men all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that in the past two hundred odd years society has changed significantly and a single individual's ability to wreak widespread havoc has been increased million-fold.
You're basically saying that the Bill of Rights is obsolete? I beg to differ. I think it has worked a damned sight better, for a lot longer, than pretty much any other government structure you care to name. Now is not the time to shred it. And you forget; it has always been possible for a single individual to cause enormous widespread havoc, killing thousands or even millions. Usually that is done by seizing the power of the government and starting a war. Part of the reason we have a Constitution with checks and balances is so that a single individual can't cause all that death. So the destructive potential of an individual hasn't increased, it has just changed form a bit. But the old way is still alive and as dangerous as always.
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
No, no, no no, NO!
The famous "They that give up essential liberty to obtain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" is NOT about guns. You could not be further from the truth.
The quote means exactly what is says- if you're willing to give up your freedom, you didn't deserve it in the first place- because if you truly valued and appreciated your freedom, you'd understand that being truly free has risks- the risks that someone will abuse that freedom.
That risk is the price you pay for being a US citizen, and in this day and age it is such a minute risk it is absurd(WTC=3000 people, once. Highway deaths EVERY YEAR? 40,000. Heart disease deaths EVERY YEAR? 700,000).
Ben Franklin is flipping in his grave as Bush and Ashcroft- who have done more damage to our personal liberty than anyone else in our history- call themselves "patriots"; they are lying, grandstanding cowards- little more than scam artists who have show the public a future where the Bad Man With The Turban goes away if they just bend over at the airport. True patriots are willing to take the risk so that they remain free. Sheep are willing to trade their freedom for safety.
Please help metamoderate.
So you're saying that Bush meant to go to war with Saudi Arabia, but said Iraq by mistake?
Oh man I wanted to scream when I read this.
You don't know that, and the fact that you spew your nonsense as if you did makes it all the more frustrating.
That may have been the initial intention, from the persons who authored the bill, or even the worried lawmakers who hurredly passed it, but in the hands of the enforcement arm of the law, they have been twisted and manipulated beyond comprehension.
How many terrorists have been apprehended as a result of the Patriot Act passing? I bet its less than 2!
How many average American citizens have been harrassed, subjected to inconviences, had their privacy stripped away (without them knowing it), etc?
I bet a hell of a lot more than 2.
I hope this election someone runs with the balls (or lack thereof) to openly revoke such draconian measures. If noone else does, perhaps I will.
Or maybe I'll just get the hell outta this ever-more-repressive country (again, with the HIGHEST of incarceration rates) before it's too late.
It would be a shame to have to leave, as I really love it here.
USAPATRIOT has been used against drug makers for crying out loud!
I'm not a drug maker, but I am a drug user. More than once I've caught "the wrath" for smoking pot. Most of the time I've managed to worm my way out without any penalties, as I believe, I should.
The plain and simple truth is that the Govt (and generally Govt officials as well) will always abuse any powers it is given, or rather, will use any powers it has at its disposal to ensure its own survival.
Unfortunately, this includes the revenue generating streams such as the war on drugs, etc.
Man I hope I am on the jury for one of these cases sometime soon!
Yes I am a criminal drug user. However, I have a job, pay taxes, don't "leech" off society (that I know of) and in general am a nice person to everyone and everything. Draconian laws like this worry me tremendously. Views like yours bother me more.It all comes down to who imposes upon whom. I don't want to impose upon you where possible, but you obviously don't mind imposing upon me unnecessarily.
-dave- (And not a single dead white guy quoted!)
The pig browse. With Google. Sigh is to the chicken. Chicken is fool. Giggle. The DailyWTF giggle.
funny. what about cars who didn't see checkpoints? what about the countless stories of civilians who were killed "by mistake"? the reuters camaraman? the intepreter to some diplomat?
The second amendment reads as follows
"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
That's right "OF THE PEOPLE" is a part of the second amandment.
If you believe that the second amendment is no longer needed, fine, that is your right. You must lobby to get it repealed. As long as it is a part of the constitution, we can't ignore it.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
to ask for to identify the The Center for Democracy and Technology as a leftwing group, wouldn't it?
Dawn of the Dead
All the privately held guns in the US couldn't stop a military attack by the federal government, if the government really were so inclined to attack its own citizens.
Odd, all the privately held guns in Iraq seem to be doing a pretty good job of stymieing US military takeover over there. Also odd is that you imply that one person with a gun is powerless, and yet "a single individual's ability to wreak widespread havoc has been increased million-fold." Pick a story and stick to it.
The only thing that could have stopped those two airplanes successfully is if the proper surveillance structure were in place to notice that strange things were a'brew.
If every member of the plane was armed with a boxcutter, who would have the upper hand? Unless the terrorists managed to outnumber able-bodied non-terrorists capable of wielding a box-cutter, I think the terrorists would never have pulled it off. In fact, even without the box cutters, I think an outright hijacking will never succeed again (witness the number of cases recently where "disturbances" on planes have turned into a matter of crowd participation). Now that Americans know what happens when their plane is hijacked, they aren't going to put up with it happening again, even if it takes a small mob to keep a guy from setting fire to his shoe.
You know, its pretty sad when dead white men speak better than our own president. You think on that for a while, and ask yourself whether or not changing times has made wisdom and intelligence obsolete.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Most of the civilians killed by mistake were killed during fire fights. IOW the troops were already underfire.
As for the cars at the check points, there is only one I can think of where people were killed, but the intent was not to kill people. The vehicles are fired on to stop them
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
For some reason, the phrase "donating to them while simultaneously sucking at the government teat is ill-advised" gave me a tremendously hilarious mental picture and a good belly laugh.
Thank you for that.
So why is it that congress hasn't started a new bill to recind the act? Congress does have the power to reverse it's laws. And if Bush vetoes it, they have th power to override said veto. But there isn't a motion to do this at all. So much of what happens with the PATRIOT act I blame on congress because it really is their fault.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The site you used is highly biased, and that bias is evident in the quoted statement.
.45 when he gets out of prison. Criminals are not the issue. Law abiding people like me (and presumably you) are.
There is no such thing as an unbiased source when it comes to Guns or abortion. That's life. Biased and inaccurate are not the same thing. If we're debating whether or not the crack dealer a few miles down the street should date my baby sister, I'm going to be VERY biased against it; that doesn't mean that I'm not right.
Third, you must agree that some limits are highly justifiable. Just as one cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theater, a convicted violent criminal should not carry firearms.
The old "fire in a crowded theater" argument regarding the limitations on rights is constantly misused. This example refers to the rights of a property owner to make use of that property. By yelling "fire", you deprive the owner of the rights to own and operate his/her theater as he/she sees fit. That is purely a civil matter.
No reasonable person thinks that the bank robbing crank smoker who just got parole should be handed a
Finally, the U.S. military has incredible power.
And?
You're deluding yourself if your think a sub-machine gun will keep you alive in the event of a military coup.
A few misc. handguns did just that for the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto.
Who says that the second amendment is just about protecting yourself from the federal government? State and local governments can overstep their bounds too. Have a peek at this http://www.jpfo.org/athens.htm
The military and police will defend you in other significant scenarios.
They have no obligation to protect ME from anything. If my house gets robbed, I can't sue them. If I get murdered, my estate can't collect damages because they didn't want to come to my house. I am the only one responsible for my safety.
Even restrictive gun laws (like in Canada) allow you to have self defense in much smaller scenarios (i.e. robbery).
If Canada is right while we're wrong, feel free to emigrate.
I can't think of any situation where gun-nut friendly laws would have a net benefit.
This statement tells me everything about your bias that I need to know.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
This is not an argument against handguns and hunting rifles. This is an argument against the laws advocated by gun lobbyists intended to allow assault weapons, since these weapons cannot even serve their sole useful purpose, defending against oppresive government.
You really need to study up on history. The FBI's own statistics show that semiautomatic rifles are used in less than 1/2 of 1% of all gun related crime. Why is it so important to ban them if they're not used by criminals?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What about the concept of poisoning wells or salting the land?
Now before everyone begins to quote Ben Franklin, please consider that he lived in a very different era where the ability of a very few to cause significant harm was simply not available.
History doesn't support your assertion. Ask any Native American if Christopher Columbus caused "significant harm" to the native peoples of this country.
Smallpox existed in Franklin's day, it had been used as a weapon against the Native americans long before Ben's famous freedom/safety line.
However, such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC. All the privately held guns in the US couldn't stop a military attack by the federal government, if the government really were so inclined to attack its own citizens.
History doesn't support your conclusion. Once again, I'll point out that the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto held off the Nazis with a few cheap pistols.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
so...you're saying that criminals don't obey the law?! SHIT! does the government know this?!
FreeBSD for the impatient.
SEC. 362. Slashdot comments regarding USA Patriot Act:
(1) replace all instances of 'SCO' with 'Ashcroft' in paragraphs 3-4 of comment posted under topic 11 on 03/13/03, subsection 2
(2) by inserting after the item relating to section 309 the following new item:
'FUD'
(3) previous statement in section IV is amended by adding at the end the following:
'begone civil liberties'
Well-organized usually implies that organization is not an automatic state. A one-person militia is automatically perfectly organized.
All the more reason for the citizens to be able to defend themselves.
You have Ebola. Is it all the more reason to take antivirals? No, you say? They don't really have any effect? (Sorry for the annoying sarcasm)
Disclaimer...
The national guard and the reserve are quite different from the real thing. Also, what's the alternative to having a strong military defend your interests against another strong military? Whether you trust the military or not, they're your best bet.
Regarding the police officers, a card-carrying ACLU member is the last to trust the police blindly, but your interpretation holds little weight. How does an overly powerful firearm protect you better from manipulation by the police than a pistol? You already said that they have pistols. I never said anything about your not having something equally powerful. I just don't think a submachine gun is justified.
I'm not saying that every citizen has a clear need to be walking around with a 50-cal.
Exactly.
The same is largely true of gun control: what the gun nuts fear is a state where the only people with firearms are the criminals and the police.
Such a state existing and automatically being oppressive is empirically denied, not that I support the formation of such a state. If our democracy can't limit some actions or states (such as ownership) in the true public interest (not USA PATRIOT act garbage), then we're screwed already.
Since this is slashdot, I have to say something inaccurate that doesn't even support my point: I live in Texas, and our mobile phones come equipped with bullets instead of cameras. You might think Bluetooth is useless, but it really does help aiming.
Don't forget that the Patriot Act passed both houses of Congress. By a wide margin.
So instead of demonizing the man in charge of prosecuting our nation's laws why not blame your representative in congress for passing it?
White House hype machine?
Please cite me where Bush said that Iraq/Saddam was responsible for 9/11.
Thanks.
Furthermore, I believe the government should act deontologically when it comes to rights. If there's any legitimate use, then it should be legal (though possibly regulated). My argument is based on principle: semi-automatic weapons do not have any uses among citizens that do not deserve heavy regulation (or even banning). Your utilitarian arguments do not sway me. I know utility is the normal justification for gun control, but I think deontology is more consistant with my other positions in politics and supports my reasoning adequately.
According to Gallup, 67% of people believe in ghosts.
Those polls don't prove anything, except most people are ignorant. You don't need a poll to figure that out.
Allowing airline passengers to keep and bear arms would eliminate the threat of kamakaze hijackers.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
Hmm... lets think about this statement for a second. First, let us remember that the planes that crashed into the WTC were hijacked by men carrying boxcutters. Seems to me that any amount of guns greater than zero would likely stop a handful of men with boxcutters.
The second part, to me, sounds as much like an argument against gun regulation as for it. After all, there are a lot more non-military citizens than there are military. If civilians could own the same sort of weapons the military does, well, we COULD fight the military should it coup. For the record, I'm not advocating such a position, just pointing out the obvious flaw in your argument.
Second, my point about the military is that, in that unlikely scenario where they take power and oppress everyone, no survivalist has the means to stop them, so why try (and let every other civilian try) and risk all the consequences of doing so?
Third, you say bias is inherent and needn't cloud accuracy, yet you accuse me of bias at the end (which I admittedly have), implying such inaccuracy. That implication is contradictory. Also, by my recommendation to seek a less biased source, I was not labeling myself as such.
Finally, Canada is an example, and when foreign nations have good model policies, the response of a democratic republic (like the U.S.) should not be "move there if you like it" without any self-examination and consideration of reform.
Unless of course someone on the plane(s) had a gun, and used it to shoot the hijackers.
Dangerously incorrect, except, as you say, in the case of armed pilots.
Let's leave out the pilots for a moment, and consider potentially armed passengers. Which has been suggested many, many times.
If personal firearms were allowed in the cabin, then the hijackers would have also had them. The only used boxcutters, because those were legal. Sharp, small, fits in a pocket. And legal, at the time. They could just as easily have used a Swiss Army knife. They brought the maximum legal device that would accomplish the mission.
Now, we introduce firearms into the cabin. Legal and approved. How many people actually carry on a daily basis? 2%? Maybe 2 people on a hundred person flight. All the hijackers have to do is load up with 4 or 5 legally armed people.Immediately, they have an automatic 2-1 advantage. On top of that 2-1 numerical advantage, the hijackers would have the advantage of position, timing, and practice. Station one guy in the back of the cabin, and wait for those two armed passengers to show themselves when the fireworks start. Boom, shot in the back. No more threat from the passengers. They can then carry on their mission.
In a surprise attack, the attackers almost always have the advantage.
Armed pilots are a different situation. Many are ex-military, and also have the advantage of warning, and a very narrow entranceway.
Maybe you should move?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I almost included this in my original post, knowing with absolute certainty that some leftie elitist would chime in about how dumb people are. So here goes.
You lefties are all for constitutional democracy, except for the democracy part.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
You obviously have never been to the gun shows, or homes of serious gun owners that I have. I count people who own RPG's and Barret Rifles as friends...and they are not a small number..including my father
-Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
/me appaulds
-Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
I seem to remember Colin Powell going before the UN Security Council and giving all sorts of 'evidence' that Iraq had ties to Al Quaeda. Oh, he also threw out something about 'yellow cake' in Niger while he was at it.
Are you kidding me, Bush and Co. have been doing it for months.
14 Oct 2002 During a speech in Dearborn, Michigan, President George W Bush declares that Saddam Hussein maintains active ties to al Qaeda: "This is a man that we know has had connections with al Qaeda. This is a man who, in my judgment, would like to use al Qaeda as a forward army."
7 Nov 2002 During a press conference, President George W Bush declares: "Some people say, 'Oh, we must leave Saddam alone, otherwise, if we did something against him, he might attack us.' Well, if we don't do something he might attack us, and he might attack us with a more serious weapon. The man is a threat... He's a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda... And we're going to deal with him."
Not more than 5 weeks ago did Cheney get on meet the press and spout off this shit about hussein's involvement with 9-11 and Iraq's ties to al-qaeda, because the day after that the white house had to go on damage control because by then the american people had figured out that the Bushies had been lying about iraq's involvement with al-qaeda and 9-11.
The amendment was written when everything west of New York and Pennsylvania was wilderness. The Brits tried EXACTLY what our govt is doing now...put away your guns and WE'LL defend you from Indians. Of course when they attacked small villages, the "Army" was usually there in a...week...too bad you're all DEAD.
So, when it comes to 9/11, we should all be packing...the govt should ENCOURAGE it!!!! The only terrorist attack to be unsecessful was the one resisted by the PEOPLE. On top of that, with "disallowed" cellphones and in violation of most of the sissy "anti-terrorist" policies.
Unfortunately, Militias should be formed by the PEOPLE. By default the National Guard doesn't count because they get their funding from the Army and report to both military and state government officals. Militas serve to protect OUR homes, not our "country" not at the whim of a prez who's trigger happy. That's why they cannot report to any branch of federal govt directly [perhaps local or states though] The ability of the states to keep the homeland defended strips the feds of much of the control they've gained over the years....the feds would have to convince states to give up thier troops...which would be exempt from drafting...and they have GUNS to not be taken forcibly...get it! But again, just like voting, THE PEOPLE have to do this on their own! It can't be done for them!
Because the use of Echelon in this country is clandestine and illegal according to the Fourth Amendment. The Patriot Act is the attempted rollout of the legal use of Echelon. If U.S. citizens accept the Patriot Act it makes things like Echelon more useable. Sure they can use Echelon now, but they cannot use the results in a U.S. court as a basis for prosecution. The Patriot Act would change that. We're sort of between the right to privacy and the state in which the Patriot Act would invoke.
The Patriot Act is a horrible thing and we should reject it. It continues the trend of concentrating power into fewer hands.
You can quote dead white men all you like, but it doesn't change the fact that in the past two hundred odd years society has changed significantly and a single individual's ability to wreak widespread havoc has been increased million-fold.
A friend and I had a discussion about this proposition last year; specifically, suppose you have a group of terrorists/whatever and want to kill a lot of people. It doesn't have to be specific ones; random will do. What, then, is the ratio of the number of people you can kill to the number in your organization? And I'm talking more or less average people, perhaps with some moderate funds, not Bill Gates or people with access to nuclear labs.
We concluded that it was on the order of 10 to 1, with more if you're really lucky or think up a creative new attack, and has been true for a long time. For example:
Police protection has dramatically increased, especially in response time. You used to be able to get a small group with crude weapons and go on a killing spree; this does not work anymore.
The organization directly required to finance, find and train suicide bombers, and forge documents for the September 11 attacks may be assumed to be a couple hundred, so this attack also falls into the order of 10:1.
Even if the Aum nerve-gas attack in the Tokyo subway had worked, it would be hard-pressed to kill ten people for every cult member whose finances and expertise it used.
The fires in California were started by a handful of arsonists, and killed a couple dozen (will continue to rise?). In the past, about the same would be true: the fire would spread wider but kill fewer due to density.
The Unabomber only killed 3 people. The Trenchcoat Mafia killed 13 at Columbine; even if they had succeeded in the bombings, the would have only killed a few dozen. Palestinian terrorists typically kill no more than a few dozen in their suicide attacks, and these require several people to coordinate.
To kill a lot of random people with a high-tech attack, bombs or poison would have to be the way to go, but even with the Anarchist's Cookbook, you'd be hard-pressed to kill very many. The only attack I've been able to find that has far exceeded this killing ratio has been the Oklahoma City bombing, at 168:3 or so. I will assume that this is more or less an outlier: bombings are fairly random, and there have been many carbombings with far less spectacular results, including the recent ones in Iraq.
There are much worse attacks predicted as a worst-case scenario, but even these, with moderate estimates, can be shown to be about 10:1 or so effective. A nuclear bomb in New York would require a government's cooperation; stealing one would be near-impossible, and if you could buy one on the black market, Osama would have by now. Nerve gas in crop-dusters might work, but it would be terribly hard to pull off, would require a large technical staff (as Aum found out, the stuff isn't easy to make) and a brisk wind would save a city. Poisoning the water supply is much trickier these days than it used to be, and probably wouldn't kill many more people than it used to because they would notice quickly. Starting an epidemic is better understood nowadays, but also much easier to treat and contain.
So, your point needs some modification. High-tech stuff is not that much more effective at killing people than guns.
Disclaimer: I'm interested in becoming a security researcher. I don't plan on implementing any of these measures, and any criminal (certainly any terrorist) could probably think of better ones.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
Saddam would pose a threat to us if he got NBC weapons or was about to get them and planned to make them availible to terrorists to use against us. North Korea fits the category of a legitimate monster to destroy. Iraq, based on the little evidence we've seen, didn't.
Our founders would still not support intervening to make the world a safer place. Who would we attack next? Where would it end? Our founders recognized that this "logic" taken to its natural conclusion would bury us in imperial overstretch, debt and cripple us as a world power. So who is it next? China over Tibet and Taiwan? The Sudan?
I have nothing against supporting violent liberal revolutions against Marxist and Fascist regimes. I cannot though see anything but folly in going after every nation that rattles its sabres at us. The only way to be taken seriously is to use your military in a very strong show of force. If you get little bits involved here and there you weaken your ability to bring overwhelming force to bear on a single enemy and only embolden the pissants who want a piece of you.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Well, we can still talk about how much we dislike Bush, his cronies and (currently) the PATRIOT Act.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Try actualy reading the discussion instead of going to the bottom of the thread and hitting reply
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Being educated is elitism. Lets all just stay dumb and do as we're told no questions asked. Its so much easier to be told what to think.
The fact that MOST Americans don't mind having their liberties stifled and/or taken away, doesn't make it any more ethical or easier to swallow.
Not one of your arguments supports the posession of anything more powerful than a handgun or hunting rifle.
None of your argumens supports banning them.
Second, my point about the military is that, in that unlikely scenario where they take power and oppress everyone, no survivalist has the means to stop them, so why try (and let every other civilian try) and risk all the consequences of doing so?
No one is suggesting that a lone gunman with an AK-47 would be able to stop the entire US military. There are over 80 million gun owners in the US. They outnumber the military by a factor of 8 to 1. You also assume that none of the members of the military would refuse to carry out illegal or immoral orders. When president Clinton had a survey taken among the Marines as to if they would be willing to open fire on American citizens if they resisted gun confiscation, the majority of them responded "No". If such a scenario were to come to pass, we'd have a sizeable portion of the military on our side.
Third, you say bias is inherent and needn't cloud accuracy, yet you accuse me of bias at the end (which I admittedly have), implying such inaccuracy. That implication is contradictory. Also, by my recommendation to seek a less biased source, I was not labeling myself as such.
I pointed out your bias, because you implied that bias is indicative of inaccuracy.
Finally, Canada is an example, and when foreign nations have good model policies, the response of a democratic republic (like the U.S.) should not be "move there if you like it" without any self-examination and consideration of reform.
Good, just like bad is subject to subjective interpretation. You have the right to think that the Canadian system is better, most Americans disagree with you.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I never said my ideas would create a utopia, though a 1/2 to 1% reduction in gun crimes would be great. Also, 1/2 to 1% is not 0%, so obviously some criminals do use them.
Um, no. Not 1/2 to 1%, less than 1/2 OF 1%. Meaning Furthermore, I believe the government should act deontologically when it comes to rights.
You have the right to that belief, but you're wrong. From a deontological point of view, one can justify ethnic cleansing because most of the people in a given place may think that it is for the best.
If there's any legitimate use, then it should be legal (though possibly regulated).
Legitimate or not, constitutionally protected trumps that.
My argument is based on principle: semi-automatic weapons do not have any uses among citizens that do not deserve heavy regulation (or even banning).
Crime prevention. Hunting. Collecting. Recreation. All of which are legitimate uses, but the fact that firearms ownership is constitutionally protected makes none of that relevant.
Your utilitarian arguments do not sway me.
The purpose of this debate is not for either of us to sway the other. It is not possible. You have made up your mind, I have made up mind. If you were to try to persuade me that black licorice is delicious, you'd be wasting your breath. Same here. It is to sway those who are undecided.
I know utility is the normal justification for gun control, but I think deontology is more consistant with my other positions in politics and supports my reasoning adequately.
I don't care. Be it deontology, or the flip of a coin. Your justification for your position on this is meaningless to everyone except you.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
So tell me why a couple hundred passengers couldn't stop a few razor-toting fanatics, also? And, in fact, we think that in one case, they did so, though not before they were in a position to crash the plane.
The biggest difference one gun would have made would have been in the diminished personal perception of the likelihood of pain or death to the person intervening, not in its actual stopping power.
Get off my launchpad!
now, firstly I am from Australia where we have VERY estrictive gun laws. That is all because we have the WORLD RECORD for the single greatest mass murdering... no matter how hard you try, you just have not been able to top the 'Port Arthur massacre' (on an aside, it is a little ironic that it occured at the site of one ot the worst gaols that was ever built in Australia. The gaol has not been in use for anything other than tourism for about 100 years, I think.)
Read what you wrote just here:
When president Clinton had a survey taken among the Marines as to if they would be willing to open fire on American citizens if they resisted gun confiscation, the majority of them responded "No". If such a scenario were to come to pass, we'd have a sizeable portion of the military on our side.
Now, what I'd like you to do, is take off that goofy red hat of yours (ok, I am just taking the piss here, no need to get shitty) and think for a moment. The one argument I keep on hearing from Americans about their 'right to own guns' is that the second amendment allows gun ownership for the people so that they have the ability to overthrow the government (that is what it sounds like, ok...) Read that bit you wrote that I quoted one more time. What does that last sentence of yours say? The marines would be on your side. If that is the case, you really don't need to own AK47s and the like.
The onus should be on the owner of the gun to PROVE THAT HE/SHE NEEDS IT. A submachine gun is not required for hunting squirrels. An AK-47 is not needed to keep crows away.
But that argument is not going to win you over. I know that. After all "I have the right to own how many guns, of whatever type I want" you would say. Did you ever stop to think that the one thing that your country needs is a "Bill of responsibilities" as opposed to your "Bill of rights."
Think about it...
I am not stubborn. I am right!
That was the same problem the president faced, which is one of the reasons I hate it when people blame him for the PATRIOT act. Just as all the congress men were tied, so was the president. Can you imagine what the headlines would have been?
"Bush vetos PATRIOT act"
"Bush vetos bill to increase national security"
etc etc
The whole government was tied up with this thing, and it's because people (general) have no fucking clue how the intelligence community works.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
"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."
While Echelon is problematic, its purpose and use appears limited to threat analysis and corporate espionage. The potential for abuse is absolutely astounding, but it isn't something that's legal, and it isn't something that (so far as we know) has been used to gather evidence against anyone for a court case. Echelon is a difficult and touchy issue to bring up, partly because it would appear so integral to the member-nations' security, but mostly because so little is known about it.
What it comes down to is this: you can't attack every single problem at once. You go after the big stuff first, and then you come back for the rest as you can deal with it. Echelon is blatantly unconstitutional and violates so many international laws and treaties, it would take a pack of lawyers years to determine the totality of its illegality. The main problem these people have is the 'legal' (as per current law) violations of individuals' rights, or the potential thereof. If the FBI were illegally searching peoples' homes or records, or were illegally seizing all sorts of objects or information without probable cause, then it would be up to government oversight to reign them in. In this case, agents of the government are legally doing these things, and that's why these groups are jumping all over it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
If people were allowed to fly with guns, why would the terrorists have used razors?
They would have had guns onboard as well.
Now, what happens in a gunfight on an airliner? Think pressurised cabins at high altitude....
no taxation without representation!
If most americans had half a brain... we wouldn't be in this situation. Shrub used the "fear card" America gave him after 9/11/01 to rip up parts of our constitution. IANAL, but how codified law can supplant the Law of the Land doesn't make sense to me. Anyone else?
It's a valid question and I hope whoever moderated this "Troll" gets metamodded to hell. Do you guys see "Shrub" and automatically select "Troll" from the dropdown? There is nothing trollish about asking a serious question that needs to be asked. A number of constitutional rights have just been undermined by a statute. WTF?
It doesn't strike anyone as unusual how quickly the PATRIOT Act trotted up to the plate before the hysteria was even over? This was a blatant abuse of the public trust. It had nothing to do with 9/11 (like something else going on right now that I can think of) and was clearly a DoJ wishlist that had been piling up waiting for a moment of national hysteria with a Congress and Senate very politically desirous to be seen "doing something".
This is the moment where we are waking up and finding ourselves in bed with tyranny. Time to ask ourselves what the hell we were thinking!
The old "fire in a crowded theater" argument regarding the limitations on rights is constantly misused. This example refers to the rights of a property owner to make use of that property. By yelling "fire", you deprive the owner of the rights to own and operate his/her theater as he/she sees fit. That is purely a civil matter.
No.
You're correct that the 'falsely shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater and causing a panic' argument is widely misused. It dates back to Schenk, which is no longer good law, having been replaced by Brandenberg. And no one ever remembers to quote the part about it being a _false_ cry of 'fire,' though it is perfectly legal and quite commendable to cry 'fire' if it's for real, nor that it is only objectionable should it result in a panic. (given the inflammability of theaters in 1919, a panic would likely result in people being injured or even killed)
BUT you're wrong as wrong can be when you get into this nonsense about property. That's just stupid.
The reason put forth for that type of limit on speech is that it results in grevious physical injury to people, and thus shouldn't be permitted. Similarly, if someone spoke to a mob causing it to lynch someone, or someone spoke to an assassin, causing him to murder someone, though the speaker has engaged in nothing more than speech, the immediate effect of that speech is harmful, and that's why he's not free to do so.
I STRONGLY suggest that you read Brandenberg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), which is the CURRENT law on the subject, or at least read the decision in the case that the fire example dates back to, Schenk v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919).
'Cos right now, you just look foolish.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What about the questions surrounding the U.S. Government's knowledge of 9/11 prior to the event itself?
What about the fact that the U.S. Government trained and armed what would become Al Queda in the first place?
What about the fact that the U.N. Weapons Inspectors couldn't find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Saddam had no involvment in 9/11, despite the general cloud of confusion that the President has spread over that particular issue. Quite a few experts maintain that Saddam was no threat to the U.S. as long as he was left alone. I won't say the world isn't better off without Saddam but it's the motivation and execution that bother me.
Does none of this inconsistency bother you in any way?
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
If the USA PATRIOT Act stands ... terrorists would have won.
Terrorism triggers an overt response from the authorities. The response may make life more difficult for everyone, or it may be much more extreme, alienating the community with which a terrorist is identified and creating new sympathisers.
See my journal, I write things there
Shoot a car's engine, and it will stop. Shoot through the windshield and the car will stop too and full of dead occupants.
See my journal, I write things there
"The only thing that could have stopped those two airplanes successfully is if the proper surveillance structure were in place to notice that strange things were a'brew. The systems were in place, but they didn't communicate the problems effectively. That's what the Patriot Act is all about, getting these systems to finally work properly so that we can stop another 9/11."
All in all, and accurate precis, but you did miss one small point, and that is that _someone_ would have to have the guts to down a domestic airliner when it became apparent that it wasn't under flightcrew control. The inability to act in that situation is crucial to future events of this nature, and it's to the credit of the passengers that died on the plane that crashed that they had the courage to do something about it, when the standard line is simply to do what the hijackers want.
The world has completely changed, and it might be that ordinary people have to be more willing to take action rather than hope that negotiators can save them.
One thing I was thinking about the other night was the whole question of biological warfare; surely someone with the will to fly a plane into a tower block could have exactly the same amount of will to purposely infect themselves and fly through as many domestic airports as they could?
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
"What about Hiroshima?"
There was a war on. Admittedly you could argue that Japan was completely beaten during that time, that it's Navy was in tatters, Air force non-existent and basically it was simply a matter of time before blockades increased the mainland starvation to a level where they would have come to the negotiation table, but you have to balance that with what went on in China under Japanese occupation, or the atrocities committed by the Japanese army to POWs.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
The invading germans were held back for a while mostly because of the number of privately owned guns. This time proved sufficient for the king and parliament to escape to England. The owners of the guns were hunters, and knew how to use the guns. The germans knew that if someone fired on them, they wouldn't see that person until it was too late. Wonderful for morale.
The result was that cities like Narvik were bombed to bits - more force was used to meet the resistance. An uncle of mine told me about how he went around with a bucket after the airraid, picking up bits of friends. The king escaped, though. The price was a number of lives. This is what happens when people use force. We are seeing similar things in Iraq.
These people did not own guns out of some need of a feeling of security. These were people who used the guns to make a living.
The guns the military were supposed to have were, by the way, crippled. The firing pins had been removed and stored separately for security reasons. The keys to the two locations were held by different people. Mostly, the military had problems getting hold of their tools in time to do any good in the south of Norway.
The rest is history. I am sure you can find similar examples if you try.
"More died in car crashes"
And more Gypsies and disabled people were killed during the Holocaust which was a drop in the ocean compared with the 1918 flu epidemic...you missed the point. It's not about bodycount, it's about security.
All your figures become meaningless if the standard method of protesting your case is to raise a bodycount. I'm completely with you on keeping perspective, but the action of killing another human because you don't agree with their government's policies is like shouting the loudest in a debate, and yes, I do include manifestations of a doctrine of force in this, but there is a vast difference between a national army and some losers with a religious beef.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
Hi there, I'm not actually a US citizen but a couple of points in this discussion piqued my interest..
- Is the patriot act the same thing as the thing in Quantananmo? As far as i can gather from the news, the place where people are interned is owned by the US military, it's not actually US governments soil. I'd appreciate if someone could correct that.
- On the little Gun control issue that developed in this discussion: someone said that if they didn't have guns they wouldn't have freedom. Um. I live in Republic of Ireland, we don't have guns. Most of the police don't have guns. We have freedom. Oh wait. There is one part of ireland that the people do have guns in. Northern Ireland. Where people have been shooting each other for many years. Although it's not fair to say it's all the guns fault. Sometimes they use bombs. Are bobms constitutionally protected in the US?
The discussion on the patriot act in some ways reminds me of the internment laws they used to have in northern ireland, although they didn't call it such a pretty name. They simply locked up suspected terrorists with no trial. For years. I'm sure they did lock up some actual terrorists, and they only locked away a few dozen innocent men.
Anyway. Apologies for any errors in the above. I only learn things from movies and tv these days.
And finally on a completely different topic: are the french really as unpopular in america as trans-atlantic tv makes out? They helped you win your war of independance!
No Patriot Act will stop terrorists. All it has done is lockdown regular Americans going about their business and create a unwelcome sense of unease. The cynic would say that with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, then some other Federalist State has to take up the reins of totalitarianism but its more serious than that.
Stop the cause not the effects of terrorism. Seriously look at where US aid funding goes. For every dollar the US gives to one side, you create resentment on the other side. Don't you feel a little resentful when someone in US society (pick your minority) gets Federal funding from your taxpayer dollar and you don't ? Well extrapolate this into the global arena and welcome to resentment on a global scale and boy are they pissed.
If your going to give aid then pass it through the established non-aligned aid agencies like Medecin Sans Frontiers and do some real work that helps foster friendships not make enemies.
For every aid dollar thats tied to a trade agreement or used for defence purchasing or used as carrot or stick is a dollar that some terrorist wants to stop and they will go to the source of funding to stop this aid flow.
I've nothing against aid but the way its been effected to date has helped kill those on 9/11; not good value for money.
>>Finally, the U.S. military has incredible power.
>All the more reason for the citizens to be able to defend themselves.
The 2nd Amendment does not entitle you to non-nuclear parity with the government.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
" it was because we'd been conditioned to follow the hijackers' commands on the hope that noone gets hurt."
"Conditioned?" By what, exactly?
Believing the results from a commercial IQ test isn't very smart...
Ouch. You're fucked, noda132.
You just suggested that someone could reproduce 9/11 today. That means you must have some idea of how to do it. That means you might possibly try your plan, if it exists, one day. That means that you are a potential terrorist. And since anyone could be wire-tapped at any time, you could be wire-tapped. Or being monitored on-line. Since now it's possible that you might have an idea on how to maybe commit a terrorist act, you need to be investigated.
No, forget that, let's just be safe.
Welcome to G-Bay, noda132.
There are no gods but ourselves.
Deontology would not allow ethnic cleansing unless it's considered "right" by other means first. Deontology is not a system for judging whether individual actions are right or wrong if they are 100% right or 100% wrong. Deontology fills in the numerous gray areas by giving a means for weighing whether an action of mixed moral implications is overall good or bad. In deontology, good never outweighs the bad. So, if you think even a part of ethnic cleasing is wrong, its implementation is entirely wrong under deontology. You could, however, justify such actions under utilitarianism if you could prove how it was "greatest good for greates number." I think you have the two systems confused.
Maybe not murder, but if you could link your boss to financially backing that mugger, and other muggers like him, and with support of a significant portion of your office, then yes, being mugged on your way to the store would be an excuse to go after everybody in your office.
And all you'd need to do then would be to produce some proof. Preferably before you went after everyone in the office, so you could give it to the police instead.
At least it could explain your illegal actions if you produced this proof afterwards.
We're still waiting, Mr. President...
deus does not exist but if he does
...you can feed'em information, but you can't make'em think
I don't think the 7.2% growth is because bush is in office, he's put us in to major debt. I'm not saying go Democrats, I was raised a republician and still listen to the likes of Rush Limbaugh (who is more of a Libertarian BTW), but I think that the tax cuts need to be repealed and be used to pay for our mistake (Iraq).
~UltraSkuzzi
This comment is liscensed by SCO.
However, such an argument fails precisely because a gun couldn't have stopped two airplanes from flying into the WTC.
Yes it would have in the hands of the pilots and copilots of those planes.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
DOJ CLAIM: Congress enacted the Patriot Act by overwhelming, bipartisan margins.
Congress voted overwhelmingly to pass the PATRIOT Act in October 2001. But Congress acted under intense time pressure and without serious debate and deliberation. The PATRIOT Act was signed into law a mere 5 weeks after the Administration's draft was first circulated - lightning speed for legislation. And on the House side, the version approved by the Judiciary Committee with some changes prompted by civil liberties concerns was replaced by a different version in the middle of the night, and a vote was taken just hours later - leaving members and their staff with literally not enough time to read what was in the lengthy bill. Any legislation adopted under these circumstances is likely to contain provisions that deserve to be revisited and corrected if appropriate.
At least they said it more tactfully than I would. Congresspeople, when later interviewed, said they were afraid of being called unpatriotic if they voted no. And really, who wants to be labeled a terrorist-lover?
Bush Jr isn't a Nazi. That was his grandfather. While it's true that George HW rose to power on blood money (and George Dubya followed behind) simply being an evil overlord with dictatorial desires doesn't make you a Nazi.
You're looking at it the wrong way. President Bush told John Ashcroft on September 11, 2001, "Don't let this happen again."
Ashcroft helped draft the Patriot Act, it contained provisions that he personally said were needed. When a subcommittee removed certain sections of the bill, they somehow wound up back in the bill later when Congress voted on it.
If Bush had any reservations about this, he could have pulled on Ashcroft's leash, but he didn't. For all appearances, he had no problems with this.
Like I said, you're looking at it the wrong way. Bush's people wanted this act, don't think that he was the one with his hands tied. It's as ridiculous as saying that Bush didn't want war, but was forced into it.
http://austin.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id= 9239&group=webcast
Here's a recording of a speech & Q/A given by the co-author of the PATRIOT act - Viet Dinh.
Please mod this up so others may see it.
an excellent page on the law making process in the US
I don't know who came up with this one.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
So then even more of the blame should fall on to congress for failing to do their job properly and thouroughly.
And here's a thought to consider, if congress men were concerned about gettting a bad rep for voting against this bill, what do you think would have happened to a president that vetoed it?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
> Personally, the govt spying on me doesnt bother me a lick, its what is done with the info they collect is where it gets sticky. I have no problem with the govt expanding its powers to spy/probe whatever as long as they are used legitimately.
Well, since the USA PATRIOT Act allows for undisclosed searches, and also prevents disclosure, and removes the need for accountability, how exactly do you propose to ensure that it's all being used legitimately? To toss a perfect example in the mix, it's perfectly legal under the USA PATRIOT Act for the President's staff to conduct an investigation of each of the Democratic presidential candidates, for the purpose of mining up dirt about their personal lives for use against them in the 2004 campaign. Well, okay, it's patently illegal, but then they can do the investigations without judicial oversight and they don't need to disclose that they're doing it, and they can't be held criminally liable for what they dig up, and if by chance they turn up anything that's actually a violation of law, they can enter the evidence in a court and the defending candidate can't have it removed from evidence under the Fourth Amendment. A coworker who is by trade a criminal attorney reviewed the USA PATRIOT Act and this scenario, and could find no legal reason why this couldn't happen. So, your orignal statement is correct, except that there aren't that many people as yet who consider a "Democrat" to be a "criminal". Now, if you intend to tell me that there is nobody in power in the government today who would think of doing such a thing, then I must stop taking your views seriously.
Do you like that?
Virg
Right, Bush could have vetoed the bill. Just like all those congressmen could have voted no.
"But they didn't have enough time to read it all"
Bullshit, every bill is read in entirety before it's voted on. And even if it wasn't, it was their duty to vote no.
"But they would have been labled unpatriotic and would have recieved bad press"
And the president wouldn't have?
I blame congress because congress has almost all the power when it comes to striking down a bill.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The point is not about body count, granted, though it does help to put the number of deaths into perspective to stop extremists from foaming at the mouth (not you).
As for security, I challenge the notion that we are truly significantly more secure today than we were before 9/11. HOW DO YOU KNOW? You can't really quantify something like national security. Why did we do nothing of this sort after the Oklahoma city bombing? Was that less tragic because less people were killed? But it's not about body count. Terrorist attacks by American-born citizens seem like MORE of a danger to me.
Has the rate of terrorist attacks gone down as a result of the Patriot Act? Maybe the terrorists are focusing on our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Or, really, there weren't a whole heck of a lot of terrorist attacks on US soil before 9/11, so it's not exactly shocking that there isn't a flood of them now.
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Law enforcement and intelligence resources are stretched thin. Always have been, always will be.
And yes, in an open society, everyone is a potential terrorist. If the taking of noda123's comments out of context can end up getting him detained, the system is terribly broken.
Given that everything we do online is now being monitored, however, I don't think his comments were even close to the human investigation threshold. Nor are yours. Nor are mine. Gitmo? Please.
Because every time the filters do get a false positive, a human has to look at it. It's the same problem we face with spam. Humans looking at emails and Slashdot postings for evidence of terrorist plots are a Bad Thing, because humans cost too damn much compared to filters.
In the case of spam, we glance at the mail and, upon seeing HTML or a "200." at the start of the IP address, reflexively delete what our filters missed. But maybe our best friend is in South America and using some dorky kiosk that only sends HTML. Oops. His mail gets deleted it's cheaper to discard all 200.0/8 mail as spam than it is to waste time investigating it.
But unlike our spam situation, the default option for a filter reading the comment isn't to send the comment to an agent, and the default option for an agent reading the filter's false positive isn't to disappear noda132. Why? Because even though an agent reading noda132's posting history and checking for other records in the database has already cost his department a small fortune compared to the automated filter, actually ordering the disappearance of someone requires vastly more resources still.
The most cost-effective approach to security is widespread (omnipresent) monitoring and automated filtering with a high threshold to reduce investigation costs, followed by human investigation with a still higher threshold to reduce the costs of disappearing a false positive. You can read the word "cost" in that sentence in dollars or in civil liberties and the argument remains the same.
Bottom line: Those who defend the nation's security and those who defend its civil liberties share a common goal in keeping wisecrackers like noda123 off the radar screen in the first place, and and from being disappeared should he be so unlucky as to make it past the filter as a false positive.
The people on both sides of this debate are all on the good guys' side.
>Now, what happens in a gunfight on an airliner? Think pressurised cabins at high altitude....
This still would have been far better than allowing the planes to crash into 2 large, heavily populated buildings in New York City. If the terrorists had thought there was any way that a significant number of people might have been packing on thoses planes, they would never have even considered trying it.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
From an article in WND.com
Okay, I have to respond to your post, since it's the most grievously incorrect.
> Seems to me that any amount of guns greater than zero would likely stop a handful of men with boxcutters.
Of course, if it was legal to take a gun on a plane in the U.S., the terrorists would have stuck with boxcutters instead of bringing their own firearms. For religious reason, I can only presume. I can't believe this weak an argument even qualifies.
Virg
Those who compare Bush to Hitler do a disservice to all those who fought and died in WWII
I disagree. There was no ambiguity in WWII once the US committed itself. Right now, the "war on terror" is more myth than reality. Al Qaeda is more like international organized crime than anything else; why we are fighting them with bombs is highly debatable.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
"As for security, I challenge the notion that we are truly significantly more secure today than we were before 9/11."
I wouldn't say more secure, but I would suggest that the US is more wary. The trouble is that it's being applied incorrectly, and the PATRIOT act is being misused to short-circuit due process quite heavily. Quite simply, the US is eventually going to relax again, and you'll be ready for another atrocity.
I'm more worried about the constant crying of 'Wolf' eventually leading to complete apathy or people with itchy trigger fingers due to a climate of fear.
"Terrorist attacks by American-born citizens seem like MORE of a danger to me."
Oh, they are. In fact one of the bigger problems we had with the IRA was the second and third generation British/Irish that would get involved...At the start we reacted exactly the same...the prevention of terrorism act was written to allow people to be held without trial for extended lengths of time, and there was a certain social laxness in allowing 'confessions' to be gained. Later this has meant that the UK Government had to not only apologise, but in some cases pay reparations to those falsely imprisoned. We caught lots of terrorists, arms and their supporters, but numerous innocent people got caught up along the way. I'm not making a distinction between either side in the Irish 'struggle'; they're both as bad as each other.
"Was that less tragic because less people were killed?"
'Tragic' is an emotive word, and be very wary of emotions, especially when used by the media.
"Or, really, there weren't a whole heck of a lot of terrorist attacks on US soil before 9/11, so it's not exactly shocking that there isn't a flood of them now."
Like I said before, it depends on who you call a 'terrorist' and why. Currently in the UK, hacking is covered by the terrorism act. In the US a chap with a meth lab has been charged with making weapons of mass destruction. Both of these are despite the fact that Both the US and the UK have stockpiles of nerve agents that they can never use because of international restrictions. So why keep them?
Post 9/11 USA keeps using the emotional impact of the word 'Terrorist' in pretty much the same way that we have with the word 'peadophile'. Everyone who wants to finish an argument uses their particular strawman as something that cannot be defended. Don't fall for it.
Just to mention something I stated at the start, the most important aspect of all of this is that Terrorism is about fear. It's not about the actual attack, it's about the possibility of attack. Forget the showy explosions, they're nothing compared with the state of fear that an unknown enemy can instil in a nation or the change in social habits that they provoke. The US has panicked early, and hopefully they'll start to recover soon.
Oddly Draconis
Too cynical to live, too stubborn to die.
Ever seen "12 Monkeys"? That's exactly what the antagonist did.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Microsoft is where it is by riding IBM's coattails, strong arm tactics, and anti-competitive practices. If you are so against communism and socialism, I would think you would be in favor of a free market and competition. Microsoft has no regard for either, so it is strange you would hold them up as an example.
Your point seems to boil down to "people are assholes, so get used to it and stop whining". If that's so, why don't I just come over, kick your ass, and take your stuff? Or maybe we should just disband the police and judicaial system. Justice and redress of grievances seem to have no place in your philosophy.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
If you mean Representatives, then there are hundreds total, but no state sends over 100 to the House.
I do agree they didn't do their job, and have contacted my state's political representatives to let them know they have lost my vote next time they're up for election and can only win it back by re-examining and changing the PATRIOT act.
So tell me why a couple hundred passengers couldn't stop a few razor-toting fanatics, also?
The same social psychology that leads to people standing around a dying person waiting for someone else to help (surely, someone else will be braver than I, right?).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
The only airline accident, that I can recall, where people got "sucked out" of the plane, was one in the seventies.
There was also another incident around Hawaii, where a whole section of a fuselage came off (literally the top half of the midsection) and took away whoever wasn't belted down (again, much more drastic than a window popping out).
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
The problems here are that there is no judicial oversight and the right to free speech of the store or library employees is being abridged. This leaves the provision open to easy abuse becaus ethe FBI can investigate anyone whenever they please and keep it secret. This does not square with an open and free society.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Which might explian why the airline pilots union has been campaigning to let its members carry guns in the cockpit.
It really suprises me that this wasn't already common practice. Just keep the guns down on the outsides of the pilot and copilot seats. It's a great deterrance. Pilots are already in a position of great responsibility and a position of trust; guns really add nothing to the equation.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
look up bridges in the want ads.
One of the older bridges in Charleston, SC, I believe, is free to anyone who can take it with them.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
I totally agree, thank you for writing that in.
Local Police, not FBI. It was a book on navigating the death of a loved one w.r.t life insurance.
Guns on planes -- great idea, eh? Before 9/11, there were no guns on planes. Why? Because guns can help you hijack planes.
Now, if a terrorist can get the gun from the guard, he's got the plane. At least during 9/11 one group of people in one plane managed to overwhelm the terrorists; if there had been a gun on the plane and a terrorist managed to grab it, the plane would have flown into another building (what was it, the White House?)
Not to mention, what if a bullet goes through a window?
The guns-on-planes policy is an accident waiting to happen. It will happen.
I count people who own RPG's and Barret Rifles as friends...
By any chance is this because you wouldn't want them to consider you an enemy?
If I knew a guy with a rocket launcher I'd be very friendly towards him as well.
Actually, we were VERY lucky on 9/11.
If I were Mohommad Atta, and if I could do it all over again, I'd do the following:
Wait until 10 or 11am, so that more people would be in the buildings.
Steer the planes to hit LOWER in the towers, so that more people would have been trapped above the fires.
On the morning of 9/11, I woke up to see the first building already collapsed on the morning news, we knew the second building would most likely also collapse, and it did shortly after I woke. Then figures were quoted that 50,000 people work in those buildings. The fact that only 3000 or so were killed is an amazing stroke of good luck. Especially for the 47,000 who either got out, or hadn't shown up to work yet.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
. . .
Also, for the Pentagon strike, I would have tried to hit the CENTER of the building. That would have made it much more difficult for firefighters to put out the fire, and would have likely collapsed a large portion of the roof, instead of most of the impact going into the recently-reinforced side-wall.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The only way I'd have even believed this was "evidence" would be if it was checked out before the loved one died. And then only if it wasn't checked out in tandem with obtaining the insurance in the first place (I'd certainly want to know about collecting on the policy when I buy a policy).
I most definately wouldn't want the cops storming my house and arresting me for checking out that book, and using it as evidence in an attempted murder case or something.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Exactly. It is plain that our government and many lobbying groups do not expect adults to be able to behave as adults, or perhaps do not want adults defending themselves?
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
If you can afford it the 2nd amendment _does_ give you the right to parity with the government.
Nukes are restricted by international treaty. Personally I don't think that governments are responsible enough to be trusted with them.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
The idea is an armed pilot or copilot that will not the leave the front of the plane, if the hijackers were to get into the front cabin the pilots would use the weapon they had as a last line of defense. However your comment is accurate in this sense once we knew that hijackers didn't just want some hostages we were able to fight back, it is doubtful that another 9/11 style hijacking would be successful again, hell due to the cell phone they were unable to use the 4th plane as a weapon. And the debate about arming pilots is really low on my list of most support to stop terrorism stuff. I am a strong supporter of The Patriot Act and Ashcroft.
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
lol - tell that to the afgannis who fought Hind Helicopters
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
If you can afford it the 2nd amendment _does_ give you the right to parity with the government.
So, if you become rich beyond your wildest dreams, you'd rather spend it on HumVees, Harrier Jets, Apache Helicopters, and associated firepower?
Give me the scaled-down decadance of a bubblebath with Keira Knightly, Elisha Cuthbert, and Jeri Ryan, thank you.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
As a historical example I would point to the town square cannons you see in a lot of small towns. These were often purchased and owned by private citizens, and were major military hardware in their day. Kinda like having a tank now. Perfectly legal.
Forget diamonds, copyright is forever.
For an example of perspective, consider that anywhere from 7784 to 9596 Iraqi civilians were killed by US troops since the War in Iraq started (source). Given this, how do you think that the Iraqi people should react? I leave you with these thoughts.
You have your facts wrong. Did you actually read the Iraq Body Count site beyond those two numbers. Check out their database. Those numbers do not represent "Iraqi civilians killed by US troops". They represent all violent civilian deaths, not just those caused by US troops. From that site, "This includes civilian deaths resulting from the breakdown in law and order, and deaths due to inadequate health care or sanitation." The count also includes civilian deaths caused by civilian terrorists blowing themselves up and doing other stupid things. If you go through and add everything up, the vast majority of Iraqi civilian deaths were not caused by US troops or even the war's side effects of broken infrastructure. The vast majority are the result of internal lawlessness and terrorism.
All in all, that site reeks of propaganda. It appears intended to make the outcome of the Iraq war look far worse than it is, perhaps to advance the authors' political agenda. Whether or not you believe that removing Saddam by force was the right choice, you must realize that propaganda is propaganda, whether pro-war or anti-war.
You talk about putting things into perspective, and this is a very good thing to do. We must also put into perspective the number of people that Saddam has slaughtered in acts of genocide and political oppression since the last war. (tens of thousands dead) And we must put into perspective the number of people who have died because Saddam's war-lord mentality combined with failed UN sanctions have kept Iraq's economy in the toilet, shorting food and medical needs. (hundreds of thousands dead). Those are plain facts. I'll let you decide how you want to deal with them.
So answer the ACs, have you ever shot a firearm (especialy the ones they use at the roadblocks) and do you have any idea what you're talking about?
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I said link to 9/11, not Al Quada.
I said Saddam & 9/11, not al Qaeda. Al Qaeda =! 9/11. In fact, there is evidence that Saddam *DID* deal with al Qaeda. Duh, everyone knows that.
I'm talking about the link between the September 11th Terrorist attacks and Saddam.
Here, read this.
Fighting for Liberty is like Making Love for Virginity....
> My comment can be quoted whenever, wherever, so long as you bloody well provide attribution! >
Depends on how many have guns and how determined they are. Just ask the Russians about their days in Afghanistan and talk to any Vietnam veteran, or even look at history and the founding of the US. Guns, in the hands of those who are determined, can be effective in overthrowing a government. The trick of the government is to ensure the people who have guns do not want change.
9/11 was an act executed by the terrorist group Al Quaeda. Therefore, by saying that Iraq was involved with 9/11 you're directly implying that Iraq is tied to Al Quaeda. Get your facts straight.
Hey amateur political scientist,
Obviously America is not a direct democracy. I am well aware of the framers' intent to avoid direct democracy and the Madisonian "tyranny of the majority."
But America has aspects of both democracy and republic, so it is both or neither. Republican under Common Law, and democratic under statutory law
See: State initiative process, Arnold, the fact that we vote for national representatives.
A democratic republic (or representative democracy) is technically an elected, representative government based on consent of the governed. The US has a democratic republic, since we choose our leaders by voting (yes, I know about the electoral college - see below). The United Kingdon is a republic - a monarchial republic. China is a socialist republic, based on a dictatorship.
So not all republics are democracies, but some are, at least partially.
Your post is off-topic though, since I never said that America is a democracy. I said libs were against democracy.
I say this because they have a very small plurality. Quite simply, their ideas would never survive popular referendum. Thus, the left opposes nearly every ballot initiative, and constantly tries to thwart the will of the people in court, with lib judges (see: ACLU).
Unassimilatible
BA, Political Science
JD, Law
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
There is a rising clamor for the Patriot Act to be dismantled, for the 'security vs. privacy' reasoning, but should it be?
Who, exactly has been inconvenienced by this act of self-preservation? The media has been clamouring for victems, yet none serface. Why is that? Consider this, if you will. (Recently posted elsewhere, here at Slashdot, as well.)
Where does privacy end and security begin, and visa-versa? Is the threat from internal terrorists over? Are we secure in our homes, workplaces, and skyscrapers; or, does the threat continue?
If we are not yet secure than what price will we pay for privacy now? It's nice for you and me to have privacy but should those who would plot to destroy our civilization have the privacy to make their plans?
Our Constitution is a wonderful document, and should endure forever, but it is not a suicide pact, after all. During times of war certain liberties have always needed to be suspended (temporarily, as in 'sunset clause') for the greater need of preserving it.
This "we all have to be free and at total liberty to do whatever we want," is an emotion that should have been put to rest when we were weaned from our mother's teat. We all have to live together; and, that means that we all can't do whatever we want, whenever we want.
It's time to grow up and hope that our leaders can get this job done before the F**cking do-gooders screw it all up and we're all bowing to Mecca.
So far they are.
Remember that there are also built-in safe guards within our Constitution that secure our continued freedoms. Things like "term limits" will stop any Commander-in-Chief from becoming too powerful. Things like our Congress, that can and do make laws with sunset clauses built-in so that we get our liberties and freedoms back once the problem is settled.
The Patriot Act has such a Sunset Clause, did you know that? It will just go away on it's own. It doesn't need your, or anybodies, help. Our (Republican) Congress did well by us there.
All this decent does, when presented too early (like now), is to embolden our enemies and make the job harder and more dangerous for our troupes. This is a political tactic to draw out the war in order to make the current administration look bad so that some pin-head can win the next election and get more of our people killed. Please don't fall for that trap. You are being played.
Some of our politicians, especially the liberals, don't care about who dies or who wins, as long as they get elected. That is their mission, the rest is just theater to them. Don't fall into that trap, and it is one. Remember, we were attacked and we are responding in a way to insure that we won't be again. That is how it should be.
It's time to grow up. The world is bigger than your basement. Don't let them play on you this way.
They live, while you sleep.
We need to protect ourselves. The current administration is doing that. The term limits and sunset clauses will put everything back the way it was before 9/11, just without the threat of further attacks. Won't that be nice? Isn't that worth something? Think about it.
It's a hard world out there and the boogey-man does want to kill you!
Good night!
Keeper of the terrible karma ---
Murphy's law, oft misquoted, says that if there is more than one way to accomplish something, and one of those ways results in catastrophe, someone will do it.
It's a statement about people. There are some things you just shouldn't leave open to abuse.
no big sig
I believe Mr. Franklin said it best: "Those that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety will get neither."
We're all going to die someday. I'd rather have a year of freedom than decades of the illusory safety of the gulag.
-Technowitch
Because of their mistakes in Northern Ireland, this is one area that the British army are well trained in. It is clear that the US army are not so ROE, or no ROE, they use disproportionate force and go after the wrong targets.
See my journal, I write things there
In a highsecurity area, where you are concerned because recently there have been car bombings, a vehicle that is not stopping at a checkpoint but instead speeding through is a threat and valid target.
Does it suck that in the end there was no real danger, yes, but such is life in and arround combat areas.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
now, firstly I am from Australia where we have VERY estrictive gun laws.
The Australian people have the right to choose whatever rules they want to live under. As do we in the US. Here we have chosen to preserve the right of firearms ownership.
The onus should be on the owner of the gun to PROVE THAT HE/SHE NEEDS IT. A submachine gun is not required for hunting squirrels.
That isn't the way it works here. A right doesn't need to be justified to anyone's satisfaction.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Let's be clear on this. Americans see Bush as practically God's soldier on earth. What he says goes.
Bush says Iraq's got weapons, and people in Oaklahoma quake with fear. Bush says the CIA botched it up, and people in Wyoming curse George Tenet. Bush says he need fundraising, and people drop for $3thousand a plate meal.
If Bush said you didn't put it to specification and vetoed it, people wouln't call him unpatriotic, would they? I mean, Fox News has not disagreed with or negatively cast a single one of Bush's decisions, have they? That's how they get the exclusive scoops and interviews with the highest in command.
Because we all know that america is made up only of Oaklahoma, Wyoming and Fox news right? Give me a fucking break. Just about everyone I come across hates GWB, usualy for no good reason (or if they have a good reason, they don't understand it). If you believe the election numbers only a minority of the US actualy likes and supports GWB, and everyone else hates him.
Here's the deal. If GWB had vetoed the bill, the very first headline out of CNN would have been:
"Bush vetoes act to increase american security"
and the same people that pissed and moaned that the FBI hadn't done enough to stop 9/11 (many of whom were the same people in the streets of NY with Bush=Hitler signs) would have been decrying th epresident as a traitor to america.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
First off, what numbers are you quoting? Although there's a general feeling that Bush is screwing up, aren't his numbers floating at or a hairline above 50%? I've got a feeling that the Democratic battle of candidates is going to botch things up, and people might just vote for Bush again. He's being backed by the religious right, the Zionists, the republicans, the NRA, and a slew of people. This will sound overgeneralizing, but you can generally get a feel of how things will turn out when you go into an AOL chat room. The ratio of pro-Bush to anti-Bush/pro-Clinton/pro-Hillary is generally a fair indicator of what sentiment is going on out there. Not as cerebral as /., but you get a bigger pool of Americans, as opposed to the geeks who are a minority of voters. I bring up Fox News because their ratings are doing pretty well, and they have or had a bigger viewership than CBS's news programs, which disturbs me. Do you want me to list the number of times that Fox News has turned an embarrassing issue about Bush's Iraq war around and made it look good?
GWB wouldn't veto the bill, and I dont see why we should be speculating on it, because it was written under his people. He's not going to veto something that he seems to have been backing, part and parcel. The subcommittees removed sections on sneak and peak and tried to balance it with civil liberties, and they found the sections removed before a floor vote, without their knoweldge. Yes, its murky, but read the interviews of the committee members.
Now, in a parallel universe where GWB has completely different motivations than he does now, and he vetoed it, he would spin the issue. He would tell Americans to calm the F down and get a grip. Maybe he would quote the Ben Franklin quote like everyone else seems to be doing. The media, who didn't dare disagree with anything Bush did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (because we're in a crisis, lets not all be disunited, remember?) would probably cover it as such in a positive manner and spin it to show that Mr. Bush just saved the country from dictatorship or whatever they'd portray a loss of freedoms as. I'm not saying it would be any specific media source, but all of them, thats what happened after 9/11; every news source pretty much got behind him.
There, that was what I meant to say, sorry we had to go back and forth before I gave a full answer.
If the pilots/vetted passengers were armed, I think they could have disposed of the terrorists rather nicely. No, the citizens could not stop a military attack by the federal government, but we could slow it down and create a citizen's resistance militia. This isn't likely to happen with an armed citzenry, as the government will think twice. All genicodial regimes start by confiscating the guns. Nazi Germany did it, and they were the most powerful military in the world for a couple of years. Even then, small groups of armed insurgents who were wise enough to keep their guns were able to hamper the Nazi war machine, sometimes severely.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I realize that the fascist Republicans do indeed control the means of voting and will probably perpetuate dominance no matter the intent of the voters, but I wasn't talking about that, nor did I relate any of my thoughts on any political matters. I was merely trying to ascertain what the parent poster's veteran friend meant. I didn't know if the vet was being cynical or was using the comparison in the more obvious manner.
I know, I know, IHBT.
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
Many checkpoints were originally set up badly with incorrect signage. Yes, it is very easy to see a policeman standing with a dayglo jacket on who wants you to stop, but these were military wearing camouflage, next to camouflaged vehicles. Signs should be in Arabic and a good 100 metres and then 50m before the block.
See my journal, I write things there
You know how the police tell you to cooperate with a criminal? You know, just hand him the wallet, because if you don't he could hurt or kill you and take it anyway?
So there they are on the plane. They probably did not know that the hijackers only had box cutters. The first victems had seen stories on hijackings on the news. More often then not, the hijackers go somewhere, the prisoners are released, and the hijackers get caught. Maybe one or two out of hundreds of victems are killed.
It was the people on the last plane who, through the cell phone calls, learned that the other planes hijacked that day had been used in suicide attacks. It was when they knew they were going to die anyway that they attacked. It all sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Stupid sexy Flanders.