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Viet Dinh Defends The Patriot Act
Grrr writes "Wired News has posted an interview with Viet Dinh, who worked on the PATRIOT Act for the Justice Department. In the past he said, "Security without liberty - it's not an America I would want to live in." And also, in this interview, "I think right now at this time and this place the greatest threat to American liberty comes from al-Qaida and their sympathizers rather than from the men and women of law enforcement and national security who seek to defend America and her people against that threat." Several of his replies are (predictably / necessarily / discouragingly) less than direct."
NO, they are wrong. There is a distinct difference between liberties and safety! I don't see how people can be duped into believing that terrorist groups affect liberties!
The only reason they affect liberties is because Congress passes things like the Patriot Act. Otherwise, all they affect is safety.
Terrorists affect SAFETY, Congress affects LIBERTY. Get it straight, and we can all stop falling for this crap coming from Washington. If they said these terrorist groups were the greatest threat to our safety, then I'd buy it. But they are, however, NOT a threat to our liberty.
The Patriot Act is the threat to our liberty, effectively nullifying the Bill of Rights when it comes to searches and siezures, and the right to a FAIR and SPEEDY trial.
Government disheartens me. So do the people who buy crap like this from them and cannot draw the distinction for themselves. Just my (flaming) two cents.
This isn't supposed to be flamebait, but mod it as such if you think it is.
The Patriot Act is now being used for non terrorist cases.
Basically, what I'm saying is that neither party has been particularly good on matters of personal liberties and the right to privacy. The Republicans are just a lot more blatant about their intentions than the Democrats. And the Republicans tend to go a little farther and push a little harder than the Democrats do.
Just keeping this debate honest...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Um. No. Lots, possibly hundreds, of people were arrested/detained, many for more than a month, and the Justice Department refused to release their names. The exact number of people so detained isn't known, because the Justic Department refuses to report that too.
One of the U.S. citizens being held indefinitely without trial is named Jose Padilla. He was arrested in Chicago at the airport, not on a foreign battlefield! The other one is named Yaser Hamdi, and he might have been trying to kill American soldiers, but we don't really know, since he wasn't captured by U.S. forces. He was handed over to them by an Afghan warlord working with the U.S. No U.S. soldiers saw him captured and they had to take the Afghan's word for what he was doing.
I could find links to wiretap changes, but I'm feeling lazy. In any case you seem to have had a few misunderstandings of your own--ones that can easily be corrected with 5 minutes of Googling.
-- Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
Libertarian candidates, Reform Party candidates, Constitution Party candidates, Greens, or somebody OTHER than the same corrupt, power-hungry fuckers
... our law to it's Biblical foundation". Not only no, but hell no. It's the Taliban all over again.
Provide one with a sensible, reasonable platform that doesn't try to upset the applecart all at once and alienate every damn person on the planet, and I'll consider it.
I like the Libertarians as a general rule, except they can't ever agree on anything, except in the most general terms. The Libertarian convention is some of the best entertainment ever. Sorry, too fragmented to ever serve as anything but an example.
The Reform Party - uh. no. never. Ross Perot? C'mon guys. Great ideas focused solely on govermental reform and nothing else.
Greens - Nope. Not ever. Too far left.
Constitution Party - Too much Bible thumping. "Return
I'd feel like I was wasting my vote if I DID vote for any of those.
To celebrate the occasion of my 1000th post, I will post no more forever on Slashdot. Goodbye.
What I would like to see is a specific breakdown. here's what patriot act ACTUALLY SAYS and here's what the constitution says, and show me differences. then I can make an opinion. Here's why X is bad, here's why Y is bad.
I wish I had time to do it for you myself, but here's a pretty good analysis of the USA PATRIOT act and why it's bad:
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/usapatriot
Physical violence against citizens in the most blatant way, murder, is preventable.
Wrong. The only way that would be possible would be for each and every person in the US to have an armed guard in their company 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Life is dangerous, that's a fact of life. I've said it before, and I'll say it again.. live long enough, you die. Every time, no exceptions.
Each one of those twenty hijackers made a conscious effort. America did not deserve it. not one person who died deserved it.
No argument there. I'm a firefighter, so 343 of my brothers died on 9/11 as a result. I definitely feel the pain of what happened. But if we start sacrificing our civil liberties in the name of psuedo-safety in the aftermath of 9/11, then those brave men and women died in vain, and there memories are tarnished forevermore.
And it could have been prevented had a decent enough intelligence effort been put forth.
That's debatable. The intelligence we DID have wasn't acted on appropriately. Would more intelligence have really helped?
If the government did NOT put forth efforts to protect us, it would be abdicating its duty.
No, no, no. Nobody has any obligation to protect me (or you) but myself (or yourself). It's a simple concept called personal responsibility, and it used to be considered a basic principle in this country. The government is not a full-time nanny who can watch over each and every one of us around the clock.
The thing is, no matter how careful you are, bad things can still happen. That sucks, but it's life. How many of you really thought you were going to live forever, anyway? But while you are living, you should be able to live with Freedom and Liberty, as a free man, according to the principles defined in the Constitution.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
According to the US State Department, around 20-30 Americans are killed by foreign terrorists each year. Typically, ZERO of these attacks are on American soil. In many cases, the attackers were no doubt unaware that their victims were Americans. For example, when Chechens took over a Moscow theater, there happened to be a few Americans in the audience.
The 2001 attack was the big exception: 3000 Americans were killed that year on US soil.
However, to put this in context, about 40,000 Americans are killed every year in auto accidents.
So this is what we're sacrificing liberty for: a phenomenon that is typically less than 0.1% of the threat from auto accidents, and didn't evern break 10% in the worst year ever.
Constitution Party - Too much Bible thumping. "Return ... our law to it's Biblical foundation". Not only no, but hell no. It's the Taliban all over again.
You are too funny. Here are some quotes from the Constitutionalist Party platform.
Yep, sounds just like the Taliban.
Well, the problem here is the first post said Constitution Party and you said Constitutionalist Party.
Constitution Party != Constitutionalist Party
Do a little googling on the two.