Justice Department Censors ACLU Web Site

phr1 writes "According to the Washington Post, the ACLU was forced to remove a paragraph from their online press release, that specified what kind of information FBI agents could request under the Patriot Act that the ACLU has been suing over. "

Comments

Re:Your civil rights called...

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

First of all, most military people are conservatives. Hence they are more likely to be Republican than Democract (just like how most artists and scientists are Democrats, or how most in the investment community are Republicans or Libertarians). Granted, in a two party state like USA, the difference between Democrat and Republican is mostly irrelevant (people just vote for a different party for the sake of removing someone from power, rather than because they believe in the party).

Second, most of the senior military administration (the civilian side) ARE Republican. They are appointed/selected/promoted by the goverment. For instance, Donald Rumsfeld is a Republican. Others like Douglas Feith (Undersecretary of Defense), Paul Wolfowitz (#2 in Defense), etc are Republican or appointed by the Republican government. We don't know if these neoconservatives are Republican but they are closer to the Republican Party than to the Democratic Party.

So, if all this is indeed due to a systematic strategy implemented from higher-ups, you can be sure that it has Republican fingerprints all over it. In fact, Rumsfeld has pretty much admitted as much (although not in strong terms). Rumsfeld has claimed that he knew of all these things a long time ago (long before Bush or anyone else saw it) and doesn't think it is torture (contrary to ICRC opinion).

In general, most military personnel are conservatives. Since USA only has one conservative party (not counting minor ones), it would be fair say that most of these guys are Republican. If you don't buy it, check out poll results. During the last election, the so-called "military vote" unanimously went to Bush. This has been the pattern for a while--although as I mentioned earlier, in two party (or one party) states, it can be misleading because people vote for an opposing party just to remove one from power (in general, that doesn't happen though).

Having said all this, I'm not talking about the case when there are major events unfolding (like a real war (current bogus "war" on terrorism doesn't count), switch to another econopolitical system (eg. switch to totalitarian system like fascism), conscription (in theory, conscripted militaries resemble the population makeup), etc). So there are a lot of exceptions. However, right now, I would say most of hte US military is conservative/Republican. The "military vote" will still go to Bush in this year's election (watch the results)...

Sivaram Velauthapillai