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Court says: 'Terror Fears Can't Curb Liberty'
jettoblack writes "Finally, a glimmer of sanity... according to the AP, "Fear of a terrorist attack is not sufficient reason for authorities to search people at a protest, a federal appeals court has ruled..." Another great quote: "We cannot simply suspend or restrict civil liberties until the War on Terror is over, because the War on Terror is unlikely ever to be truly over..." Judge Gerald Tjoflat wrote for the panel. "Sept. 11, 2001, already a day of immeasurable tragedy, cannot be the day liberty perished in this country.""
Maybe soon someone will see that this whole security thing is a farce. Saying it has prevented terrorist attacks is like Bush holding up a stick and declaring the stick repels Gorillas. -- Well you don't see any gorillas do you?? It's a farce and it's freaky that you're all falling for it!
Stop being lemmings. Question your leaders. Listen to Jon Stewart!
You put men on the moon; there has to be some smart people in the country...get them out of the closet...and make one of the president. PLEASE!
This would be one thing if the ability to use such information was strictly limited to terrorism cases, but it's not. It essentially gives government a whole new set of tools to get anyone they really want to get, and they don't even have to hide the wiretaps and other (once illegal) searches and intercepts any more.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Last attack by them furriners was in '93, you mean. But terrorists are more often Americans than middle-Easterners.
Think of Columbine, Oklahoma City, hundreds of pipe bombs not limited to the "smiley face bomber", anthrax dude (probably American), family planning clinic doctor murders, etc.
Terrorists are more likely to be fundamentalist white guys than fundamentalist brown guys.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Oh sweet fallacious logic.
Hey I have some elephant repellent here to sell you, it causes cancer but hey you dont see any elephants around here do you so it must work.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
Actually the killing of family planning doctors (or more accurately, planned parenthood doctors) is a type of terrorism. They (the activists) are hoping to frighten (and thus TERRORize) the doctors from commiting further acts of what they consider to be unspeakable cruelty and murder.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
I wish Slashdot would just report political news without the slant. Anyway, while the Summary stated that
"Finally, a glimmer of sanity... according to the AP, "Fear of a terrorist attack is not sufficient reason for authorities to search people at a protest, a federal appeals court has ruled...""
The article said "In the absence of some reason to believe that international terrorists would target or infiltrate this protest, there is no basis for using Sept. 11 as an excuse for searching the protesters,". Which is nice and all, but I would feel a lot better if the word "international" wasn't in there. There have been Terrorists born and raised in America.
I noticed many people quoting Ben Franklin in the comments to this article. Do you realize you are quoting him out of context? He did write (and often said) "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Do you know what he was referring to? Not Al Quadia or their ilk for sure. He was talking about welfare and the welfare state. The essential liberty he spoke of was our right not to be unreasonably taxed by the government. Surely if he saw our government today with all of it's socialist programs he would roll over in his grave.
If you read some of his writing you will find many quotes to that effect. Such as
God helps them that help themselves.
It would seem that the branch of government most concerned about our civil liberties is the one that isn't directly elected. Direct elections aren't always the best way to guard our liberty.