Kerry's Record On Electronic And Civil Rights

An anonymous reader writes "John Kerry lambastes John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act, positioning himself as a crusader for civil liberties. The question is, how much substance is there to his rhetoric? This article was an eye-opener to me, in evaluating just that. Slashdotters tending to be passionate about the Patriot Act, encryption, and electronic monitoring - subjects this article tackles with respect to Kerry."

Comments

Re:Well..

[scotch]

When questioned about the Patriot act and civil liberties in Debate two, Bush said

BUSH: I really don't think your rights are being watered down. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't support it if I thought that.

and little else (see this for the full text. Kerry said:

KERRY: Former Governor Racicot, as chairman of the Republican Party, said he thought that the Patriot Act has to be changed and fixed.

Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, he is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said over his dead body before it gets renewed without being thoroughly rechecked.

A whole bunch of folks in America are concerned about the way the Patriot Act has been applied. In fact, the inspector general of the Justice Department found that John Ashcroft had twice applied it in ways that were inappropriate.

People's rights have been abused.

I met a man who spent eight months in prison, wasn't even allowed to call his lawyer, wasn't allowed to get -- finally, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois intervened and was able to get him out.

This is in our country, folks, the United States of America.

They've got sneak-and-peek searches that are allowed. They've got people allowed to go into churches now and political meetings without any showing of potential criminal activity or otherwise.

Now, I voted for the Patriot Act. Ninety-nine United States senators voted for it. And the president's been very busy running around the country using what I just described to you as a reason to say I'm wishy-washy, that I'm a flip-flopper.

Now that's not a flip-flop. I believe in the Patriot Act. We need the things in it that coordinate the FBI and the CIA. We need to be stronger on terrorism.

But you know what we also need to do as Americans is never let the terrorists change the Constitution of the United States in a way that disadvantages our rights.

Saying there is no problem doesn't make it go away.

You may be right about the records. The record isn't everything for this issue, though. Sinse almost everyone on the hill voted for the Patriot act, correcting it will either take politicians admitting they were wrong (aka flip-flopping), a massive turnover of congress-critters (you can thank gerrymandering for that not happening), or some intervention by the supreme court (hopeful). Badnarik is another possibility, but pretty remote.