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How has the USA PATRIOT Act Affected You?
wetdogjp asks: "October 26th, 2004 marked the third anniversary of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (or USA PATRIOT Act, as it is more commonly known). While the Slashdot crowd can certainly muster the enthusiasm to debate its pro's and con's, I'd like to know: How has the USA PATRIOT Act affected you, personally? How has it interfered with your personal and professional life? Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?"
How about it has not effected me one bit. Just like how it has not effected 99.9% of Americans.
It hasn't really affected me. I do hear some clicking in my phone every time I talk on it, but I think that's just the phoneline.
Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?
Apparently not.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Does the Patriot Act keep me from FP'ing?
;)
(someone insert funny & witty retort here for instant moderation)
I get the additional statement every once in a while that some transaction is reported or whatever because of the act.
I have nothing to hide, so it doesn't worry me much.
I was going to the store to buy a hotdog, and was swarmed by cops right after I paid the guy at the register. I'm now serving 30 years in jail.
I think we can all say with complete honesty that the USA PATRIOT Act has affected us all...few other acts have caused quite so much discussion (and flaming!) on Slashdot!
, for you see, it is largely inoperable. If they watch me, they would have come get me by now. [NO CARRIER]
At least I know somebody else is keeping logs of my AIM conversations so I dont have to use the disk space.
I'm a Canadian that feels deeply disappointed that so many Americans can still vote for someone like Bush. Yikes!
Meh.
I have not been personally affected by the existance of the PATRIOT act as of yet.
However, in 5-10 years if the PATRIOT act is still around, I believe things will change greatly. Once the US stops chasing people around the globe these very convenient changes in rights and law will be used against everyone equally.
Not to mention: I doubt it's exactly fair to ask this question here, because anyone who actually *has* been affected by the PATRIOT act probably no longer finds themselves in a position where freedom of speech or the ability to access devices for global communication are available to them.
The Patriot Act gives law enforcement agencies the same types of powers they ALREADY HAD in cases of drug crimes and organized crimes to fight terrorism.
Since, I'm not a drug lord, crime lord, or terrorist, it has not affected me.
Completely robbed me of my faith in my country.
-Zeecog
My ex girlfriend is facing deportation. She is a British citizen (lived here for four years). She set off dry-ice bombs as a prank, and it's being investigated as terrorism. I doubt anything will come of it.
it is another step (like the RICO laws) in creating an infrastructure that an unfriendly government could use in creative ways to screw me should they desire to.
Speaking as a purveyor of tinfoil, I can definitely state that the PATRIOT ACT has positively impacted my life and lined my pockets with green in the same manner my product lines your hats.
I used to be apathetic about government and politics. Uniniterested in 'what those wanks in Washington were doing'. The first inkling of a problem was the CDA (Communications Decency Act), which was scary, but okay, some bad legistlation is bound to happen.
:)
Then Bush and his cronies moved in, and anything even approaching preservation of civil liberties, the Constitution, or... okay, lets be honest, our dignity... went totally out the window in pursuit of idealism and Empire building.
I'm ashamed that the coutnry I live in could put a man like George Bush in power, could support a congress that would ratify such onerous legislation as the Patriot Act, and, what's worse, even consider re-electing this man. (As I type this, the US elections are still undecided).
More commentary on my blog, I'm done ranting here.
Event Management Solutions : http://www.stonekeep.com/
. . . what books I buy using plastic or that I check out from the library.
I have plenty of karma to burn.
Hi there
Not that I know of. But that's the whole point isn't it?
-sig removed for tax purposes-
As a Canadian, you would expect that it has NOT affected me. But in the light of recent news, I'm not so sure anymore. I'll get flamed for this, but why should your government Patriotism give them every right in MY country? Canadians are patriotic too, love they country, want to protect it, etc... did we ever invade USA citizens privacy like this? Sure, its to fight terrorism... but be careful not to damage your relations with your allies by doing so (if its not already done, with France and the Iraq war).
Eureka Science News - automatically updated
Well, aside from time wasted reading /. rants, the Patriot Act has has had zero affect on me. And seeing as how I am neither an enemy of the USA or engaged in anything likely to convince anyone that I am, nor am I a paranoid privacy weirdo, I don't really expect that it ever will.
Of course, it probably has not effected that many people. But it's the precedent it sets, the proverbial "slippery slope". You know, if we don't fight to maintain our personal rights, before we know they will be gone, and we may in the future suffer for it at the hands of a government that wants to do things we can't imagine they can get away with now.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?
This is simple. Why I voted for Kerry:
1) President Bush empowered himself to take the civil liberties away from US Citizens. The last president I remember really hacked away at rights explicitly stated in the US Constitution was John Adams (correct me if I'm wrong). Bush claims that it will only be used on terrorists, but merely being accused of being one automatically strips you of your civil liberties. Declared guilty before proven innocent. Even Timothy McVeigh still received a lawyer and a trial.
2) President Bush guarded nothing in Baghdad except the oil refinery. I truly believed up until I read about this that "liberating" Iraq was not because of the oil, but because Saddam was hiding something up his sleeve. I tried to convince everyone I could in Egypt that it wasn't about the oil.
Signed,
Patriot Act Super-super computer systems admin.
for someone other than Bush.
Why would this affect my vote for president when both major candidates are in favor of the act?
Can I move up there with you?
Seriously, I am completely convinced this is entirely rigged. I've been all over the US in the last couple years, and I have met so few people who view the last four years in a positive light.
Not to mention the number of electronic voting devies used in this election, ALL (as far as I know) which have been *proven* to have hackable and faulty security. How scary is that?
We also have a system here that does not allow the majority to vote for president (majority vote in 2000 was for the other candidate who was cheated out of office).
The saddest thing of all is that, if there are really this many that prefer our current president, not many of them seem to understand that our pestering of other nations is what results in terrorism, and we ourselves are to blame. It really is so confusing and sad to see your fellow humans this way.
I don't think so much that it's affected many American noticeably and I think that's partly the point of that piece of leglislation. I haven't noticed anybody collecting all sorts of private information about me. But wait... they don't have to tell me, do they? And it hasn't decided my vote. There were plenty of other issues.
I demand a recount!
Regardless of what people like to say, the PATRIOT act is inconsequential to most Americans. People like to bitch about it, but has it ever affected you?
The answer of 99.9999% of Americans is a resounding no. People may not like it, but there's a good chance it's protected America against terrorists since it was created, and it certainly hasn't hurt it.
I'm sure a bunch of you would argue, "Why yes, that's true, but at what cost?" COST? That's just ridiculous. The only people who even learn that the PATRIOT act was somehow enforced against them are those who actually were discussing the performing of terrorist acts. Any crimes that were discussed, that are of no concern to terrorism, must not be regarded as evidence.
Quote from the somewhat off base movie, 'The Manhattan Project'
"You keep this up and they'll lock you in a room and throw away the room."
Israel sucks. mod me flamebait now.
Oh, and it's AFFECTED, not EFFECTED.
/sarcasm
Let's see... They gave me shit about my laser pointer at the SFO airport when the PNS airport did not...
I couldn't take my keychain knife with me on the plane anymore... and I know that if I ever use a library, it will GREATLY concern me that the FBI can find out what I checked out now with one less hoop to jump through than before.
Damn you Ashcroft and Bush!
This will be tagged as flamebait.
I had a sucky sig.
surely it would be less misleading to call it the 'u sap at riot' act?
(disclaimer; I read that one in someone elses comment on slashdot some time ago in a whole nother article).
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
The moment it adversely affects a fellow American citizen, I feel just as outraged as if it had affected me.
Looks like all these leftist weenies better start making reservations for one way tickets to france.
I havn't been directly effected by it, other then being informed by governement agencies that I was repsonsible for maintaining certiant logs of/for my users (I at the time ran an ISP/Hosting firm)...
A friend of mine, a photographer was arrested and 10k in equipment confinscated under the patriot act, he still hasnt gotten it back...
A friend of my brothers set up Kiosk's in malls, very nice work for alot of cash he made a joke to one of the other workers that he worked with alquida and there was a confrence there that month, less than an hour later multiple agents of several agencies showed up at the mall he was working, took him to his home, where they searched it and questioned him for hours, he now isnt allowed in any mall in the US and tons of other lame legal resitrictions imposed on him just for JOKEINGLY saying he was in the alquida to a coworker.. I know its not something to joke about, but he cant even get another job anywhere now, hes nationally blackedlisted for nothing, a bit overkill even for a joke that shouldnt have been made...
A couple of months ago, I went into a bank to sign up for a checking account. Since I am under 18, my parent's were going to be co-signers of the checking account with me. I was told that I wouldn't be able to open an account without a state ID. At the time, I didn't have a state ID or driver's license, and so I was promptly told that I couln't open an account. I know most people have driver's licenses so it's not a problem for them, but for people under 18, it is another hurdle.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he (Bush Sr.) was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism.
- Osama bin Ladin
And besides having computers in that there jail, I was wondering, do you have wi-fi?
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
I haven't been affected... yet...
In Wisconsin I voted for Feingold, the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act, for that very reason.
Badnarik's take on it:
A party organizer told the candidate they'd have to leave to make his flight. So, would Badnarik repeal the Patriot Act? "In a heartbeat," he answered. "In a heartbeat." Then, despite the time, he couldn't resist expounding: "Technically, I cannot repeal the Patriot Act, because in Marbury v. Madison, a Supreme Court decision from 1803, the Supreme Court ruled that any law repugnant to the Constitution is null and void," he said. "And it is null and void from the day you enact it, not from the day you discover it's unconstitutional. So from my point of view, the Patriot Act does not exist," he said. Source
Just saying is all. /Voted for Kerry.
I fear my government.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I do work for a financial services company and it just means increased paperwork. Personally, I have nothing to hide, so I'm not too concerned. That doesn't mean I like the idea of it.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Well, perhaps it bears reminding you then that BOTH Bush AND Kerry came out in support of the suggested "part 2" of the original Patriot Act. In fact, when questioned about the details, Bush said he would be "largely in support of it, with a few changes" while Kerry said he was in total support of the bill, as-is.
I'm an American who is deeply disappointed that more people can't see past the B.S. that is our current 2-party system and place a vote for the Libertarians.
Insanity, as they say, is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results.....
As a foreigner working in the United States I do not feel comfortable engaging in political protest the way I used when I was in my home country. I am not talking about protesting US instituitions which are not my direct concern, but international organizations like the WTO and the IMF which are. I have been essentially politically passive since I came here, which I find quite frustrating.
No impact, discounting longer lines at airports. No big deal there. I've been to shopping malls in other countries where everyone who entered was patted down and checked with a metal detector. I had airlines remove 3-inch rounded scissors from my carryon years before it started happening here. I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now. But, I dislike it a lot less than getting on a plane with some loon with a bomb.
And, no, it didn't change the way I voted. I won't consider voting for Republicans until they stop pretending to channel God.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I was under the impression that part of the joy of the Patriot Act was that you wouldn't know how your life was touched by it. Or you'd find out about it after it was too late to be posting to slashdot about how you've been touched by it.
If not now, when?
The main reason you don't hear anything is because it is one of the provisions of the patriot act.
You are not allowed to discuss any charges brought against you. You can be held without council. You can be held indefinately.
Why do you think the ACLU/EFF couldn't talk about their case against the Patriot Act?
If your civil liberties die in a country with no one around to defend it, do you make a sound?
~X~
"You have rights....then you have wrongs."
~X~
It's made me aware of government intercepts in ISP's, so I've setup postfix, cyrus, courier and sendmail wherever I use them to use SSL whenever possible. I also finally bought a real cert (from InstantSSL for $50).
I suppose Carnivore and Echelon were there before Patriot but it didn't wake me up as much.
It bothers me personally and politically, yet there was no candidate I could vote for who was against Patriot and for Preemption. In the end, Patriot was lower on my scale. You could say I like my terrorism policy like my operating systems - preemptive rather than cooperative.
I'm firmly of the opinion that no matter what we do to try to protect the country there is a way around those measures. Short of locking everybody in their houses there are opportunities for terrorists to strike.
So we shouldn't step on _any_ civil liberties of Citizens and we should be on the offensive.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm sure that the people effected most by the PATRIOT Act aren't reading /.
Do they have broadband in Guantanamo?
... as the perfect followup! I love that the consensus, at least insofar as I have read, is "oh yeah it isn't affecting me one dang bit". The ACLU is trying hard to convince you otherwise, but they're not succeeding.
What are we supposed to do, wait until a few million people _are_ affected by bad laws before suggesting they are not in our best interests? That sort of thinking got us the War on Drugs and millions of citizens spending time in prison and law enforcement constantly expanding its scope to try to enforce fundamentally unenforcable laws. Most americans weren't affected by the Alien and Seditions Acts. Most americans in the north weren't affected by slavery laws. Most germans weren't affected by the Nuremburg laws. Just because it doesn't screw over >50% of the population in the first 3 years of its existence doesn't mean that it shouldn't be fought. Particularly when the law itself demands that any uses and abuses be kept hidden from the public.
Dyolf Knip
Doesn't bother me in the least.
"Whenever the cause of the people is entrusted to professors, it is lost." ~ V.I. Lenin
Noam Chomsky has affected me far more deeply than the Patriot Act. His views on this country repeatedly find me picking my jaw up off of the floor and compleetly revising everything I had previously assumed about this country.
After reading Chomsky, the Patriot Act doesn't surprise me.
My friend was taken away in about 5 minutes to some secret underground interrogation room, and didn't come back for about 3 hours.
I was questioned at the scene about any knowledge I had about blank checks and my friend's connection to terrorist organizations.
The police asked to search my car, and when I refused, I was suddenly surrounded by members of the SWAT team, dogs, machine guns and all.
They searched my car with me on the ground at gun point (during rush hour in downtown DC, no less!), and needless to say, found no fake checks.
When all was said and done, the man in charge of the Anti-Terrorism Task Force/Secret Service Police shook my hand and thanked me for doing a great service to America, and a great service for freedom. My pleasure.
Apparently, someone with a grudge against my friend had called a contact at the treasury dept. and told him that we were all involved in a money laundering scheme. They take those threats pretty seriously.
Oh yeah, they also stole the chinese food I had brought home for lunch :(
No heaven can heaven be, if my horse isn't there to welcome me.
I feel much safer knowing the provisions of the USA PATRIOT act will allow the United States government to protect me from foreign and domestic threats alike.
I've always said that security is more important than liberty -- after all, what good is my freedom when i'm terrified all the time of a terrorist attack? At least with the Homeland Security alerts, I could make my travel plans around certain areas, but overall, I feel safer knowing that the FBI and other agencies can inspect my muslim neighbor's mail just for being muslims. Those muslims are an abomination against God anyway, and I side with George W. Bush in his brilliant, decisive crusade against their nations and their religious beliefs. It's okay to use false information, as long as the end result is clear. Our great President has obviously got the right idea! We need to stop the muslims from attacking our very way of life and spreading terror everywhere.
So, in conclusion, I fully support the USA PATRIOT act. I'd like to see stricter measures enacted, in fact!
Things have since returned to pre-act levels, both in price and quality, but after the act was initially passed, border searches were stepped up, and mj was scarce, and expensive for a couple of months.
However, thanks to the ingenuity of the drug traffickers out there, supply and price returned to normal levels about 2 months after it was enacted.
And tokers everywhere rejoiced.
And it was good...
The ones it really effected have been sitting in Gitmo, or other military prisons without trial or charge or representation for 2 years +. They can't see the computer monitor with those black hoods on. And their karma is going stagnant too.
It hasn't affected me personally at all. Despite all the ravings from the left, i see no evidence of my precious civil liberties being cruelly violated. That isn't to say that it hasn't caused some inconvenience for immigrants and arabs, but i think most people won't notice anything different at all.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
-- Ronald Reagan
If we allow the patriot act to stick around a while, unchallenged, we could very well see the USA come to where Mr. Reagan said it would.
Im even more paranoid then I was before.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
Much of what makes the act so insidious is that you won't know if it does.
"Geeks of All Nations, Compile!"
"We are Null Pointer of Borg: Dereference is futile!"
The Patriot Act added a new rule for banks that forces them not to let you cash a check that's signed to anything other than your own name.
At first glance, this might seem like "no big deal" or even "a good idea" - but think a little more about this. I've seen several shareware authors already becoming negatively affected by this rule. (Often-times, another party was collecting shareware payments for the actual author, and depositing them for him/her. This is most often seen where a software developer lives in a country other than the U.S. but sells much of his/her product in the U.S. via the web. He/she often had a friend in the U.S. act as his/her "agent", collecting up the U.S. funds and taking care of their deposits.)
This rule concerns me much more directly because I do on-site computer service for a living. Sometimes, a customer ends up buying a used computer part directly from me, instead of wanting to buy something new that's sold to them through our business. It used to be, I could just take their check, written out to our business name, deposit it in my personal account if needed, and write a new check to my employer for the difference between what they owed for the service work and the part they bought from me. Now, I'm not so sure I can do that anymore? Technically, it sounds like the Patriot Act makes it illegal for me to deposit the check made out to our business name.....
Though the Patriot Act specifically hasn't affected me in any way I realize, the mentality the War on Terror brought to law enforcement, manifested in the Patriot Act, has.
In the summer of 2002 my family was in the middle of selling a house, and potential buyers were often touring, checking things out.
One couple with a digital camera was photographing the interior when they opened my room closet and discovered my trusty potato gun. They decided it was a device of terror, photgraphed it, and forwarded the images to the state police when they got home. My family and I didn't know until the next day, when some serious looking dudes showed up.
Luckily the police were relatively reasonable and left without incident, but the whole thing was disconcerting.
I came to realize that I feared the self-deputized public more than any law they could come up with in Washington. Whenever the terror level goes up, and citizens are told to "be watchful," what does that really mean? Eyeball dark-skinned people with foreign-looking head-dress, or poke around someone's house sneaking out pictures to send to the police?
I'll give our leadership the benefit of the doubt, and presume that they're not entirely aware of the shift in public thought they're sponsoring. I couldn't propose a much better way of handling it all, either. I just know that as an individual, living in America after 9/11, it's starting to be weird and suck and I hope that it doesn't get any worse.
However, it did make me think, "What if they spent as long finding ways to prevent terrorism as they did finding words to fit into the acronym "USA PATRIOT?"
the word "homeland" makes me think it's Germany in 1938.
Oh, I'm sure the FBI has a huge dossier on me, including such sinister information as which library books I checked out last week (is it a crime to like Terry Pratchett?), what international flights I've taken recently, and what colour underwear I'm currently wearing. But I haven't heard a thing about said dossier and it doesn't bother me.
Hasn't affected my vote, either.
#!/bin/sh
;;
;;
case $Election_Outcome in
Kerry )
echo "The Patriot Act has had a significant impact on my life. Some of it has been indirect, like the Wiccan friend (who was my friend before she was even Wiccan) in another part of the country who warned me that knowing her might jepoardize my clearance...it already had for some of her other friends. And the only reason why is because of her affiliation with a Wiccan coven. I'd point out that the Supreme Court has ruled that Wicca is a valid religion, and that covens are eligible for tax-exempt status as such."
Bush )
"Ah, the glorious Patriot Act! It has done nothing but brought cheer and happiness to me since it was first conceived. My papers are in order, ja?"
esac
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
The problem of terrorism is due to almost exclusively people who are not American citizens. Increasing surveillance and intruding on the privacy of foreigners is the right way to go and does not violation the Constitution. The Constitution is, after all, only for American citizens. Swifting deporting foreigners would eliminate the need to violate the civil rights of citizens in the war on terrorism.
We need to have the guts to treat citizens and non-citizens differently.
Unfortunately, in the USA, we have cheapened citizenship so much that there is almost no difference in privileges and rights claimed by non-citizens and a citizens in the USA.
It has dampened my fondness for overwrought acronymns. A little.
But I know six people who were arrested for walking down the road at night and held for 48 hours before being released with no charges. They were able to claim their belongings a few months later.
In addition to that, two people (one of them included in the above group) were told be security guards that they couldn't photograph a hospital. Reason the guard gave? PATRIOT Act. When the police were called they instructed the two people to delete the photos and hand over the film.
And lastly a friend was told by FBI(?) agents that photographing an oil refinery, from public property, was not allowed.
In the past, I have had many web companies opened as Schedule C busineses.
Now, because of the Patriot aAct, opening a small business forces you to fill out so many extra forms so the government can track your money, you almost need to hire a lawyer.
Now, do you REALLY think they want to track terror money? NO! What they want to do it make sure you report all your income.
Fine. I do anyway, but call a spade a spade. Don't wrap this crap in a bill called the Patriot Act.
MC
Besides making me take John Titor's claims a little more seriously, not at all (that I know of).
Cliff, Slashdot can stop campaigning for Kerry now. Most of the polls are closed.
There were reasons that these powers granted by the Act were withheld. If you haven't been affected by the patriot act. And you feel it is necessary to have such power granted to law enforcement, then I'm asking you to rent an A&E biography covering J. Edgar Hoover. Or maybe you can catch something on another cable show etc. Either way that show will contain pretty much all you need to know about the USA Patriot Act.
The problem with the Patriot Act is that often someone does not even know that heir privacy is being violated. Checks and balances that were put into place for a reason are stripped away leaving the possibility for abuse. I cannot say that my rights have been violated but its not like government agencies post a list of the records that they scour. I feel this legislation was hastily passed and makes me question (more so) how well our country is run. If only Slashdot types ruled the world(and their alien overlords)...
I have to swim through a bunch of paranoid rambling about it on slashdot.
Seriously though, I'm scared of the Patriot act, and I think it needs revision at least, but most of the bitching I hear about it is probably crap.
I *am* very worried about how a hillary '08 administration would use this broad, overreaching power though . . .
I for one voted for a third party candidate :) oh crap, I shouldn't have said that....uh...hold on, someone is at the door
So, I think it's more positive than negative, though I realize that won't be a popular opinion on /.
Will this really affect me in any meaningful way? Probably not. However it's still a little weird.
Most of us know better, but there are so many people blinded by BOTH sides lies and misstruths, that instead of it being awhat you beleived in issue its become a right or wrong issue and when it comes to issues like that, the guy who "saved America" is going to win, even if he sat on his ass when we knew we where going to be attacked.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Personally it's meant I've had to be much more careful when communicating with my Mujahideen brothers.
In the UK we've got The Terrorism Act (ie. an act of terrorism against the people), is our equivalent.
This means that my significant other, who is not a UK or EU (or US) citizen, can be thrown in prison without charge, kept indefinately and eventually released, WITHOUT EVER being told what it was all about. Since the British government always does what its Washington,DC. masters always tells it, then I could very easily be directly affected by our own PATRIOT ACT.
The CENSORED act has not affected ma at all. I work at CENSORED and we have no CENSORED. I have noticed no difference in my life at CENSORED since theCENSORED act came to be. I can even process CENSORED reports and look at all the files in the CENSORED. I do not believe that the act has caused any censorship or CENSORED on the part of CENSORED . Any on who think they are affected adversely onlt need to lodge a complaint with the bureau of CENSORED. You can e-mail them at CENSORED@CENSORED . You can also reach them via the url www.CENSORED.CENSORED Respectfully, CENSORED
echo $SIG
Whatever happened to "Think Globally, Act Locally"? I don't have to have an issue affect me directly to have a strong opinion on the matter. If more people looked beyond their own concerns and considered the big picture more often, we'd be better off.
Its pissed me off.
Luckily there are things my school is doing to try to limit any damage the Patriot Act could cause to foreign students (or any students) on campus. Here is a resolution that passed the academic senate unanimously at UCSC that instructs the chancellor to implement various policies to limit the damage Patriot Act requests can do. For example, it asks that library records be destroyed as soon as possible so they cannot be obtained by silent Patriot Act requests. If you are a student, ask what your school is doing about academic freedom and the Patriot Act. If the answer is "nothing", help make something happen. Join a committee as a student representative, or write letters to your chancellor or president.
How has the USA PATRIOT Act affected you, personally?
Lost faith in the Republican party.
How has it interfered with your personal and professional life?
I have not applied for any jobs at a library, despite the fact that I'd like such a job, on the off chance that the FBI would come by for some records and I'd get thrown in jail for obstruction of justice.
Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?
Yes.
It raped my children and beat my wife.
irc.enterthegame.com #linux
Maybe not entirely due to the patriot act, but as a Canadian whose currency is now worth far more relative to the US dollar than it has been in my memory, I've decided I can use this opportunity to spend some of my pesos buying stuff in the US. I have friends in europe experiencing the same phenomenon...
I for one, welcome our new PATRIOT Act overlords... Ummm, wait, never mind.
I live in a state that shares a border with Canada. Because of the act or just the general beefing up of security, I am still here. I have not been car bombed or kidnapped.
-]Phreak Out[-
he's a self proclaimed war president. who doesn't like war? especially pre-emptive offensive ones, where many innocents & soldiers are dying. but it was a war on the concept of 'terror.' well at least the first country, Afghanistan, was involved. luckily, he kept up an atmosphere of fear & had the country terrified.
USA PATRIOT Act. I had too many Constitutional rights, freedoms, & liberties. I can spare a few, can't you? whatever idiot* said 'Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.' probably had no experience. The ACLU can't even discuss their case against the gov ABOUT the USA PATRIOT Act. no one will deny, thats pretty awesome!
Attorney General Ashcroft. I don't even feel like bringing up legit reasons like covering boobs on statues OF the personification of Justice. (the turn on almost caused me to rape.) crisco, anyone?
I don't like people to express opinions if they are different from my own. even if they do it peacefully & respectfully. of course, I am assuming those in power will always hold the same views as I do. Love America, Hate Bush
* Ben Franklin
I influenced people to vote for Nader and Badnarik. As a very libertarian student, I hate the PATRIOT act. But does it even affect me as a student, apart from the obvious (CIA listening to me call my friends for homework, ect.)
It's a major bitch to open a new bank account now.
Not to mention obtaining/transferring a driver's license...
It has motivated me to start planning to emigrate (i.e., *from* the USA).
This country will never again be the country where I grew up.
I have to say that the Patriot Act, and President Bush telling me I'm unpatriotic for opposing it, has definitely affected my vote. Not only did I not vote for a single Republican, but I swear that I will never vote for another one again. EVER! Unfortunately it appears that The Al Quida recruitment poster-boy will get to remain in office for another four years. Bush has pissed off more Muslims in four years than the previous four or five presidents combined and in the future, after he and Cheney have made their millions off of the war in Iraq, the repurcusions will befall the rest of us.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
The USAPATRIOT act may not have affected me in any material way, but it has affected me in some very serious ways, namely a loss of faith in some of the basic principles that make up my idea of what America IS.
By allowing expanded powers to the investigative branches of the government with only minimal oversight by the judicial branch, the act undermines my protections under the 4th amendment. Sneak-and-peak warrants have been allowed under the FISA and criminal statutes since the late 60's, with probable cause, and with bench approval.
Now, however, the standards have been lowered to a point that the average citizen can have their private records and personal affects searched (and bugged) for, what would have been in the past, only minimally suspicious behaviors. Imagine, for instance, that you are a student researching a paper for a comparative religion class that takes you into the realm of researching reasons, justifications, and methods used by suicide bombers/terrorists. With only the barest of oversight, the government now has the right to partake of surveillance that would have been considered "beyond the pale" only 3 years ago.
My biggest complaint, however, has nothing to do with the above. It has to do with the "Enemy Combatant" detainments that have been an ongoing problem in the judicial system. Under the 6th amendment, we have the right to a speedy and public trial. By right, we have for the last 200+ years enjoyed this protection under the bill of rights. Now, though, if the government can come up with a reason to label you an enemy combatant, they can hold you for an indefinite time in an undisclosed location, with no access to legal counsel.
At one point in the past, I was a Muslim. I frequented a mosque that I discovered (many years after the fact) was frequented by "unsavory" types that were recruiting people to fight in one of the earlier Palestinian Intifada's. Do I now have to forever look o'er my shoulder to see if I am being followed? Maybe.
Both of the above situations are also are protected by the 14th amendment (due process), but this due process has been undermined by the USA Patriot act.
How can we truly call ourselves the land of the free when we allow our constitutional freedoms to be circumvented by acts of congress?
== That terrible green-green grass, and violent blooms of flower dresses, and afternoons that make me sleepy.==
Back when the Bush administration was justifying the invasion of Iraq in terms of WMD, the implicit claims they were making about WMD didn't seem to make sense from the point of view of basic science.
I would have gone to the library to learn more about the basic science of WMD but I didn't feel like getting a secret file on me with Homeland Security.
"How has the USA PATRIOT Act affected you, personally?"
It's pissed me off. In a truly democratic society, it shouldn't need more than that.
The Patriot Act had nothing to do with my vote for pres, however, I live in WI and Russ Feingold is up for re-election. I do support him, especially after he had the balls to stand up against the Patriot Act. We need more independent senators like Feingold that can think for themselves and not give in to peer pressure. Thankfully they just announced that Feingold has been declared the winner in his race.
The US has allies?
In my area, the banks give you a "free" checking account on pretty lousy terms. "Free" checking means you get charged a fee for all but the basic services.
My friend has a bank account with a bank from a different area, which has really nice terms. Free checks, free ATM transactions regardless of whose ATM you use, and they even refund you fees other banks charge you!
Before the PATRIOT Act went into effect, I could easily open a bank account with a bank by just signing a form and providing my personal info. Now, I have to actually visit a bank branch in person. (It's about 1000 miles away.)
Not sure how this has affected eTradeBank.
... and who doesn't live in the country:
The Patriot act has made me decide to never go to the US. There's a lot of stuff I'd like to see and do there, but I will never enter the US as long as Bush is in power and legislation like the DCMA and the Patriot Act are law.
/mike
-- "So, what's the deal with Auntie Gerschwitz et all?"
Thank You America for 4 More Years! Bush Cheney 2004.
On non-commercial channels in the US you may have seen an educational series called "The Western Tradition",b er
by Eugen Weber, a renowned UCLA history scholar from Romania with a fascinating verbal style and voice,
something like Jacob Bronowski.
http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/we
"Western Tradition" was produced in 1988 but is still frequently broadcast.
Here's something he said 16 years ago, in a segment about the decline and fall of the Roman empire...
"It has always been a problem, for a society faced by a serious challenge,
to decide just what measures it can take, and how far it can go,
in opposing and meeting that challenge.
If you argue that you can only preserve your way of life
by adopting certain means which *negate* that way of life --
that you can only preserve democracy or free speech by limiting them, for example --
or preserve liberty by regimentation, or moral order by inquisition --
then you run the risk of sacrificing exactly the things you say you are fighting for.
You run the risk of sacrificing precisely those things
that you used to justify the sacrifices in the first place.
And you risk becoming so like your enemy, that the differences matter very little."
Congratulations, you've just proven that you've never actually read the Patriot Act! The Patriot Act does not provide for indefinite imprisonment of anyone, and does not provide for being held without council.
Before you scream about civil liberties dying, why don't you actully read what you are complaining about before spouting off nonsense?
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
I think I just voted to annex it as the Northern Security Zone.
It determined my vote.
Because Kerry voted for the DMCA (and Bush supports it) I voted Green.
Ed Craig "Who cares what you think?" George W. Bush, 4th of July 2001
Lets see, It trashes the first, fourth, fifth, six, eighth and fourtenth amendments.
How can i see this as anything other than a devistating impact??
What rights will be taken away next??
These new powers will only be used against terrorists, right, sure. That as believable as "I'll respect you in the mourning", "The checks in the mail" and "I woun't cum in you mouth"
Just how far up your ass does your head have to be to think this does not affect you??
" indefinite imprisonment of anyone,
Material Witness.....
The problem is they go too hardcore and also often act like assclowns. I mean if you asked me what party I was, I'd have to say Libertarian. Their general views seem to match my general views on the majority of issues. Problem is the party itself gets all extreme about them, and that's just not a way to break in to the current system.
Then they also pull stupid ass stunts that make them look immature. In Arizona, they got an order to show cause as to why they were excluded from the debates. Now they actually had a legit argument. See the presidential debates have 3 requirements to get in:
1) You have to actually be elegible (as in native citizen, of proper age, etc) to be president.
Seems good, I mean if you are disqualified form running, no point in you participating in the debates. Badnarik meets this one.
2) You have to be on the ballot in enough states to theoritically be able to win a majority of the EC.
Also seems good. You have to win a majority (or be elected by the House of Representitives if there is no majority winner) to become president, so if you aren't on enough ballots ot get it, you aren't really in the running. Badnarik also met this.
3) You have to have shown a fairly large popular support, I think to the effect of 10%.
Ok well this one is problematic. Seems to me that keeps it a 2-party game. I mean popular support could very well be gained in the debates. Badnarik did not meet this.
So there was a legit reason to take this to court. They probably would have lost, but it is a worthy challenge. Good idea right? Er, no.
They didn't actually do it to get it to court. They waited till the night of the debate, and then attempted to force their way in and have Badnarik serve the papers. Well that does fuck-all good. For one, you can't serve papers for a lawsuit you are involved in, and it wouldn't do any good anyhow since the debate was already happening. Badnarik even stated the whole stunt was just to get arrested and get publicity.
Well between the extreme Libretarian position and the asshattery of things like this, they just ruin their chances.
I really wish that they'd mellow out, become more moderate and get serious. I think they could become a credible threat if they did. However as it stands they are basicalyl just a fringe party. I know a lot of people that consider themselves Libertarian and I don't know any of them that considered voting for Badnarik.
It killed my father and raped my mother.
The Patriot Act, signed during a time of a National Crisis, has worked quite well. In the time since 9/11, there has not been a major terrorist attack. Is this Act still necessary? I am not sure. I am only sure of the fact that it has succeeded in it's goals. I did have to wait in line at the airport a little bit longer to get back to the United States after visiting Germany, but the inconvenience is worth the increased security.
I'm an American who is deeply disappointed that more people can't see past the B.S. that is corporate capitalism.
When I moved to Sweden, I had a hard time finding a good job (I'm almost there). Thus, it was hard to get Swedish credit. I used my U.S. credit card to purchase things that we needed in the home or for the baby (now babies). However, I had trouble paying them, because Swedish banks don't use checks and my CC company won't allow non-U.S. banks to make electronic payments.
So I asked my dad to get me another account (with Internet banking) with my old bank. He tried but wasn't allowed to do so for someone who lives outside of the U.S. because of the Patriot Act. I would have to apply in person (not going to happen, we can't afford 4 plane tickets).
The most pernicious and insidious effects of the Patriot Act may be that people aren't sure how this speciously-named legistlation will hurt them until it does.
Last week, I was told I couldn't open a bank account unless I had a major credit card (debit card's didn't count) - in spite of the fact that I presented a US passport and a state ID. I was outraged, and I was told this was due to the Patriot Act. I went to another bank, and didn't have a problem. Maybe its because, at the second bank, I was the same race as the bank representative.
You moron. The material witness law has nothing to do with the Patriot Act and has been in existence for over 20 years.
Both Kerry and Bush support the PATRIOT Act ... since I can not comfortably vote for loss of liberty, I'm voting 3rd party.
I can still say I participated in the election process and I can sleep at night... it's win-win-lose.
The lose being whether or not Kerry or Bush gets elected, it's same-old, same-old good ol' boys club action.
Maybe Kerry isn't the corporate slave that Bush is... but he didn't become a career politican bucking the system.
------------------------------
Ray Raspberry
raspberry@b3l33t.org
After the patriot act passed, the ISP I was working for had a large increase in requests for information, from various official sources. Pulling the requested information from our logs took many man-hours, and several tens of thousands of dollars worth of dedicated hardware. (We logged a lot of information, on the order of gigabytes per hour)
The hell with it! In fact, let them look through my desk at work whenever they want! Who cares! Hey, it's cool, you wanna search my house next? Go ahead, as long as you do it when I don't know about it! I'm not doing anything wrong, so who cares about privacy? I don't! More power to you!
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It's made me realize that Struggling To Unite Populations In Distress, America's Completely Relying On Nationalistic Yet Moronic Symbolism.
It allowed my former employer to wrongfully terminate me based on a false accusation but I could not pursue the wrongful termination because they turned their accusations over to the FBI forcing me to shut-up. Accouding to Jenifer Granick at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society "As a general rule, I believe that it is extremely dangerous to give information to the FBI without any immunity agreement or promises. Its my experience also that they can not necessarily be counted on to understand computer cases well." Bottom line - I got screwed.
.... I will never enter the US while this act is in force. I'm a UK citizen.
It's called internment and probably only after you've been interned without representation or habeas corpus and if you get out alive, with a brain that still works properly and a body that isn't too damaged from torture, you'll be thinking it's a pretty bad idea as well.
Who was it that said anyone who gives up some of their liberty for safety deserves neither ?
The US Patriot Act has caused me to fear my government even more than normal. Now, when I work on my projects, even if I am not actually a terrorist, I worry that I may be labled as such. Is this the way a law abiding citizen should feel at home?
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
This would be the same country that was built on slavery, that had racial segregation and which treated blacks as second class citizens until only a few decades ago, that still treats its indigenous peoples as worse than second class citizens in many aspects, that has clear sexual discrimination in the workplace (women still earn less than men), that has clear homophobic discrimination in government (gays in the military), that has a President that wants to discriminate further against gays (gay marriage), that has illegal internment of anyone with even partial Japanese heritage (during WWII) and McCarthyism (when freedom of expression went out the window) in its recent past and has now resorted to illegal internment and religious McCarthyism again.
Yeah, because nothing could ever be shown to have been held unfairly against anyone at anytime in America's recent history, could it?
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
No effect whatsoever.
it's against the law for anyone who might have been asked to give up information about me to confirm to me that they did.
I've been affected by the Patriot Act by making me safer. I haven't been affected negatively.
You do not talk about the Patriot act.
"Im such a nonconformist I'm going to not conform to the rest of you!"
"Dude I think we just got goth-served"
a couple of years ago i signed up on sharebuilder.com and set it to automatically buy apple every month (when it was at $30) a couple of weeks later they called me asking for more identification like my SS card and tax information. because of the patriot act.
sadly i was unable to provide them with my information, and they sold my shares (they were already up!) and gave me back the money i had given them (none of my profit) making me disillusioned with dealing with the stock market.
blech
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people...And it became always wider...
...or, rather, provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway...
... by the machinations of the 'national enemies' without and within) and the government's 'responses' to them, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us...
...
"The whole process of this disconnect coming into being was built around diversion...
"Nazism gave us some other dreadful, fundamental things to think about
"Nazism kept us so busy with continuous changes, accusations and 'crises' and so fascinated
"Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, 'regretted', that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these 'little measures' must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing...
"Each act curtailing freedom... is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow...
"You don't want to act, or even talk, alone... you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble' or be 'unpatriotic'...But the one great shocking
occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes...
"That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring: the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit (which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms) is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.
"You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father... could never have imagined."
Source: They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1955)
__________________________________
"We will not wait as our enemies gather strength against us. In the world we have entered, the only path to safety is the path of action, and this nation will act." G.W.Bush, West Point, June 2002
"In this new world, declarations of war serve no purpose. Our enemies must be defeated before they can harm us. I will never declare war, but will take action!" Adolph Hitler, June 1940
"Not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling. There will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights," Peter Kirsanow, Bush's controversial appointee the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights
"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable hell and a choking life."
Osama bin Laden, October, 2001
Your only hope is to have it shot down in the Supreme Court now. Both parties have been pushing for this for some time. The People had already spoken. We consistently and emphatically told them 'hell no'. Three strikes, you're out, right? Oh no! Now the world's a different place with all the terrorists running about! Privacy is great an all, but the founding fathers could hardly anticipate terrorism! Get with the program you whining liberal pinkos! Now the FBI can sign their own warrant, sneak into your home, plant bugs and video cameras, and basically make Amendment 4 null and void.
May I make one suggestion; Would you be so kind as to change your name from FBI to KGB and give up any pretense? Thanks.
All Slashdot posts will be reviewed by the FBI...
Any post insulting the RNC, or claim that America isn't the greatest, free country, George Bush isn't smart, and/or there aren't WMD in Iraq will be investigated.
with the PATRIOT ACT, except that the damn Internet connection down here in Guantanamo keeps flaking out on me, plus I only have a few minutes of 'exercise', anyway, before they put me back in my cage for another 72 hours. ;>
Not specifically related to the PATRIOT act, but certainly an outcropping of the idea:
I now have to sign a release stating I will not do anything illegal in order to rent my apartment. This was actually imposed upon the landlord, whom I know quite well, by the police department after a drug bust (the other choice was to have the entire apartment complex seized). Not to mention the frequent requests for ID from any cop that happened to be parked outside.
There has been no clarification on how the PATRIOT act is to work in conjunction with HIPPA privacy regulations. It seems you are faced with jail time or litigation depending on circumstances and your understanding of the law.
I can no longer discuss certain issues with a relative (he was a spook) via email or phone for fear of losing his pension.
So thus far, my job, my family, and my living space are affect by laws that kiss away my right to due process.
I suppose we could argue if the PATRIOT act even applies in all these circumstances, and to what degree, but that kind of misses the point. It is in the same spirit of laws that sacrifice my peace of mind to fight some bug-a-bear.
From the 0.1%, fuck you.
I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary.
PATRIOT is legislated intrusion into your privacy, but it's not just the government that you have to worry about abusing this newly created power.
Just thought you'd like to know!8-))
The PATRIOT Act has affected me quite personally.
I'm a high school senior. This summer, I was in Ithaca visiting Cornell. After our visit to the campus, we decided to do some exploring of the area, because it's really quite lonely up there but also quite quaint. We figured we could find a cute little town down by the lake there. We decided to check out Aurora on Route 90.
Well, we turned down another road by accident. It was unmarked and at a 10% grade downhill. We wound up at the lake, certainly, but not in Aurora. We found ourselves at a power plant. Obviously, we knew we were in the wrong place, so we stopped.
My dad suggested I get out of the car and take some pictures. The sun was setting and the area was terribly scenic. At this time, another car, a dark sedan that had been following us down the road, made a quick turnaround. I proceeded to get out of the car and take some pictures. My dad called me back, so I ran back to the car, and we drove off. That was at 7:38 pm.
Fast forward to 11pm. My family is at the hotel, and my sister and I are trying to go to sleep. For reference, we have two adjoining rooms, one for my parents and one for me and my sister. Somebody bangs on my parents' door saying he's with the state police. My sister and I heard it and we assumed it was a joke.
It wasn't a joke at all. The New York State Police really came into my parents' room and started questioning them. My sister and I had sort of gotten up and were listening through the door. Keep in mind that at this time I'm in my pajamas and without my contacts. The officers notice someone next door, and we come into my parents' room.
The State Police were investigating a possible terrorist threat: me.
My dad had been talking for me, but there were inconsistencies in his story. Obviously. He wasn't the one taking the pictures after all. I didn't remember exactly what happened, as in which picture I took in what order, because it wasn't as if I thought I would need to know that.
THe officers want to see my camera, so my dad goes and gets it from the car. I'm in tears, because here I am, half blind and not dressed, being accused of being a TERRORIST.
I showed them my camera, and they thought it was digital, but it's not; it only appears so because it's got a large LCD status display on the back. (Thank goodness I stick to film, because I don't want to think about what might've happened to me had it been a digital camera.)
The entire scene at the plant had been recorded by a security camera, and the way the other car was there coupled by how I ran back to the car and how quickly my dad turned around made our behavior seem very suspicious.
The police told me that that power plant supplies one-sixteenth of the power to the East Coast and that knocking it out would leave millions without power for months. My case was especially worsened by the fact that there had been a legitimate threat against another area plant that same day. They told us we were lucky they found us: they'd had to stop a bulletin going out to the whole East Coast looking for our car. If they hadn't, the next day we would have been surrounded by 20 state police cars with guns to our heads. If that's not a threat, I don't know what is.
They wanted my film. I used up the last shot on the roll just by taking a picture of the floor, and then I handed the film over. The fact that I had fourth amendment rights never occurred to me. I was quite frankly scared out of my mind. Other people I've told said they would have refused, but my life had just been threatened. I think that's the part they don't get.
So they took my film and left. I couldn't sleep for quite a while and was quite visibly upset through the next day.
I'm still paranoid about police.
It took me quite some time to realize that I had done nothing wrong. There were no signs of warning or anything near the power plant. No "Authoriz
Well, if Osama Bin Ladin says it, it must be true.
"Your security is in your own hands."
~Osama Bin Laden
* not downloading porn because I know they will use it against me
* not speaking my mind in email because I know they intercept emails-- who heads Level (3), the first Iraqi administrator
* I'm a mail admin: never deleting a mail log at work because I don't want to lable a computer dfw2snfbi01... wait they're windows, dfw2wnfbi01
* secure delete and shred are my friends
* regretting renting Fareinheit 9/11, but because of the content or the message, but because I think my name will be thrown into some database
* actually thinking about trying to get an outsourced job in Ireland or Canada
* really pissed when I realized that my vote has never counted since I've voted (for the last 20 years)
* amazed at my level of paranoia
* deleting all viloent refereces
* finally getting an answer to the question I asked my German friend 20 years ago, "How could have the people supported Hitler, it doesn't make sense"
* renaming USA to Branch Americans, and moving to Waco.
After I got my letter from RBC saying my credit card info now processed in Georgia in the United States and was subject to info request of the Patriot Act. I cancelled my card and went with a different card provider here in Canada. What rubs me was that I got the impression that it wasnt the need for a request, but that as the transactions were comming in they were being copied over to homeland security. Clearly the knowledge that I buy (legally) cuban cigars is going to be linked up to my passport and I'm going to get a free body cavity search one of these days when I head across the border on vacation.
Probably the biggest direct impact on me: it got me to vote this time around.
Not that I had anything done to me because of its application. It's the principle that's got me razzed.
I find the modern computer to be an amazing palette for my imagination. Not only surfing, but *doing* things, and connecting with shared interests.
As such it can be a very personal sketch pad. Now think of, say, kids that get expelled from school because they wrote a macabre piece. I, personally, wrote terrible things about a teacher that didn't regard science fiction as 'valid literature' (although historical romance was kosher). Luckily, in that day and age, we hashed out our differences amicably.
Now think about all that sketching, which, by the language, is at the beck and call of the Feds...and they get to *order* other interests-your bank-to do the same w/out warrants, etc. Ripe for corruption.
On the lighter side, we have a government run by people that act like they haven't done any wrong crusade against the very things they crusaded for mere years earlier.
What we have is a sure-fire recipe for government abuse.
Most aggravating of all is how little people know about this law, and other laws slashdotters know well. So much so, I've been working on a campaign [watch out, it's a plug ] to bypass the media with information dissemination.
The U.S. has plenty of talent both at the top and the bottom of the workforce scale. We don't need graduate students from Europe or India and we don't need laborers from Mexico. We're a very rich and lucky (talent-wise) country.
We'll be better off as isolationists anyway, since every time we stick our military dick into something foreign a new monster is borne.
WTF?!? Both canidates support the patriot act. "What the fuck is the internet?"
The past is just the present only older -me-
The parent post is dead serious.
You think you are righteous? Live up to your own standard then. Good luck. Arrogant.
Oh - Florida just went to Bush.
But the overall attitude of those in power in the US have affected non-citizens too. Before, I wouldn't think twice about taking a holiday in the US, now if I book flights I'd prefer not even to pass through.
Who knows, if the friend-of-a-friend-of-my-cousin happens to be a known terrorist, I might end up being carted away and locked in a US cell somewhere....
nothing to see here move along
It aims to prevent US companies from obtaining/garnering information about Canadian citizens. However, it is known that the FBI and CSIS, previously restricted from spying on the own citizens, would spy on each others'.
Is this now also illegal?
There are three problems with the Patriot Act. The first is obviously a suspension of due process. Within 6 months of passing it, the Bush administration was boasting that it had been used to to prosecute drug dealers. This has nothing to do with terrorism, and showed the real intent: a law which could be used to suspend normal due process in the investigation and prosecution of anyone, not just terrorists.
Secondly, there is the invasion of privacy. I really could care less if anyone read all my email or searched my computer. There's nothing incriminating. But this lack of concern only applies if the intent is criminal investigation. Political persecution is another matter. The Patriot Act is a perfect cover for a fascistic Star Chamber. If a group within the intelligence community decided that only those with the proper political views should rise to prominent positions, the Patriot Act would give them the clout to find out who does or doesn't hold these views. The persecution part is easy--just call a prospective employer and drop hints about an investigation into your background and affiliation with criminal organizations. The Patriot Act makes the Thought Police a real possibility. This is why law enforcement was required to get permission and provide notification. It permits ordinary citizens to catch the scent of this kind of activity, permitting correction by civil and political action. A crucial part of the checks and balances of the American system has been disabled.
The third danger is high noise and low signal. If the intelligence community becomes involved in the unneccesary surveilance of innocent civilians, the time, expense, and manpower devoted to this is diverted from genuine threats. The end result is less security, not more. In one of the debates, John Kerry mentioned thousands of hourse of surveilance tapes that have never been watched. Who is going to watch all of this? This is noise. In Britain, where cameras have been installed everywhere, their main usage is to bust people for traffic violations. I suppose that if a terrorist attack does occur, they can look at the tapes later and say, "Oh, there go the terrorists."
What the intelligence community needs to do is focus, get people on the ground, and stop the political infighting that is clogging the system. That means that people in the intelligence community should check their political opinions at the door when they come in, and stop pulling stunts like outing CIA operatives for political gain. The draconian measure currently being used won't help either; if you know a guy who is innocent but might have a lead, you're a lot less likely to give his name if you think he might get shipped to Guantanamo Bay just because he might be a couple steps removed from suspicious characters. And finally, they would have to get rid of John Ashcroft, the incompetent git who lost an election to a dead guy, shut down the FBI people who informed him of the suspicious group of Arabs training in a flight school in Florida, and who has detained 6000 people without finding a single terrorist. As long as he's in place, nothing else will matter.
(n/t)
Padilla has not been charged with a crime, and does not have access to a lawyer in his detention.
Source
11/3/04 - 6/9/02 = 2 years, 4 months, and 3 weeks.
No charges, no trial, no lawyer. Nothing. Welcome to your new home citizen. Enjoy your stay here at the Ministry of Love.
I find it truly sad to see so many slashdot readers so misinformed about the PATRIOT Act.
Its main effect is to bring established law enforcement practice into the 21st century. For example, established wiretapping protocols now apply to cell phones. So what? The same judicial approval is still needed. Do you think wiretapping should not be allowed? If so, I disagree. Can it be abused? Perhaps, but so can almost any law enforcement procedure.
As for the paranoia about searching library records, get a life and quitting fretting about nothing. Public library records have always been public (duh!).
I'll bet nobody here on slashdot has been personally affected by this Act (unless terrorists read slashdot, which I doubt).
I realize that this post will get modded down and flamed or ignored, but I don't care.
I watch Brit Hume on Fox News
I have to listen to people whine about it wherever I go.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
As an Australian I too have decided to change my plans to visit USA. I am now looking at visiting Canada instead.
1) Personally: It offends my sense of civil-libertarian principle. The law leaves Americans less-free to go about their business unmolested by the hand of Big Brother. Restrictions on freedom should always be as few as reasonably possible, and the PATRIOT Act certainly doesn't qualify as a justifiable reasonable restriction on freedom in my book. It didn't 3 years ago, and it still does not.
2) Professionally: Having worked in the financial industry, the PATRIOT Act made my employer more-transparent to the govn't for terrorist-spotting purposes. This is a drain on our system resources and therefore, our productivity, and therefore, our efficiency, and therefore, our profits, and therefore, my income. So the PATRIOT Act has regulated away some (perhaps admittedly-small) amount of my income -- and for what?
Nothing except freedom-reduction and inefficiency, as far as I can tell.
Here's a better question: how many terrorists have we caught thanks *solely* to the PATRIOT Act? If we are to justify the law as useful for catching terrorists, then we had better *judge* it based on how many terrorists we catch -- NOT whether we have each been harmed by it. After all, a law that does nothing is a useless law wasting space on the shelves of law libraries across America, continuing to displace liberty in the name of security.
Indeed, true liberty is a lawyer's empty bookshelf.
And if the PATRIOT Act has been unsuccessful in catching terrorists, then the law has failed and we damn well had better repeal it for freedom's sake (and then proceed to find a better solution to the terrorist problem).
Look, just because the law hasn't affected somebody *yet* doesn't mean it *never* will. Take the tax cuts of the Reagan era -- it wasn't a week before Democrats were saying "OMG, it's not working!" But the process isn't that fast -- and in the end, the tax cuts worked.
So too will it be with the PATRIOT Act -- we may not have each been severely violated by it yet, but it is likely we will, sooner or later -- just like the DMCA. Therein lies the problem with the PATRIOT Act, the DMCA, the McCain-Feingold Act, or any other law: sooner or later, it comes back to bite you in the ass. But few people realize it until it's too late...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
God help you when honest, moral men and women decide they've had enough.
Basically in a lot of cases they become agents of the governemnt for money-laundering purposes. I suspect that is true for banks as well.
I can't believe what a bunch of nerds we are. We're looking up "money laundering" in the dictionary.
real nerds would have googled it.
$8.95/mo web hosting
Those who were affected aren't here to tell you. You know, black choppers only deliver passengers one way...
I had a search warrant executed against me over a year and a half ago, and I still can't see what they were searching for or why. Is this because of the PATRIOT act? I'm almost certain of it, but I can't say why.
After a move to an apartment, I decided to change my address with my banks, etc. This apparently triggered something which froze all my accounts. I took so long to straighten out that I had to borrow money from friends to make my payments and to live. My broker told me this was a new government requirement from the Patriot Act.
Thing is, I was freaked out that all the freedom we claim to have in this country was suddenly pulled out from under me. Most people don't think they could ever be affected by things like this but I am much more of a civil libertarian because of it.
Not long ago, my wife and I decided to open a joint bank account. We went to the local branch, sat down with a banker, and filled out the paperwork he handed us. At the bottom, there was an empty rectangle labeled "Thumbprints". The banker set an inkpad in front of us and waited.
I said, "What's the thumbprint for? I don't remember doing this the last time I opened an account."
The banker replied, "I don't know. Nobody has ever asked me about it before." (In a way, that's the scariest part of the whole story -- but I digress.) He said he would find out and promptly disappeared.
When he came back, he said, "The thumbprint is required by the US Patriot Act. It goes into a special national database." With a chuckle and a little shrug, he added, "They're just checking to make sure terrorists don't try to sign up for bank accounts."
If this had happened a few years ago, I would have shrugged right along with him, and my wife and I would have spent the rest of the day with discolored thumbs. But the last three years have convinced me that I really don't want to have our names and thumbprints in a "special national database". The first step to tighter government control is keeping tabs on everyone, and our current government has given every indication that it wants greater control over its citizens.
Besides, I shouldn't have to prove I'm not a terrorist to open a bank account in my own country. What other parts of our lives will this be applied to? Will we next have to prove we're not terrorists before we can buy groceries? Will the police search your car at random to make sure you don't have a terrorist in the trunk?
I told the banker I'd changed my mind and didn't want to open an account after all. His demeanor immediately changed -- he didn't say anything, but the suspicious look he gave me clearly said that only someone with something to hide would refuse to let the government check up on them. My wife and I have no kind of criminal record, not even a speeding ticket, but in this guy's eyes we were undoubtedly guilty of...something.
Paranoid? You bet I am. I read my history books, and this is how direct government control over people's lives begins. How sad that most of my fellow Americans will remain completely oblivious to it until it's too late...
My money managers complain about the amount of overhead (ie, paperwork) it has added to their jobs.
You may not have noticed, but the USA Patriot Act passed 98-1 in the Senate, 356-66 in the House, meaning the vast majority of Democrats voted for it too. If you hate the Act, you can equally blame the Democrats for whatever ills it brings.
my life is a boring as it was on 9-10-01.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
It hasn't. And it hasn't affected 98% of Americans. Look at the House and Senate races. Who's still in the lead? Why? Voters approve of what they are doing.
I have a theatre troupe and we have had to cut special effects, cancelled our shows in canada, all sorts of stuff.
In my day job in technical theatre, a similar array of situations can be seen at many different levels.
The patriot act has reemed art and artists and is working to make the world a dismal shade of grey.
The fear of terrorism, of which the PATRIOT Act is an extension of, basically chucked my Fourth Amendment right against search and seizure out the window. When I did not consent to a search, I was escorted off the train and told to hoof it home (which is 25 miles away). I do not have a car that I can take into work. A District Court judge ruled that the searches were "reasonable." The MBTA has expressed that they will continue these in the future at their discretion.
A minor inconvenience in the big scheme of things, but this is how it starts.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
This country wasn't 'built on slavery'.
Slavery was world spread (especially in Spanish influenced countries) and had Africans kidnapping and selling fellow Africans. Basically, everyones hands were dirty on that.
If you are going to bring something up, then do so in seeking out truth. Your post was labeled 'insightful' what a load of shit.
Real issues _right_now_ are sex slaves in the US from Mexico and in less than stellar European communities.
Sexual discrimination? Get a life. Those cases are RARE (and everyone gets discriminated against--I am a male, but I certainly have been stereotyped and had prejudices against me for my skin color) Do you know why there aren't many highly paid women in computer science/management/engineering? Did you maybe consider that they aren't _qualified_ look at college majors chosen by women 15 years ago (not now for crapsake. we are talking seasoned professionals).
Blame their peers for not encouraging them, or their parents for coddling them too much. But certainly do not place any responsibility on the 'victim'.
And if you want to discount the Patriot Act, you cannot discount the fact that it is MERELY REPLACING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER ISSUED BY BILL CLINTON THAT GAVE HIMSELF THE SAME SWEEPING POWERS BUT WITHOUT CHECK.
I can read from your strawman approach (I am sorry...the cellulose reinforced scare-person) that you don't care about facts but about sensationalist hyperbolies of rumors.
You are probably well 'educated', liberal, fear guns and absolutely dependent on society for lack of common sense.
How has the Patriot Act affected me? It has made me and most other law-abiding citizens safer!
You are under the control of a handful of
white hate group. And you hate to admit it.
That's how much it affected me.
While generally aligned with conservative/republican views, I voted for the only senator with the balls to vote against the PATRIOT Act: Senator Feingold. Granted, I'm not appreciative of all he does, but that sticks out enough to change a republican vote to a democrat one.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
The Patriot Act is getting alot of air time out there, but you need to do some research. Every presidential administration has been issuing executive orders (that gave power without consent of House or Senate).
J .+179
George W Bush replaced a couple with the Patriot Act (which had to go before Congress first).
President Clinton's 1995 executive order 12958 was one that was expired (whose intent was to declassify secret documents quickly which was reverse of Reagan's order 12356).
Do you realize how long the FBI Carnivore network has been up? or the Echelon network?
We are still BUSINESS AS USUAL. (at least with Dems and Republicans passing baton back an forth).
See "The Patriot Act's Impact on the Government's Ability to Conduct Electronic Surveillance of Ongoing Domestic Communications" by Nathan C. Henderson, Duke Law Journal, October 2002:
http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?52+Duke+L.+
Yes, we have wi-fi. 802.11G no less.
Okay I have tended to do large numbers of web searches on subjects of government corruption, scandals, intelligence agency acronyms, high performance computing, cryptography, and emerging technologies. It appears my web surfing habits may have set off a few alarms. That and perhaps also the fact that I happen to collect firearms as a hobby, as well as subscribe to several gun magazines.
I have been followed closely and aggressively by cars both while driving my own car and while riding my bicycle near my home. The bicycle incident was like something out of a movie. I mean I was followed closely by a car while riding my bike, for about a quarter mile. How indiscreet is that?
I have been photographed multiple times by complete strangers under circumstances that suggest I had been staked out, and for the sole purpose of photographing me.
Now here's a good one. Usually (but not always) when I happen to mention in passing certain keywords during phone calls, such as weapon, nuclear, terrorism, asassinate or similar nasty words like that, almost immediately I'll hear a very brief touch-tone in the earpiece. It is so brief, maybe a twentieth of a second, that I cannot identify exactly which touch-tone it is... however I'm enough of a phone phreak that I can tell you it is from the fourth column of touch-tones of a 4X4 pad, in other words it is one of the A, B, C or D Touch-Tones. It is from that column. I experience this not only on my Comcast line, not only on my VoicePulse VoIP line, but even on my Verizon cell phone line whether at home or roaming. It has even happened while using an AT&T calling card from a hotel room phone. This is VERY freaky in my opinion... I have no explanation for these tones during my phone calls, nor am I aware of any surveillance equipment that behaves this way. However, I do know that normal phone switching equipment does not sporadically, and frequently produce these sounds. But this keeps happening. It happened to me yesterday.
I call an old friend on the phone, in another state, and within 24 hours that friend, out of the blue, also gets photographed by a complete stranger.
I have another friend, one with web surfing habits very similar to my own. He loves intrigue perhaps even more than I do. But it seems this friend had actually viewed some very frightening technical information out on the web, information possibly related to classified research. The nature of the information itself freaked him out a bit. But since then, he has seen the US government sites in question get taken down, deleted from DNS, purged from the Google cache, and even purged from the internet archive's wayback machine. Some of the information he did manage to save on disk.
An anonymizing proxy server he had been using went from many peers down to only one peer, and then it went offline. Then almost simultaneously, his cable internet service went down for several hours, for the first time ever.
Within 24 hours, a car pulls into this same friend's driveway in the middle of the night, a man gets out, promptly takes a very powerful flash picture of my friend's house, and then jumps back in the car and speeds away. The car's direction of arrival suggested that it had driven against the normal direction of traffic on his street prior to pulling into his driveway and taking the picture. My friend reports that the flash from this picture was much, much more powerful than an ordinary consumer camera flash.
During the day, two cars that do not belong to any of his neighbors sat parked, with men in them, at either end of his block. When he drives past one of them, it suddenly starts up and begins following him. This went on for weeks, and ceased happening a few months ago.
I have this same friend pick me up at the airport, from an international flight. And the very next day, he gets photographed by a stranger. Then his house gets broken into. He comes home to a front door which is swinging open, but with no signs of forced entry.
Hell, this looks set to affect me and I'm in Australia.
US law may breach Australian privacy rules
The Australian Computer Society is the latest group to express concern over the possible impact of the United States Patriot Act on the privacy of Australian citizens.
There is international concern that under the Act, US companies anywhere in the world are expected to pass on private information to US authorities.
Society board member Carl Reid says on appearances, the Patriot Act could lead US subsidiaries to breach Australia's Privacy Act provisions.
He says the Federal Government should seriously consider how best to protect the privacy of Australian citizens.
"The only way of guaranteeing this security is through the use of commercial entities, which are answerable to Australian law entirely," he said.
"Or it may be that it's necessary for the Australian Government to enter into special treaty arrangements with the American Government."
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/
are probably unable to post to /. at the moment.
I have been consulting for almost 10 years and to this day (ok, it was yesterday) I take checks to the bank that do not have my name on them. Some have my company name, some my name, or it could be the name of a canvas-backed waterfowl. If I deposited it to an account, they never checked. I wish that they WOULD check. That could help cut down on check fraud (people harvesting checks from mailboxes and cashing outright or washing them).
Hasn't affected me one bit.
Well, that's actually not entirely true. Reading all the FUD here on slashdot has raised my irritation level a bit, and thus my blood pressure has gone up a tad.
Bush will pay for this!
Well, thats a good question. It hasnt affected me YET. (At least not that I know of) However, I am worried about the foundation it laid down for the future. I saw someone state something similar. but the biggest fear i have is the definition of a "terrorist" It is too broad. Eventually, someone could use it as "anyone who speaks out against government policy" When this day comes, it could be any religion, race, or sex that fits this description. There is too much room for abuse.I think that people didnt think far enough ahead to see the possible abuse and to take steps to stop it. Our freedoms will be eroded. What then?
I remember after it passed, I was flying to the US to visit my parents (I live abroad) for Christmas.
I was carrying a T-shirt in my suitcase. It was a present for a wild-and-crazy cousin -- a Communist Youth Party t-shirt from my country of residence. I figured it would be a blast for her to wear to her art school. Sort of that retro Cold War chic.
I must admit that I was more than a little worried that my bags would be searched and I'd be forced into a long interrogation about it. Now when I fly to the US, I don't even dare to have a political book to read on the airplane. It's not worth the potential trouble and the potential to be stuck on a "Do Not Fly" list.
Yeah, so a lot of shit went down at my highschool a year back, a friend of mine got cought, though his own stupidity, breaking into the schools network. Now i knew about this and didn't say anything. Next thing I knew I was sitting in the deans office, with an FBI agent in the room being threatened with accessory to an act of terrorism. Yeah, computer crimes are an act of terrorism under the USA patriot act. Yeah, I then flipped on them, got my ass a lawyer before I said a word to them. So thats how the ACT has effected me.
You seem to have all the answers. Why don't you run for office?
-- No sig for you!
Plain and Simple, I work on technology for Patriot Act. Love the technology, but I fear how it is being applied.
It must also be remembered that the McCarthy hearings had no legal authority at all (ie. not a courtroom and no judge involved), but they still sent people to jail.
.. the States.
Because of PATRIOT Act, I have completely cut all involvement with America down to whatever interaction happens on the Internet with a few Americans I know, and a close circle of friends I occasionally stay in touch with and see when they travel the world.
I no longer work with Americans. I no longer travel to the U.S. for business. (trade shows &etc) I'm not taking any chances; the U.S. has become a techno-militaristic fascist state, and no longer represents to me, a member of the so-called "free world", the bastion of freedom and expression that it once did.
The U.S. is a Cop, and you don't hang with cops if you don't have to. And if you have to, you don't want to.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The Patriot Act was used against me in a so-called court of law. They plan on trying again soon. I'm going to leave soon. The only reason they won't stop me from leaving is their massive violation of my civil rights. Oddly I was also denied equal access to higher education at Texas A&M many years ago among many other things like an FFL in limbo for over two years now. Fucking Nazi National Socialist. No one is willing to stop this crap.
Nazi actions like Affirmative Action and Child Tax Credits will rip this country apart.
I hate Bush and Kerry, but now I can focus my justified anger on Nazi Bush.
You don't necessarily know that the usapatriot act has affected you because of the secrecy.
Why is it that such a 'free' people cannot have transparency in government?
Why are there no simple answers to simple questions?
------ no thanks... I've quit
How has it affected me?
Not in any way that I'm aware of, but I guess that's the point of many of its provisions.
How has it affected my vote?
Not at all. I think the USA PATRIOT Act was a bad piece of legislation. It was a knee jerk law that want too far, but my vote is unchanged.
I voted for the candidate that I would have even if 9/11 and the related aftereffects had never taken place.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Let's see what this legal "tool against terrorism" can do with a real incident:
v =14RSSfrH
AP Reports: Arizona Bomb Threat forces Poll Relocation and Evacuation of Children from Nearby School
http://www.kold.com/Global/story.asp?S=2512654&na
Pundits were worried about lawyers and activists, votes in the trash cans, voter tampering at polling places - Rightly so - but bomb threats? What is this country coming to?
Nationally, how many polling places were disrupted (or PHYSICALLY RELOCATED) due to bomb threats?
I'd really like to see someone do time over this...
Think they'll get caught/convicted?
Hmmm, Americans. Typical behavior:
Defending their freedom at the expence of other peoples freedom and being damn proud of it.
daïm
Tim Killed Kids and women for a cause! His only fault was that he didn't kill enough minorities. The Parent is 100% correct, when white people Violently Kill innocent people, it can not be terrorism.
A lot of people have been quick to respond that it hasn't affected them. Howthe hell do you knowthat? Many provisions of the PATRIOT Act prevent you from learning that it has been used against you. Just because you haven't had US Marshals knocking on your door doesn't mean you haven't had your library record analyzed. Just because you haven't been detained without charges doesn't mean that more of your tax money isn't going to extra surveilance that is ethically questionable and wouldn't be legal without the PATRIOT Act.
Big brother in Chicago; on the Streets, on the Buses and Trains, the Toll Way, your Cell Phone and in the Public Library. Mayor Dick Dailey "Big Brother" with the cities new cameras to monitor our every move as we walk down the streets with facial recognition software and OCR software reading all the license plates on every car as they pass by every location in the works. Now Big Brother is moving in to the library. They have a new system to track public internet usage at the library. They link it to your library card and monitor all your activities online and every print job will be saved for later review by law enforcement. They will Be logging everything. If you use the electric card catalog they log every search. If you want to print anything out you have to provide a library card and then they can link the log of your catalog search activities, topics etc. to your library card this is to help big brother protect us from terror and make us safe. So if you look up something they don't approve of like stem cell research they may use it against you. The city is starting to keep track of all your activities and movements to build a files on us all. The CTA Chicago Transit authority has been pushing The "Chicago Card" smart cards for Bus and Trains and they keep track of all your movements. The Illinois Toll way authority uses IPass to log all your travels and they have cameras at all the tool plazas OCR will coming in the future and soon more cameras will be coming too. The Governor has been pushing IPass and is trying to make it mandatory by overcharging non IPass users. He is making interstate agreements to track You as you travel around the country. Your GPS Cell Phone tracks you and they are already starting to use it to follow you through out your days activities and link you to others with youur phone book. GM's ON-Star has been used for some time by the Feds to wire tap your car and track you. All of these organizations routinely turn over any requested information to law enforcement. The patriot act requires them to do so and it requires them to lie about it and deny that they have turned any information over and they must deny that any thing has even been requested. They are required to deny that they even collect the information. We don't need a national id card. Your harmless library card, medical records, buss pass, IPass, Cell Phone, cell phone contact list, CAR and Credit cards are all going to be linked and used against you buy law enforcement to monitor your life. Soon every web search or book you have ever checked out your grocery store discount card all your credit card purchases that wrong turn or that Sunday afternoon joy ride even that wring number will have to be justified. Your entire life will be under ever increasing scrutiny by the government and its data mining activities. Don't believe it. Call the CTA and tell them that you think someone was using your smart card while you were at work and they will recite your every move down to the minute they have it all on file. Cheat on your wife her lawyer will saphena your IPass records. You can turn off GPS on your cell phone but they can remotely turn it on and you will not know your being watched. The Chicago water Department gave GPS Cell phones to the water department workers to track them 24/7. They are required to keep the phone on and with them at all times. The union had to fight to get permission for us to turn off GPS when we are not on duty. Even with the GPS turned off the system still monitors the phones general location and keeps a record of it so you supervisor can still keep track of you. Look up a book on a watched topic or check out a book that draws any attention and you life will be under an incredible microscope. With freedom of the press you can publish anything. But we have no freedom to read. If you read it and they don't like it they will get you.
I'd encourage everyone to download (from your favourite torrent site or P2P) and view the 3 part BBC Documentary "The Power of Nightmares".
(Episode 3 isn't out yet.)
It hasn't.
Not the answer you wanted? Mmmm?
if your fingerprints, DNA, a few photos, sexual and financial history were on file, you know just in case. Also, I'm kind of voyeristic....
Hey, you like asian midget porn? Me too! Maybe it's not just about invasion of people's privacy, but making friends too.
if you look at many math professors at us universities you will see that many of them are either japanese or russian, some are german.
so instead of going to usa the people would go to europe, russia or japan for education.
so much for lucky talent wise.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
It gave me the final touch: I can't afford to enter
USA territory because I fear they would just take
me for "crimes" I had committed, just like the
russian eBook hacker who was sued by Adobe some time
ago.
Uhm... exporting crypto, written in Germany, from
the USA... isn't exactly that big a "crime".
Especially here.
Same for the others.
And your patent and intellectual property system
sucks (and ours is going to be worse than now
soonish).
My Karma isn't excellent, damn it! (And
Nausea at the retreat from the courage and ideals
that once characterized this nation.
Once we were the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Now we're the land of the secretly-surveiled,
and the home of the anxious-about-safety.
"When the freedom they wished for most
was the freedom from responsibility,
then Athens ceased to be free,
and never was free again."
- Edith Hamilton
Wait a minute. Didn't I say that on the other side of the record? I'd better check
Assuming positions on the supreme court clear as expected Bush will be appointing some conservatives to the justice panel. I think now that such an environment exists we're more likely to see the patriot act used, because people know that the second it is the ACLU will jump all over it. With a conservative majority in the supreme court the patriot act will likely not be ruled unconstitutional, and can thus now be used. Other extremely bad things that will likely happen: row vs. wade will be overturned and gay marriage will be banned!
By making me positively decide to not visit the USA.
I think I had federal agents come in my apt with a Secret warrant.
I came home and my apartment was all cleaned up.
But I can't say for sure cause I think that would be against the PATRIOT ACT.
Bet this
Oh. That's right. You can't. He's dead.
Just writing this will probably get me on a watch list. But considering the election results...
Do you want to know the truth?
Do you?
Then it all starts here:
Who killed Kamal Derwish?
An American citizen who was _legally_ assasinated by the United States government via the Patriot Act.
And why?
Follow that road and you will find the truth.
Good luck. And be careful.
If you this Act is benign now, maybe it is. But what do you suppose is going to happen when all the other countries in the world have been bullied or bombed into submission, and you are left with a powerful military and a powerful corporate lobby, backed by an aggressive government that does not respect the citizen's rights? Where will you be?
In fact, I can honestly say that the Patriot Act has had the exact same effect on me as terrorism has.
The sad thing is, while I'm fairly confident that terrorism probably won't ever affect me directly, I'm also fairly confident that the Patriot Act eventually will.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
It made me cry.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
And how is this a bad thing? People deserve respect as individuals but let's not go so far as to endorse their personal problems or deviant behavior.
Ring up and report yourself. Make sure you have a lawyer with you or a news crew and see what happens.
Or just randomly report people who you think are terrorists. When they start dragging people away in droves, thats when people will start to feel the outrage.
...and especially as a French, it was the last straw. I've decided since to avoid to go to the US for vacation. Not until common sense comes back there. (Probably not in the 4 next years...).
Americans probably won't care, but they've lost many tourists. Not for fear of terrorists in America, but for fear of Americans.
Christophe (Don't hesitate to point out my spelling and grammar mistakes, I want to learn - Thanks).
It's not the "Patriot" Act; it's the "USAPATRIOT" Act.
Please use the full acronym, or its full name: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism".
The "USAPATRIOT" Act has nothing to do with patriotism, so calling it the "Patriot Act" is misleading.
(Considering how the Act is being misused these days, even using its full name is somewhat misleading (How is copyright infringement "terrorism"?).)
Personally, I pronounce it "the you sap at riot act" to avoid confusion.
Other pronunciations are "the US ap uh TRY ot act" and (as Jar-Jar) "the YOUsa pah TR-R-RE-E-E at act".
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I live in Europe, and I have a website that accepts donations for the help I offer people fixing their computers. When Americans send me checks, I can't cash them here since the banks are pretty greedy where I live and charge 20 or more for cashing a US$ check. So I mailed them to a friend in the US who cashed them for me, and then sent me the money by Paypal. This went perfectly the first time we did it.
The second time I tried (roughly a month ago), after he got the checks my friend replied that he couldn't cash them, because I had to be there IN PERSON when he wanted to cash the checks. Even though I signed the checks on the back, allowing the holder to cash them (which went fine the first time). He also said this was a result of the PATRIOT Act.
So in order to accept and cash donations from US citizens, I would need to have them send them to me by mail, then I need to travel to the US to cash them, and then back home to Europe. Which even makes the money-gobbeling banks here much, much cheaper.
Yeah, the Patriot Act. Whoopee.
I'm not trying to troll here but I haven't seen one post saying how anyone has been affected. If there is one can someone point me to it?
I personally think it's scary but I do think it's not completely worthless. With modification it could be beneficial to all outstanding citizens.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
The PATRIOT Act has given me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach every time I think about the land of my birth or my relatives that still live there. And I keep expecting the day to arrive when all people of Middle-eastern decent or faith are required to wear a patch of a crescent moon with word "Muslim" embroidered on it.
If the Patriot act affected you personally then you live in a concentration camp operating outside U.S. law. People affected by the Patriot Act personally don't have access to Slashdot or soap.
I simply got sick of all the people talking of hating these and those people, everyone talking of wanting war and death for so-and-so people, of all the gummint "privacy abuse" carnivore-like business following everyone, the paranoia associated with not knowing who's after you or not, and simply got on a plane and left.
i found there's a lot of countries where people appreciate my skills, presence, opinions and tax monies much more.
America: forget it.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
Wake up. You can go to jail without trial, and complaining to the government is now an act of terror according to the Justice Department. Get your head out of the ground.
It helped me decide not to go to the USA for the next 20 or so years.
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
Why is this modded funny? This is making a serious point.
Keith D.
...But then I'm, just euro-trash, and probably won't be laughing for long anyways.
Machine9dotNet
I got package from Malaysia with some Arabic writing on it and it was CLEARLY opened and taped shut when I got it. One of the packages inside was also still opened.
has anyone actually posted the patriot act affected them, or has everyone decided to babble about how they dont like it? i think we tend to get a little nuts about our civil liberties, and pretend like we are being violated, when in reality, basically none of us has even slightly been affected by it.
It is like the old Nazi Germany saying-- when they came for the Jews, I didn't speak up. When they came for the Cathlics, I didn't speak up. When they came for me- no one was left to speak up.
We can't sit back and wait until this one affects us personally. We need to speak up.
im tired so i'll sum it up fast:
1. been a bush supporter (more anti kerry than pro bush)
2. this morning, for the 2nd time, the patriot act has fucked with my life. i tried to wire some dough to a guy in canada who wrote some code for me. wire wouldn't go out until i gave the home address of the guy. what fucking bullshit is this? keep track of who is getting sent money from the US? the bank lady admitted i could just make up an address and they'd have no way of knowing. it's what i call 'masturbation law'. a whole lot of nothin'.
3. had enough, voted for kerry today.
I made me vomit.
Ashcroft has used the Patriot Act to detain 5000 people, used secret detentions so that many of these people are just missing to their families. (link requires subscription)
I have a family and while I would love to protest the treatment of our civil liberties by this administration, in this environment where police feel they have carte blanche to arrest or detain someone for several days without judicial review, I can't take a chance that I might be locked up. It's wrong. Everything about it is wrong, and the attitudes trumpeted by the right reflect quite chillingly those of the Nazis, down to their exagerrated proclamations of victory and silencing of dissent through intimidation.
Tsk tsk, so often i see people say 'straw man' argument. At least explain why and take the time to verify that it hasn't happened, before stating that it hasn't.
Not giving a reply of, "That hasn't happened", when it has.
RTFA's or something
Hmmm, after examining this election I think it's clear what the majority wants. The numbers show a Bush lead in the popular vote by ~4 million votes.
Why does this whole thing about terrorism remind me so much of this game?
We've had a few customers targeted by the Feds under the Patriot Act. The requests always come "in person", there's never any paperwork and they just want mail headers. Shipped out every week on a CD-ROM.
I find this rather disturbing, as should you.
Not at all since I live in Sweden. Long live the polarbears!
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I recently took a trip to New York and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The PATRIOT act kept that bridge from being blown up. I liked that walk.
-brain
I left the Republican party. I voted Libertarian for the first time.
/. posts, it's about innocent people being targeted and demonized based on vague suspicions.
The effects of the Patriot act won't be seen for years. Only when the government documents are declassified will we find out how badly it is being abused.
It's not about the CIA compiling your
As a guy with a beard, I can tell you that this is a pain in the neck. For some reason, after years of not flying at all, in the year after 9/11 I flew 4 times. While AFAIK I have no Middle Eastern ancestors, my features could be taken as such.
I got use to getting "random" searches at the gate, and automatically taking my shoes off at security.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You mean like they do with drivers' licenses and gun permits?
Uh, well, at least like they do with drivers' licenses, anyway. If we actually did "register guns like cars," my gun permit would be valid in every state -- but it's not.
Ahhh, but the Constitution says nothing about "terrorist." Therefore it affords no rights or protections to "terrorists."
I say that in all facetiousness, but I fear that some people would take this as a logical argument that they could run with.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If I hadn't seen so many news stories about it, I'd be unable to tell anything has changed at all. Course, I live in "flyover country", so maybe it's different for you people in big cities.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
This is a bit OT, but as a non American I'm greatly puzzled by the voting process of America. Apparently it's supposed to be inefficient and vague, to the pride of Americans everywhere, but things that puzzle me are:
How can you hope to express your views when there are only two parties with two candidates, who on most issues share the same view?
How can you vote fairly when you have to vote for a local representative you approve of, but these votes count for a national representative you might not approve of as well?
How can it be when the populair vote is devided about 51% to 49% that the 1 part gets to have all the say in the next four years? Shouldn't it be a Republican Presidant with a Democrat Vice President to do justice to the popular vote?
When I look at elections in my country, I have multiple parties to vote on and I can vote seperately for my city, provence, Nation and Europe. This doesn't garantee my views are represented, but a lot more concensus is needed to get things done.
Back on topic, as a non European the USAPATRIOT act has not affected me. It did change my view of America to a not so free country lead more by fear then it needs to. I hope that repressive acts such as this will continue to not affect me. It would be a scary world when laws such as this start to affect foreigners as well.
Hans
As a kid, I was a bit of a pyromaniac. I'd like to think I was a "responsible" pyromaniac, in that I never burned anything down or destroyed anything. I just enjoyed the chemistry, the light, and the smoke of it all. For example, thermite was a joy to discover, and it helped me exercise the high-school chemistry I was taking at the time, to figure out the exact proportions. Though I never did do the experimentation to figure out if using Fe2O3 would be hotter and Fe3O2 better for welding.
Now I have a swimming pool, and it uses some high-energy chemicals. I was trying to learn more about "Shock'n'Swim" - AKA Sodium Monopersulphate, and found myself at a home explosives page.
In the old days, I would have lingered at the page and checked out some links. I might have even tried a few experiments.
In the new days, I closed it, ASAP.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
This is, of course, completely beside the real point of considering this legislation, but I'm content to let people get bitten in the ass by their own cowardice and short-sightedness. May it be a really good chomp and very, very soon.
Asking how a new law affects the general populus is dishonest, shame on Slashdot. It's impossible for anyone to have a personal experience yet.
An informed question would be: "How has the Patriot Act performed in it's first usage?"
I can tell you, Tommy Chong wasn't impressed and neither was Cat Stevens.
Of course, any positive effect that the P-ACT may have will in the long term be counteracted by the extreme seeds of hate that the Illegal War in Iraq is creating among Muslims (actually more than just the Muslims, pretty much everyone will hate us soon). In the long haul, this administration will make us LESS safe.
The Patriot Act and the Bush administration has brought FUD to the masses. How else could Bush be so close to winning in the 2004 election? It looks like Bush may pull this one out, and if he does he will win because of FUD, plain and simple. The Patriot Act was part of this. Hey W, congrats on your first election win. Obama '08!!!!
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Negatively
I'm just a little fearful of going abroad.
I don't perceive US citizens as being terribly well-liked, any more. Plus, to meet the US stereotype, I don't speak any languages other than US English. Besides being a US failing, it's my own failing - my talents lie in other directions - my foreign language requirement in high school was tough on me.
I've never afforded that hop across the Atlantic, (or Pacific, for that matter) and the current international environment makes me less likely to do so. Plus the current economic environment makes that less likely, too. (pay not keeping up with costs)
Thinking again, if at some point I do choose to go abroad, I suspect I'll at least probe through the Linux community. That way I'll at least have some sort of local contact, wherever I go.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Stop being the world police and I'll stop caring about who runs your country.
Meh.
The terms of the USAPATRIOT act do not allow me to state how it has effected me.
This is something that makes me and my likes happy because we make more money for having our clearance.
Since I'm a federal contractor and am subject to a background investigation as a condition of employment, it hasn't affected the conduct of my life one whit. But it has ticked me off to see how much information is now being shut off "for security reasons", such as the recent decision to withhold reliability information on cellular telephone networks.
Ya know, I haven't noticed anything different in my life since the patriot act was enacted. Not a damn thing.
.22LR rifle. In NJ, where carrying a loaded gun is flat out illegal (except for "special" people), people use loaded handguns to hold up their 7-11's. Maybe that's something people should be more worried about. For some reason, it's more of an issue for law enforcement to have more power, but it's perfectly fine for criminals to have more power. I don't get it.
One thing I DID notice though, is that as soon as the clinton Ugly-Gun ban sunset, I noticed that the price of 25 round magazines for my Ruger 10/22 rifle plummetted. Instead of having to shell out $40 or $50 for one, I can now get them for $20. Much more reasonable.
"But why do you need that?" Well, the same reason slashdotters need high end video cards, fast CPU's, etc... entertainment. It's just plain fun to be able to put a plethora of holes in various computer equipment without having to change magazines. Face it, nobody's holding up a 7-11 with a
-- Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Please don't be as guilty of stereotyping "Americans" as you accuse us of doing to others. In case you hadn't notices, there are a lot of Americans who don't vote for Bush, don't like the war in Iraq, don't like the Patriot Act, don't like Guantanamo Bay or Abu Graib, etc.
We Americans can be diverse, too. Even if some of us are a minority, we are a sizeable one. (After this election, I expect us to be an even more ignored minority, too.)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's not "America", it's the "United States of America"... "America" is a continent and has a lot of countries and is often split into three parts: north, central and south. Thus, the USAPATRIOT act should be called USUSAPATRIOT act. If we're looking to avoid confusion...
- live from Costa Rica !
Now that Bush is re-elected, you can bet this will come up again: http://tinyurl.com/awt8
Do not use libraries now, cash only purchases.
The first rule of the Partiot Act is do not talk about the Patriot Act. The second rule of the Patriot act is DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE PATRIOT ACT.
Anyone in Canada willing to offer me political asylum?
I'm not 21 yet. I opened a stock trading account a little over a year ago (I was 19), and I must have slipped under the wire.
I tried opening a commodities trading account a little later, and they denied it because I was under 21, 'because of the Patriot act.'
What the fuck?
I guess I'll be celebrating double when I turn 21...
Chris J - cej102937
I work as an instructor pilot and professor at a major US university. I am not a US citizen. Among the many laws that have been brough in since the patriot act a significant portion affect pilots and pilot training. The latest law issued by the TSA (tranportation security admin.) affects flight training. The law was issued in the first week of Oct with compiance mandatory on the 20th of the same month. http://www.tsa.gov/public/display?theme=44&content =09000519800d8df4/
This law mandates that all people seeking flight
training must first prove their citizenship. Certified
copies of passports must be kept on record for five
years by the school doing th training. This must be
done for every flight course.
This is only a small portion of the many hoops that US
citizens have to jump though to even see an airplane.
God help you if you are a non US citizen.
Oh and the biggest security threat I have seen so far?
NBC reporters trying to steal a helicopter.
To the state police, well done. Consider the dots connected. So you had a scare, no harm done. I am reassured by this. After all, this is the kind of response Micheal Moore wanted isn't it, rather than just one state trooper gaurding the whole coast of Oregon?
nohup rm -rf ~/. >& zen &
I was originally planning on doing my graduate thesis on LDAP security. My biggest fear at the time was discovering something new and attracting the authorities. Why? Because I would be working on a production system "owned" (as in paid for) by state and federal funds.
My professors helpfully added that I could have my thesis "restricted" and not available for public viewing, which somehow defeats the purpose of the whole thing.
I switched topics and went with 802.11 network vulnerabilities, since most of those weaknesses were already found out. I still had to censor the contents due to California laws regarding disclosing the locations of networks in the wardriving section.
I still managed to find an exploit (actually a certain combination of exploits) and compromise the campus VPN. Because of this, I was fully expecting the feds to show up during my oral defense.
I tried every decent and legal way I could think of to resolve the issue w/the business before I rented the chicken suit
How has the USA PATRIOT Act affected you, personally? How has it interfered with your personal and professional life? Has this act influenced your Presidential vote?
I'm not at liberty to say...
looks lit it will likely be made permanent in the second term... judjing by most of the comments in this thread there are some legitimate concerns over it's reach and use... it would be prudent for all the people who have expressed concerns here to contact their congressman and let them know...
Get your torrents...
Luckily the State cops TOLD you something vauable about the power output of said plant so just in case they were right about you you could have used that intel to wreak havoc in the US.
And that boys and girls is in a nutshel what the fuck is wrong with the PATRIOT act. It's an excuse for penis size challenged law enforcement shitheads to brag to you about how 'in the fucking loop they are' and how important they appear to themselves.
The thing about a police state is not so much the laws, it's the fact that everyone considers themselves YOUR cop. And cops while they do an important and needed service to the community is something we don't need too much of. Think of the people you went to high school with who became cops. Do you want them micromanaging your life?
The ACLU is fighting a portion of the Patriot act right now, however, it cannot explicitly publish the sections it is fighting due to the current P.A. forbids it!!
Let's say you or someone you knew ran afoul of some section due to an innocent action on your part. What makes you think you could legally comment/mention/inform others of your predicament? It might be that you would be locked away with no <I>rights</I> to communicate with <B>anyone</B>.
I have a question of you: Do you happen to work for our misnamed Department of Justice?
balaam's ass wrote: This is why I support the Federal Marriage Amendment, just so that it's made explicit that the government of one state will not be forced to honor the gay marriages and civil unions allowed by another state.
About a decade ago, there was a very interesting court case in Illinois relating to this. Unfortunately I can't recall the citation but any good law textbook on family law should include it.
A couple (man & woman) was married in Iowa under Iowa law-- a so called "common law" marriage-- and the wife worked to put her husband through dental school. They moved to Illinois where they had three children and led a perfectly conventional life. The husband was a dentist, the wife a homemaker. The husband filed for divorce after about 10 years of marriage, which is when his lawyer realized that the couple had been married using a form of marriage that is not recognized in Illinois. The IL supreme court agreed, and the wife and children were deprived of the protections afforded by divorce/family law. She was treated as a woman who had borne children out of wedlock, it messed up child custody and she was deprived of any maintenance at all or any consideration for her efforts in putting her husband through school.
The whole situation was massively unfair, and the community reportedly shunned the man over what happened, but that's what the law did.
Think about it. Is that really what you want to happen? Full faith and credit not to apply to marriage? In my opinion, that state of affairs would undermine marriage even more than same-sex marriage ever could.
My financial advisor (okay, my father-in-law) changed companies through which he sells financial products (stocks, mutual funds, retirement pakagaes, insurance packages). Thanks the the patriot act, I had extra forms to sign, and disclosures to make. $5000 Roth account? Yup, could be terrorism, you'll need to sign this disclosure. Every single account I have, every one my wife has, every one my daughter has, had to be done individually. This had to be done for all of his clients.
How has this changed from pre-PATRIOT? Before, and simple statment for each client authorizing the transfer of custody from the old comglomerate to the new one. About a ten to fifteen fold increase in paperwork. Before you complain about my complaining about a little paperwork, I ask you to consider whether this is reasonable, or whether it's akin to the "nothing must slip though" mentality that has dogged the Space Shuttle for years, and despite the "best" efforts, has still resulted in an "unacceptable" failure rate.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
But if i told you details, they would come back to visit me..
What is that noise out in the bac *click*
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For the record, Marriage is a legal definition and the law has a set of rules for those that are married. For one, the dem's had a marriage penalty on taxes as well as other things to screw those that are married. Marriage also has historical meaning going back past recorded time.
There is also the fact that homosexuality is a psychosis and can be cured. There is a good record of recovery. It was removed without any scientific merrit or review back in the early 1970's and removed from the book in mid 1980's. The same group had "man on boy" (aka pedophilia) sex removed about a year ago. We should force those def's back in the definition and treat those that have homosexuality.
http://sg1archive.com/nightmare.shtml
(I am the wife of the target of the investigation, aka "HurricaneMB" in the attached comments.)
The story was posted on slashdot a while back too, but I don't have the link at the moment. The slashdot comments critized our story for being vague. Well, duh, there's an ongoing criminal investigation. What were we supposed to do, hand the feds their case on a silver platter? Tons of reporters called asking for more details, but our laywer, who was kinda pissed that we posted anything at all on the internet, said not to talk to them. When this is all over (hopefully sometime next year), we will tell our story in much more detail.
And yes, it did influence our vote for President.
My wife and I applied for a Home Depot Expo credit card before we begin redoing our kitchen. We listed both of our incomes since together they were pretty high and because my credit is much better than that of my wife, we hoped to up her score (long story short, her credit is much better now but I digress...) Well I get a letter stating that I am approved and she can be a cardholder but they cannot issue a joint account. I call Expo's credit services to inquire why I can't have a joint account-was it my wife's credit? Was it something else... The minimum waged person answering the phone says to me: "It's because of the PATRIOT ACT." I stopped for a second, paused in disbelief, and said: "The PATRIOT ACT?" She responded: "Yes, the PATRIOT ACT." Okay so now I am angry and wondering if I am suddenly considered a terrorist threat (which after that Franks and Beans dinner last night may actually be....) I ask to speak to a supervisor... Supervisor gets on the phone, very nicely, explains that due to the increased paperwork and documentation required by the PATRIOT ACT, Home Depot and Home Depot Expo no longer give out joint accounts, only a second card for applicants spouses... I ask incredulously, "The PATRIOT ACT?" She says "Yes." Because of potential money-laundering issues, banks and other financial institutions have to keep track of every social security number and new account... Now I can understand that you can get fertilizer and diesel fuel at a Home Depot or at least the fertilizer, and borrow one of their cute little trucklets, but give me a break. If we had a joint account we'd have almost double our credit line. Now it pays for my wife to open a separate account... The worst part, Home Depot still hasn't changed their credit application and nowhere in the disclosures does it mention the lack of availability of joint accounts...
Any time I see more "order enforcing" laws come into effect, I'm reminded of my favorite Thomas Jefferson quote:
"A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order, will lose both and deserve neither."
I just wish that fear didn't still have such a grip on this country! Unfortunately, largely because of fear, we have to deal with another 4 years of Cheney/Bush... I just hope that Bush has the sense to "clean house" with his cabinet! Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and Wolfowitz come to mind...
- Hawkeye
"...The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders." - Erwin Rommel
Exactly. Let me live my own life, and don't force me to apply tax breaks or extend employment benefits to mixed-sex "spouses"! If I want to be single, why should I suffer?
Blar.
If I go to Walmart and purchase a $1000 money order, I must show valid ID, which is then logged into a book before I can purchase the money order.
This is directly because of the USA Patriot Act.
Why should I have to show ID to purchase a $1000 money order?
Women and earning: This is one of the most misunderstood sound bites out there. This misused statistic is from the US Census Bureau, was politically motivated and is a gross number, meaning it considers nothing other than the raw numbers. When you compare the earnings, hour by hour, salery by salery with comparable educations, time on the job and experiences you will find that women make more than men do. There are also a lot of jobs that women don't do at all or there are very few of them. Bricklayers, garbage collectors, iron workers, etc.. Jobs that tend to shorten the life of the employee. Jobs that are predominately female are protected to the Nth degree.
Your comments on homosexuals (gays): Homosexuality is a psychosis and it can be cured (there is a great track record on that). Up until the early 1970's it was defined as such, it was removed in 1986 without any scientific reasoning, debate or anything like that. The gay's brow beat them into doing it. Last year they removed "man on boy" sex from the book, laws against pedophilia will be up for repeal next. Want a gay guy to be legally able to rape your son? It is coming. Gay marriage 20 years ago is like man on boy sex is now. "won't happen" you are thinking... well gay marriage is happening right now and that is what was thought 20 years ago. 20 years before that not calling homosexuality a psychosis was unthinkable too.
The Japs and WWII: This is a clear over reaction that FDR had to the situation. He is also a Democrat, so no surprise there. FDR has a record of doing things against the Constitution. His solution at one point was to replace the Supreme Court. A truly dreadful President that extended our depression for at least 5 years. The only thing I can think of that he did that is good was to get prohibition repealed. Some would argue that was a bad thing. He is also to blame for not developing the atomic bomb as soon as we could have. Millions of lives could have been saved.
McCarthyism: I suppose you haven't read where when the Iron curtain fell that it turned out McCarthy was right! We found the records that proved he was on the right track and indeed probably saved this country. To thank him the left has lied to us to the point everyone thinks he was a bad thing.
There are many checks and balances to being improperly incarcerated. To that end Dianne Feinstein investigated about 22,000 cases of supposed abuse of the patriot act. She couldn't find one single case of abuse. The act has worked surprisingly well. If it didn't, I know some guys that would surely be "guests" of the state right now for their statements and actions. One that we all know would be Michael Moore. He laughs all the way to the bank having suckered so many people. There was a great article in the Washington Post, however it has rolled into archive now. So I have to settle for this one: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Artic les/000/000/003/291ryznn.asp
I don't mean to sound as if I hate you or think you are stupid. You bring up good points that many others are probably thinking. Please do speak up if you think there is a problem, however make sure it is a real problem and not propaganda. The only way for us to remain free is to ask questions and make sure other people aren't being abused. Eternal vigilence is necessary.
Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. - Ani DiFranco
Really, now theres actualy a use for all those crap Ani DiFranco CD's
Look to the future when all the "hub-bub" has died down and people aren't paying attention, people in power will USE the power that is in there and start taking advantage of it.
Oh and I can hear people saying... The American people won't put up with that...
To those people I say BULL FREAKING SHIT!!! Look at this election. It is obvious that 51% percent of the people in this country don't care about the FACTs enough to vote for this ASSHOLE (George Duhbya Bush) again...
Those people... Those "(D)Uhmerkans", 51% percent, are like the SHEEP in Orwell's Animal Farm. You just keep listening to those pigs. Let them keep subtly changing the rules and you just keep rolling over and taking like good little sheep. You probably let them wipe off on your fur and thank them.
Do I think it would be different with Kerry in office? YES!!!! He would at least bring us back from hells gate. Our position in the world wouldn't be one of bully. Our economy would turn around because people wouldn't be freaking out everytime the Homeland Security Office get poked by the Bush Admin to change the level.
But then this is TYPICAL for America. We always chose CRAP over QUALITY! This is the classic Beta versus VHS. Bush is VHS, Kerry Beta. Beta didn't do their marketing right and VHS lied and convinced more people.
Oh well, nobody really cares. Those that do didn't win.
~G
It has, but under the terms of the USAPATRIOT act, I am not allowed to provide any details.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
You assume that the VP has much say in a government. hell the President is pretty much a figurehead.
This is a stupid question.
If the USA PATRIOT Act has affected you then YOU'D BE IN GITMO WITHOUT FUCKING INTERNET ACCESS!!!!
that I probably won't ever work in the USA, or even go back to visit in the near future.
The USA is now a fascist state, and that is very sad. Since Bush just got re-elected, things are only going to get worse.
It is interesting and Ironic that the original use of "terrorisim" meant "when a government controls its OWN populace by means of fear and terror" and refers to the french "Reign of Terror". (Louis the 14th? I don't remember.)
Terrorisim is *STILL* an example of a government controlling its own populace using fear, just now however the object of that fear is vague and foreign, and so sustainably diffuse.
Remember, the Population Control Color today is Orange. There is a "credible threat" that something somewhere may be threatened, but we have no information about anyone anywhere threatening anthing in particular in within any spesific timeframe.
Dazzeling.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
While at the state fair, saw a booth set up by some nonprofit group and had some fliers from www.bordc.org It's a good site that is quite pertinent to this topic and is worth visiting. I argue about the USA-P act with others, and the frequent questions I get about it is that if people are mostly honest and innocent, why worry? Unfortunately, I think that the general populace will have to lose all their freedoms to appreciate what they have now and what is in jeopardy of being lost. I have heard that one cannot specifically say that the act has identified terrorists because it has not really created anything new, but merely expands existing powers. Most people are not cognizant of things that happen slowly like the changing of the seasons. All of a sudden, one just finally realises it. It will be the same thing with civil liberties and freedoms.
-- After all is said and done, more is said than done.
I have to say that the Patriot Act has effected my life and the lives of my house mates (I live in a 16 person co-op in Southern California) in a very real and devastating way. Last September one of my house mates was detained at gun point and held for 4 days on suspision of an eco-terrorist act. He was accused of setting fire to and vandalizing several hummers and SUV's at local dealerships (though at the time of his arrest and the search of the co-op we did not know this). The afternoon, evening and night after he was detained the co-op was raided. We were not show a warrant until significantly after they had entered the house. Nor were we allowed to watch the search in progress and were forced to wait outside on the other side of the street. When we were finally allowed back into the house at around 4am we found they had taken computers, address books, photos, environmental literature (we never quite figured out what exactly this meant since the co-op has an environmental/sustainable theme, this could have been any number of things) as well as stranger things like rope, dirty underwear and the likes. The house was thrashed. We were finally given everything (we think) back about 2 months after the raid, the vague nature of the receipt and general mess they left things in made it hard to tell what exactly had been taken. One of my house mates slowly spiraled into paranoia and ended up leaving convinced that the rest of us were spying on him. The rest of us have learned how to live with the understanding that the phones and house were/are probably taped. We are left to try to draw the line between reasonable suspision and paranoia, which is not always easy. We later found out that a neighbor called the hot line set up by the Patriot Act to report an increase in activity at the house on the night in question (we had 2 new house mates moving in). The other "evidence" in the affidavit we were able to get ahold of seems equally thin. Apparently being a fairly large group of about a dozen or so 20-somethings-year-olds living together is also suspicious. They also tapped cell phones, staked out the house and followed cars of various house mates. The Joint Terrorist Taskforce was the official umbrella title of the several agencies who showed up that day of the raid. The Patriot Act and trend in the country that this indicates frankly scares me. It's real and it does have an effect on people's lives. It saddens me greatly that Bush won this past election. -Kathe
... at Customs for your bootleg DVDs.
Just try taking pictures of a bridge or a military installtion though... oh, wait, you can get arrested for that in the US now.
never mind.
However it is still legal to wear a Free Tibet T-Shirt in the US, as far as I know.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=128204&cid=107 08775
Is this the one you're referring to? There's not a single detail there.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Tip: Sanitize your diary/blog. As a young woman, you're telling the world *WAY* too much about yourself.
If this really occurred, GET A LAWYER. The enemy of your friend has filed a false report with a federal law enforcement agency, and they're not being prosecuted for it.
Now, I have family in NEOA, and I have a clue about how long it takes enforcement to bust KNOWN ARMED CRACK DEALERS. You expect me to believe that SWAT-level force was used to put pressure on an innocent 18/19 year old girl and her boyfriend, for check fraud? BULLSHIT
I know, you're 18, and your parents are getting divorced, and they're selling your house, so you need attention.... and a story like that sounds great on slashdot.
Yeah, I'm an asshole. You're a liar. What's worse?
We can change this law if we can convince legislators of a better alternative. That alternative will gain even more traction if it has the backing of a multitude of citizens.
The problem: 19 men with stolen ID and box-cutters successfully killed 3000 people and cost our economy over $1B.
The current solution:
- open judicial loopholes previously available exclusively to the ATF to the FBI investigating terrorists.
- reduce the ability of foreign nationals to enter the country with fraudulent ID.
I hear a lot of complaining, but not a lot of solutioning.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You don't have to give samples of your DNA to enter the country. Period. If you're involved in a serious crime (rape, murder) you might, but in that situation citizens "have to" as well.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Two words:
Jose Padilla.
Just because it is not stated explicitly doesn't mean it isn't interpereted that way.
~X~
"Take me to prison before I commit a crime."
~X~
Terrorism refers to the methodology of using violence to incite a fearful reaction from a civilian population, for the purpose of achieving a political, religious or social goal. Terrorist acts can be carried out by individuals, groups, or governments.
... the US carries out terrorist attacks all the time in Iraq, and Israel all the time in Palestine. Bomb a house, blow up natives, some of whom may be better matches than others for the "terrorist" label ... sounds like violence to incite a fearful reaction from a civilian population.
If you think this post is the result of a left or right wing bias, you are wrong. If you think it is from a sense of humor, you are wrong. If you can't figure it out, try thinking harder.
Infuriate left and right
Well, I think the way it's probably panning out right at this moment, the banks are only really paying attention when the checks being cashed are for someone *outside the country* - since that's where all the "terrorist scares" lie.
I know my bank does at least some cursory looking-over what I try to deposit though.... Not too long ago, I had an insurance settlement check written out to both me and a dealership that I told them I was going to have do the repair work on my car. The bank sent it back to me, and even called me on the phone to inform me they couldn't cash the check - because it had BOTH parties written on it. They wanted me to get the dealership to sign it too.
...it's chipping away at my civil rights. No longer is the first ammendment 100% inclusive anymore! It has moved from "freedom of speech" to "freedom of speech unless you say..."
(A)bort, (R)etry, (I)gnore?_
You know the one they implanted in the back of our skulls to monitor our thoughts. Every so often it starts hurting, but thats about it for how its affected me.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
I don't asume much. I just don't understand it. How can Bush clearly have won when things are clearly almost 50%-50%. Last I heard there was a posibility that the VP could be DM with the President GOP.
Your President might be a figurehead. I think he is pretty powerfull. I don't know what scares me more, if the actions of the president are the result of him being a figurehead or doing what he thinks is best.
My point is that the actions of the president don't seem to have to represent nearly 48% of the voters in the nation. But maybe living in a country with a Queen, I don't understand the concept of a president very well. (NL)
Congress gives him his power and can take it away. The war with Iraq wouldn't have happened without authorization from Congress. So I focused on those races.
Black Helicopters follow me everywhere and I need to wear a tinfoil shoes as well as my tinfoil hat to keep them out of my head!!!!!!!
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
don't know and that worries me.
Fortunately, it seems as though both Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are likely to stand down for "personal reasons" around the time that Bush reshuffles his advisers. (This rumour has hit several mainstream news channels as I write, some attributing it to a White House source, but I've not seen anything concrete as a source yet.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I definately get edgy in airports, even dropping people off. I know who's working in TSA and airport rent a cops, and always get the vibe that they want to make a big bust. They are also notoriously dim, and I get nervous when dim people have the authority to arbitrarily revoke my rights/privilages.
I've also become aware of how my behavior in certain public places may draw unusual and unwanted attention. I was shooting some pics on a bike trail near my home, which follows along a river parkway, containing a hydro dam. I took some pics of the dam and fisherman at the base of the dam, then suddenly noticed them all looking back up at me from a couple of hundred yards away. Folks on the trail riding by looked at me strangely as well. I stopped cold in my tracks and rode on, a little resentful I had to watch my back taking leisure photos.
Another instance was when I was shooting some pics of intepretive wildlife kiosks for a lake. There is a TRACON facility right across the road from the lake's north shore, and it's impossible to take photos w/o including photos of their front entrance. A guard came out to the street while I was shooting a couple of shots, asked me how long I was going to be, then went back into his guard shack, still staring at me. I got the hell out of there and continued on around the lake, but it irrked me that they would think Mr. Honky with a bad tan and digital camera would be surveiling them.
I work in IT and had to create online trainings for a major financial company in USA. I had to read through the whole thing.
How it affected me?
- I had a nausea for 3 days after reading through the first chapters.
- I felt like I was back in middle-age seeing all the restrictions on privacy being enumerated one after the other.
- I felt sorry for all you people who actually have to apply it or live with it.
- It was the definitive reason why I would never immigrate to USA, although I've been given many occasions to do so.
Honestly and IMHO from my outsider point of view, americans should fight to have this bill removed. It's a threat to personal freedom and a dangerous shift toward fascist practices. (and YES, I had to read this thing! So I am not speculating)Religious marraige is traditionally a socially enforced a covenant or contract between a man and a woman [women]. This is the case in all cultures that 'do marraige'.
Business comes along and offers incentives to married people to make it more attractive for an employee to work for that particular business. These incentives are part of a 'compensation package'.
Government comes along and sees that it can perform some social engineering by offering incentives to married people. When the population was small, these incentives were mainly aimed at makign it less expensive to have more children.
IMO Government should NOT BE IN THE BUSINESS OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING! If they were not, the whole gay marraige thing would not be a problem.
What is the problem is that for a government to recognize gay marraige, it must force one social groups morals upon another. For example, Jews don't force their marraige contractual terms upon Christians (there are significant differences).
You are getting ready to argue that there is no forcing. Actually there is, but it's acceptable to both social groups. You are getting ready to argue again... But face it, no argument is going to win on this front.
Personally, I have no problem with contractual unions (marraiges) getting support from the government, even if they are between memebrs of the same sex. It conflicts with my reading of the constitution!
But, let's get pragmatic for a minute. The benefits can easily be had by dispensing with the term 'marraige' in government. If government wants to stay in the social engineering business, and hell will freeze over before they get out because people will NEVER stop trying to control what other people do, the best solution is to disense with the term marraige. Call it civil union, call it contractual partnership, call it turtle mustard. But it's never gonna fly if people keep calling it marraige in the context of government income redistribution.
If gays want to call their contract marraige, that's fine and hurts no one. But they are going to have to comprmise on what it is called if they want the government benefits.
I can see this as a fight too. But, I believe it's a winnable fight because it can't be argued against under the constitution or logically.
Well, it's all speculation - but Bill Gates is a pretty smart guy, whether you like his products or not.
Rather than doing things that would get Microsoft "sued out of existance", I suspect he would have actually just done things differently to remain quite successful while not running too far afoul of laws that would destroy his business.
Why do they misrepresent products? Because it's the status-quo for commercial software! To look at it another way, "Why not?" Who ever really got in trouble for doing it? People sell buggy software applications that don't work as promised every day - and companies other than Microsoft sell the most expensive ones I know of. Look at ERP systems like "OneWorld" or specialized applications that handle inventory and bills of lading for shippers, or even specialty apps to manage Doctor or Dentist offices. Much of this stuff is, honestly, garbage, with HUGE price tags both during and after the sale (by way of support contracts). In this climate, of course Microsoft opts to run things the same way.
Who cares, the patriot act will be peanuts after the patriot act version 2 is in power ... sooon. ... it extends the original act.
Your government will not only be allowed to secretly hold foreigners without charge, but will be allowed to hold YOU without charge, and without any notice to anyone that you are being witheld.
Like to protest that bastard W?
You will be branded a terrorist. You WILL 'dissappear' by the hands of your own government.
No one will ever know what happened to you.
~personally I can't wait til the 21st amendment is reppealed, so that Bush can finish his plan to be dictator~
The company I work for makes boat loads of money as a direct result of the USA PATRIOT act. As soon as it became law, upper level types implemented multiple strategies to guzzle as much as possible from the public trough. They have been extremely successful.
I am deliberately posting this anonymously. I like getting regular paychecks.
They presented a skit showing two alternative State of Union Addresses some time after the 2000 election.
The Gore speech was incredibly boring, of course, but totally harmless.
The Bush Address (featuring Will Farrell) was the funnier one. It showed him chuckling at his desk while behind him the Capitol Dome was caved in and Washington was on fire.
I'd like to see the skit again to check how closely it matches what's actually happened over the past four years, but unfortunately SNL hasn't repeated it (to my knowledge). I wonder why?
I'm in favor of getting the state out of the marriage business altogether. But why do we have to absurdly claim that the a gay relationship is the same as a hetero one. Right off the wheel, a hetero couple is going to most likely make babies, whereas gays won't. The emotional interplay between a man and a woman, especially if she's pregnant, is completely different than what a man and a man or a woman and a woman is, and so gay unions should be called something else. It's like, an apple is an apple and a PC is a PC. Sure, extend gays every legal right to partner up, but don't call it marriage, because its not.
Of course, if you want to use that logic that two people kinda together is married, well, then, why not also add the logic that someone that shows up at college graduated?
This is my sig.
How do I know that something was done against me when the Law prohibits me from knowing?
It has done nothing but to insult law abiding folks and put them at risk - criminals etc. know what they are doing and understand the risks. Its certain minority populations that are now facing a cumulative mean mugging each time something happens (real or imagined). Due to a lack of a proper public debate, it only fosters an environment of insunation and innuendo where no factual charges need to be brought much less proven for people to be scared.
Yes I'm scared - yes that's why I post as AC
Slavery, blacks: Slaves were freed by a Republican - Lincoln. Blacks were set free (civil rights) starting with Eisenhower sending in troops, another Republican. Eisenhower and Bush I were the only ones to appoint a black to the Supreme court - both Republican's. In short, Republican's have always helped blacks more than the Dem's. They only help if they have no choice (see Johnson and civil rights act notes, signed almost over his dead body). Welfare, food stamps, head start - Bob Dole bills - another Republican. The Dem's lie and say they did these things. The proof is in the written record, they didn't.
Back then the Republicans were very liberal. In fact the most liberal party the US have ever had. Would you say they still are?