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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?"
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/
Well, I work at a Canadian bank and we've had to stop outsourcing alot of our contingency server hosting to the US. Given certain provisions and interpretations of the PATRIOT act, we cannot guarantee privacy of personal data to our customers -- as we must do as indicated by Canadian law. So now instead of having a primary datacentre in Toronto and a backup in South Carolina, we're moving everything out west to Alberta. We still run servers and call centres in the US, but all the data warehousing is now 100% Canadian.
So, if you work in IT, I suspect alot of people have been indirectly affected but don't realise it. I doubt you'll have SWAT teams bursting into your house and seizing your home PC due to using Kazaa, but the aggregate affect over the entire economy is tough to measure.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
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
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~
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.
Other Presidents who took away civil liberties include
Lincoln - During the Civil War, Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus and frequently imprisoned Southern spies and sympathizers without trial as well as imprisoned Newspaper editors and martial law was declared in cities like Baltimore.
Wilson - During World War I, Congress curbed civil liberties with sweeping censorship and antisedition laws. In 1919 the Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer, responded to a bombing at his home by authorizing raids in 33 cities and arresting 6,000 people, most of them immigrants, some of them citizens, on suspicion that they were Communists or anarchists. Soon after declaring war on Germany and its allies in 1917, Congress ruled that the U.S. mail could not be used for sending any material urging "treason, insurrection or forcible resistance to any law." It punished offenders with a fine of up to $5,000 and a five-year prison term. The government soon banned magazines including THE MASSES and THE NATION from the mails for expressing anti-war sentiment.
FDR - Japanese American Internment, German American Interment, Italian American Internment. On Feb. 19, 1942, Roosevelt signed an executive order authorizing the secretary of war or military commanders designated by him to establish "military areas" from which "any or all persons" could be removed. In 1942 the Supreme Court ruled that Roosevelt's military commissions were constitutional when used to try eight Nazi saboteurs for violating the laws of war, spying and conspiracy.
Truman - National secrecy laws, CIA establishment
Clinton - The copyright laws, President Clinton asked Congress for the authority to conduct "roving wiretaps''--that is, wiretaps not on a particular phone but on any phone used by a particular individual--without court approval. Although that specific provision did not pass, the 1996 terrorism bill did expand the government's wiretapping authority. During the Clinton administration, HUD began investigating and threatening community activists who objected to shelters and public housing units in their neighborhoods. In New York, Berkeley, Seattle, and other places HUD enforcers demanded correspondence, minutes of meetings, flyers, and lists of contributors on the grounds that the activists were engaged in illegal racial harassment.
Will this really affect me in any meaningful way? Probably not. However it's still a little weird.
Thats debatable. The language used in the constitution (and more importantly, the bill of rights) imply that most rights apply to non-citizens.
Most importantly regarding the current treatment of non-citizen "terrorists":
Amendment V : No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Amendment VI : In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
Amendment XIV Section 1 : All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
You'll note that at other points in the Constitution and its amendments, when it means citizen, it SAYS citizen.
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.
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.
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
*claps*
:-) but good luck convincing everybody else of that. The LP needs to sell their stance in pieces at a time, being staunch and principled when it counts, and moderate at others.
Thank you! You are absolutely correct... The LP's problem is that they sell 1 "Big Libertarian Package" as the solution to everything -- as if free markets are a miracle elixir.
Well, for the most part, free markets *are* close to a miracle elixir,
IMO, Arnold Schwarzenegger is as close to a Libertarian as anybody has ever elected to significant office (Ron Paul aside, although I think Ah-nold actually is more powerful in his position). True, he's not libertarian on gun control and his support of Bush is disheartening, but otherwise, he exhibits some rather libertarian traits.
But Schwarzenegger is not a big-'L' Libertarian. He realizes he cannot sell full drug legalization to voters, so he instead sells marijuana legalization for medicinal purposes. He can't sell privatization of most govn't functions to people, so he sells the easier privatizations first. He attempts to fund the govn't in a relatively low-tax way, e.g. via his $15b bond issue.
Like Ronald Reagan, the CA governor he seems to emulate (but with a deeper streak of social liberalism), Arnold sells to the public a package of strong (but not extreme) fiscal conservatism in the face of "economic girly-men", social tolerance, and sunny Reagan-style optimism.
Personally, I think the Libertarian Party ought to emulate Schwarzenegger if they want to break their current Presidential popular-vote record of 1% (in 1980, with Ed Clark, who eventually founded the Cato Institute). Of course, the LP, being run by Randroids left over from the 1960s when "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged" were big hits are still the ones running the show -- and Randroids, of course, don't compromise.
So we're stuck w/ the LP of today until the damn idealistic Randroid old farts leave.
Based on what admittedly-little (not being a CA resident after all) I know of Schwarzenegger, I would *gladly* vote for him for President on either a Republican or Libertarian ticket (of course, this would require a change the Constitution - which is pretty unlikely). If he were running for President today in place of Bush, no doubt in my mind, I would vote for Schwarzenegger, as would many Americans, I believe... but as it stands, I voted Badnarik, and most Americans will likely vote for Bush (the polls appear to be shaping up that way). *sigh*
My *ideal* Presidential candidate would be my favorite moderate libertarian and economic deity, Milton Friedman. But alas, he has no interest in actually running for office, and at his present age of 92, he's really too old now anyway. But Schwarzenegger is, by Arnie's own statements, basically one of the intellectual offspring of Friedman's books ("Free to Choose"). Fortunately, it seems to show too...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
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