Slashdot Mirror
Patriot Act to be Expanded
m4dm4n writes "It seems that the patriot act is being expanded rather than scaled back after a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee. The FBI has gained new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, as well as the ability to designate subpoenas as secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison."
The American Bill of Rights was scrubbed clean of ink, then re-cut and bound so that god-fearing monks could create a prayer book out of it. Don't worry, it'll be protected (because jesus-books are more important than freedom-books) and some day far in the future - hundreds of years - it will be discovered by university scientists who will be able to detect the originally written text.
screw you fuckin free-staters! I live in NH (Lancaster) where it IS cold (each year avg's 30+ continuous days of -20 F), but I dont mind that. What I DO mind is you bastards coming here changing our entire landscape. And pitiful as you are, you DON'T even let NH citizens join your little enclave. WELCOME TO NH. NOW GO BACK HOME.
...the SIGnificance of inSIGnificance is SIGnificant...
Whatever you foreign scum. Until someone from the US asks you to speak, you be quiet. Or, something along those lines that doesn't make me sound like I think I'm a higher form of life.
But for your benefit, here's a quick run-down of the reasons why some people are concerned. .
During the warming-up period of a fascist state, newly acquired powers are not immediately or broadly abused. This is to prevent difficulties in placing even more dangerous powers into being.
Currently, we are in the phase of the placement of the new laws and the raising of everybody's comfort level regarding things like tanks in NY streets.
We can look to things like nation-wide tests of the new population control systems, such as Project Falcon, as later stages in the warm-up period. --Note that the new powers of co-ordinated arrests had nothing to do with 'terrorists', but were directed inwards at US citizenry. As always, there is a semi-reasonable excuse behind this action. "They all had warrants!" But the fact remains that such an action would have been inconceivable even only five years ago. Today it happened with little notice. That's how it works.
The big step we're all nervously waiting to see manifest is another staged 'terrorist' attack on US soil, during which the arrest sweeps will begin in earnest of non-criminals and general trouble-makers who threaten the new system by questioning it.
Slashdotters won't be in trouble until that point. But you are certainly free to pretend that everything is fine until that moment, when it will be too late to act.
Regular people are basically murmuring and screwing up the courage to leave the US. Most won't, and will trust in their luck to ride the waves of fascism and fear and the eventual real attacks from other nations anxious to stop the spread of American imperialism.
-FL
"So this is how liberty dies... to thunderous applause." We're just past the end of Episode II, and President Bush^W^WChancellor Palpatine has just been granted 'emergency powers' to crush the Terrorists^WSeperatists.
'Bout the only thing that isn't the same is that the current threat from terrorists is the result of about 20 years of incompetence by the US government rather than the orchestration of one individual. Meh, trifles...
Big Brother is that you? 2+2=5
o