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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."
Anyone get the feeling we're becoming more and more of a police state?
Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
Greenpeace has been charged as a terrorist organisation because some members climbed up on a roof and unfolded a "NO GM PIGS" banner. The government is invoking a "anti-terror" law that was rushed through by the right-wing government.
Remember this is the country where Bjorn Lomborg was given a post as a director of an Environmental Institute.
Fascists are really grabbing for power around the world.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Iran! Are you mad! As a former member of Tehran's expatriot community I can say the Iran was - about 6 years ago - a more liberal, tolerant place then the US is now. Iran had no fundamentalists in government - UNTIL the US started threatening it, then the people got scared, voted for fundamentalists who promised to wage war, and now - whilst being far from a fundamentalist state, it is not what it used to be. The average American really should be given lessons in International History
As the federal system gets more and more police state like, I want neighbors who are like minded.
Here in New Hampshire, even with just over a hundred people moved, we're already making a difference.
Put aside your preconceptions about New Hampshire (it's not THAT cold, people), about Libertarians (We're a wide mix of positions, from very moderate to extreme), about politics (NH's system is amazingly and uniquely open, and forget 20K, just a few thousand activists could make a huge difference here), and most of all, about liberty and freedom (What are you going to tell your children about what you did when they took your rights away bit by bit?)
Check out the Free State Project now... we don't need 20K activists to move to make a difference, we just need you.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
... they won't let you leave from the big house with bars.
You might be well advised to find a better government sooner rather than later should you do so at all. As a citizen of another country with an arguably "better government" (Australia) I'd like to point out that (a) we're trying as hard as we can to be as stupid as America, and (b) Please, please, please put your vote to stopping this stupidity at it's source instead. If all the sane, smart Americans leave we're all f**ed.
Funnily, I come from the UK. You know, the place America split from a few hundred years ago, simply because the regime was too oppressive.
Nowadays:
We don't have to arbitrarily register with a city hall, just because we live there, that gets passed to anywhere (apart from to pay local taxes, and even that database is so screwed, they can't work out a correct bill, let alone identify anyone with it).
We don't have to carry any ID whatsoever. Some places (banks, video hire shops etc. require a letter saying you're resident at an address).
When you stay at a hotel here, you don't need to provide any ID whatsoever.
The police can request whatever info they want from anywhere. But they make the request to a court, which decides whether the request is a reasonable one, before the police turn up with their warrant.
About 10 years ago, I really wanted to emigrate to America. From travels, it seemed like a vibrant, forward thinking place.
These days, again from travels and experience, those same places are now seeming far more fearful, and closed minded..
These days, I'm always reminded of the old slogans "No taxation without representation" that led the (very justified) revolt.
These days, people just accept the 'tax' on blank media, and all kinds of goods, that just ends up filling the pockets of corporations, with no representation at all..
It sometimes looks as though it's merely taken a few hundred years for the US to get away from what it hated so much to such a point, it's become exactly what it fought against in the first place.
But at least the people so arrested will still be subjected to the due process of law, with representation and fair public trial by a jury of their peers.
Oh, wait. Nevermind.
Well hell, I've always wanted to go to Cuba, but faced government sanction if I did so. Now it's government sanction that will get me there.
Isn't it ironic?
KFG
Well, on the other hand...
- The UK has a network of surveillance cameras that America's authoritarians can only dream about.
- The UK just had an election in which electoral fraud is strongly suspected, because the postal vote system was left open to abuse.
- In 2001 the Home Secretary described civil liberties as an "airy fairy" concern.
- The RIP Act makes routine surveillance of ordinary citizens a reality. It goes even further than the PATRIOT act, in that it requires ISPs to develop and install monitoring software at their expense, and makes it a criminal offense to refuse to incriminate yourself by handing over your encryption keys on demand. Oh, and it also makes it an offense to tell anyone you're being investigated or that you have been forced to hand over your keys, so much for freedom of speech.
- The UK also amended the law in the 90s so that refusing to incriminate yourself could be used as evidence against you in court--i.e. there is no "right to silence".
- The current government is set on introducing a mandatory identity card with biometric features.
- The UK Official Secrets act allows people to be put on trial for crimes against the state, without being told what they actually did. (i.e. the evidence against them can be ruled secret under the act).
- Even though the ruling party deliberately lied to the country to support a war on Iraq, they were still voted back in with a huge majority--just like the situation in the US.
- The Criminal Justice Act of 2003 suspended the right to trial by jury, and suspended the "double jeopardy" limits, allowing the state to continue to harass people indefinitely.
- The new Home Secretary is now trying to undermine the right to a fair trial.
- The UK government handed over power over intellectual property legislation to the WTO, just like America did. Tough luck if you don't like software patents; the government doesn't have the power to decide not to allow them, because of the GATT TRIPS treaties signed in the 90s. (Signed even though many of us wrote letters to politicians, protested, etc.)
One of the reasons I left the UK is because the country is so damn complacent. For some reason, UK citizens don't care about the UK's lurch towards fascism; they're too busy looking at America and feeling smug. At least Americans seem to be aware of, and care about, their country becoming a fascist state, even if they are powerless to stop it.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Yes, Yoda got that right. And it reminds me of another teaching, from another world, that actually tells you how to deal with it:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
--Bene Gesserit Litany against Fear