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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."
... land of the free?
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.
They can do whatever they want without any judges or other laws having to say anything about it and when you go public (or to your lawyer) you go to prison? Isn't that a human rights violation?
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Eurasian spies are everywhere....
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Yet another step is assuring freedom will overcome terrorism!
It's just too bad Bush can't have a third term. How will we be safe when he is gone?!
The perception of US 'freedom' is being undermined on a daily basis just like pieces of wood being removed from a jenga tower.
/glad I'm european.
Wonder how long you've got before it topples.
tom-george.comBecause geeks rate higher t
The solution to your problems as a resident of the United States may be at hand.
It seems like every bit of political news I get these days makes me think a little bit more about not going back. It saddens me to say this but it's true. Apathy is killing our country. We need to remind people that our empire is not unlike others before. They all fell apart. Ours will too.
When I tell an object to delete this, am I killing it or telling it to kill me?
The best thing about these new laws is there won't be any evidence of abuse of power - anyone who squeaks will be locked up and have their reputation destroyed, its like getting rid of free speech without actually getting rid of it: genius!
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I remember George Bush said that the terrorist _will_ not win. It looks like they have already won to me.
The fact that he publicly stated this is where it gets interersting, because this leaves open (IMHO) 3 options for the US government:
- US government does not know what Osama said was his reason for attacking the US, and therefor simply react how Osama wants them to react; in this case US government consists of a bunch of morons
- US government knows *damn well* what Osama said and do Osamas bidding, because it suits them well in becoming more like Big Brother
- US government knows what Osama said, but think he is lying. Question is: why would a terrorist be lying? A terrorist wants to get his way, so there is no use in lying about what you want to accomplish through terrorism. Like option 1, US government is filled with morons.
So, US government is either too dumb for words or wants to be like Big Brother. Don't know which of the two is more scary.Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
How can our representatives not see that they are bastardizing our constitutional rights so bad that our forefathers are turning in their graves so hard that they're tunneling out of their coffins. How do the reps not see that we don't really want these rules. George Bush and the reps scream freedom from the tops of their lungs while at the same time strip more and more freedoms away from their own people. Why is it so bad to get judge approval for document retrieval? Yes, it may take a little more work and time, but we need checks and balances, not law enforcers becoming judge and jury on a whim. Along with secret subpeonas, and the rest of the patriot act, they're taking our whole legal system underground and out of our hands. I can't believe how quickly they're trying to take away the fundamentals that make us US Americans, but I'm even more surprised at the rate they're succeeding at it.
"Plans are for fools! Oglethorpe, the plutonian (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
+5, insightful
+5, informative
+5 years in prison!
... Hey, at least here in Australia we have nice beaches and beautiful women and our governing body is just stupid, not totally morally corrupt. Yet.
Not an American myself, but I'd suspect that you're exactly the kind of person who should be going back to the US to stand up for what you believe in and help turn the current political climate around.
As I expected, many +5 insightful comments have appeared, claiming that american democracy is dead, or that the U.S. is approaching the police state, and so on. I really encourage you folks to try a broader perspective. Of course, those new laws are bad, and abusing citizens' rights, but
1. It's nowhere near the situation during, for example, maccarthyism. Read something about the period. People were out of jobs (or forced out of the country!) for no reason at all, other that they were untruthfully accused of sympathizing with communists. And yet, American democracy survived this, and -- if anything -- became only stronger. Really, you should have more faith in the system's built-in mechanisms. It worked amazingly well for two hundred years.
2. There is absolutely no comparison with the real police states, which are, unfortunately, still very common on our miserable planet. I think, It's insulting for the tortured to death victims in Iran, or China, or Russia, to even compare the minor inconveniences that Americans suffer with the police state actions. Looking from most of the Earth, America is land of the free, regardless how funny you may find this claim.
You US citizens need to put things in perspective. 2,823 died in that attack. Thats very sad but damnit, its not even a drop in the ocean compared to other dangerous things. Almost a million a year dies of off bad diet and no exercise (heart faliure). 90,000 dies in motor accidents. 28,000 people is killed by firearms a year. Where are the tough actions preventing theese much worse sources of death?
9/11 was just an excuse to implement the police state the Neocons always wanted. The things the US hated the most about Russia is now being implemented and the US citizens is just watching on. As long as the media is pumping out false and outrageous propaganda it wont change either.
Damn im glad i dont live in the US!
HTTP/1.1 400
Home of the free, land of the brave.
It's easy to say from across the pond, I know -- but you guys..
So it would appear the plan is to protect your freedom by taking it away from you. Way to go.
Sure if you believe the terrorists "hate our freedom" and want to destroy it, these measures may appear to make some kind of sense.
But the fact is most of these terrorists don't mind your freedom, they mind US foreign policy which is supporting their dictators and exploiting their peoples. They are not fighting the US, they are fighting the US' ruthless protection of corporate interests overseas.
Add to that the sheer hypocrisy of imposing measures on others (e.g. no trade tariffs, no agricultural subsidies, no profileration of WMD, etc) while openly refusing to impose same on yourselves.. Frankly, although I despise violence even more than imperialism, I think I understand why people would fight that tooth and nail.
I really hope that you will stop this madness from within -- otherwise the next 911 is just waiting to happen.. And I hate to say it but that one will be your own goddamn fault.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Vote?
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Amnesty international used the word "Gulag" to provoke a reaction and got an amazing over-reaction. If democracy and human rights have any chance off success then the American people must take that report seriously and demand the "detention" centers be opened up to scrutiny and the people within them given due process. Hiding people in a "black hole" run by the military is by definition the opposite of a freedom loving country. If the US cannot demonstrate the rule of law by example then it does not deserve anymore respect than a warlord in a cave.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
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
So, Denmark uses an anti-terror law wrong and this means what exactly?
The mark of a free society is that you can get lawyers, go to court and fight things like this. Or has all the members of Greenpeace been rounded up and executed already?
And everyone is grabbing for power around the world. Sheesh. So, your choices are to either understand and deal with these people.
Or post "The sky is falling" on Slashdot. I suppose the latter is easier.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Are you kidding? Russia is far from becoming democratic, more like sinking back to dictatorship.
Are you kidding? America is far from remaining democratic, more like sinking into a dictatorship.
Sobpoenas with no judge that people can't know about that are allowed to be made secret and classified scream of the KGB making people disappear in the night and despotism to me.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
... 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.
Where the FUCK is the judicial branch? Hello? Checks and balances? Wake up, courts! Congress is planning to expand their craptastic Patriot Act so that the executive branch can go gathering information WITHOUT YOUR APPROVAL. Seriously, if I was a judge, I'd be so incredibly pissed off. I'd like to hope that this would never make it by the Supreme Court, but I'm beginning to think that's too much to hope for. Disclaimer: I'm a conservative, but I no longer consider myself a Republican. The actions recently on behalf of both parties is reprehensible. The government stopped working for the people a long time ago. One almost wants to say "revolution," but then that would make you the "T" word wouldn't it?
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This isn't the sig you're looking for. Move along.
More to the point, how many of you could actually talk about it if it has/had happened? Without going to jail?
And how many of you KNOW your house has not been the target of a 'sneak and peek' operation?
That's what I thought.
If you're not living on the edge, you're just taking up space!
Their children and grand children haven't learned these lessons of history as well as some of our contemporaries in Germany, Russia and other parts of Europe. As the leading example, no pun intended, we have today a child of a Veteran of World War II in the White House, leading the charge to trade a reduction in civil rights in this country for promised increases in security. On the bright side, there is a debate going on here, a public debate. Consider Bruce Schneier's recent book Beyond Fear, which seeks to help us learn how to consider the trade-offs that security decisions require at all levels, personal and societal.
The terrorists who struck The World Trade Center want a world run by an archaic, theocratic totalitarianism with eye-for-an-eye style justice meted out by them and their hand-picked like-minded sociopaths. When we give up civil rights to fight terrorism, the terrorists gain ground. However, we have many checks and balances here and we are a very long way from sliding into totalitarianism of any sort here in the U.S. Unfortunately there are many people who don't see the slippery slope when they step out upon it.
Back on the bright side, today we have more interaction between the people of different countries than ever before. The internet provides opportunity for dialog between the citizens of different countries which is historically unprecedented. German students come to the U.S. and talk to their friends about history, Russian emigrants in the U.S. talk to their friends about what's happening now in Russia, and how strange it is to see things like secret subpoenas and detention without charges and trials in the U.S. I've heard examples of both groups express surprise in conversations with young Americans ignorant of history, "Don't you realize this is how Fascism starts?" With fear. Yoda got that right, for sure. As a citizen of the United States I would like to thank you for remembering and reminding us. There are many of us here who appreciate your patience. We are a young country, but an old Democracy. With your help, we will make it through this without sliding into an Orwellian 1984, nor a Fascistic 1934.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
A point...
Although it can be said that the Nazi's borrowed some ideas from mainstream socialist thought such as the expansion of social benifits in the form of programs such as old age pensions, they did not follow many of the core principles of socialism. They opposed the concept of class conflict that is key to most socialist thought. Moreover, their embrace of nationalism, a idealist philosophy, is in direct conflict with the materialist beliefs of most developed forms of socialism. Additionally, most of the more socialist oriented members of the nazi party were killed in the "The Night of the Long Knifes" which was a purge of the left-wing of the Nazi party that Hitler used to consolidate his power. The Nazi government should not be viewed as socialist, but rather corporatist in that Hitler utilized powerful corporations (VW, BMW, MB, etc...) in order to acheive his production goals rather than acheive them directly though the state.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Bush is not a patriot. He is killing everything that America once stood for.
Sometimes you think these guys have spent a LOT of time studying the Nazi takeover in Germany and 1984.
Who wants to bet that Co-Intel Pro (or the modern equivalent) is already up and running again.
Me must give up our freedoms to keep our freedoms. Hah, I'll take rampant terrorism over THEIR brand of freedom.
-------- -------- Support Wesley Clark for president!!!
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
Thanks for this post. I especially appreciated this line, but not for it's intended purpose. Frankly, it made me cringe....
The terrorists who struck The World Trade Center want a world run by an archaic, theocratic totalitarianism with eye-for-an-eye style justice meted out by them and their hand-picked like-minded sociopaths.
You know why? Because from my perspective, those hard line "conservatives" (very large air quotes) who run our government speak about this daily...
A slogan of the Texas republican party (of whom George W Bush is the most prominent member) states "The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation." Several right-wing organizations actively state "Jesus Christ is Lord in all aspects of life, including civil government." Among other things, the push for Christian Theocracy is more thinly veiled at the top reaches of our power structure (and actually spoken openly in some circles) than it has been since 15th century Puritans.
In addition, today's "conservatives" are leading the push to increased usage of the Death penalty and increasing mandatory sentences while reducing or in some cases completely removing the judiciary's ability to diverge from these mandatory requirements due to extenuating circumstances. This is the first time in America, at least since the Salem Witch trials where the punishment for certain crimes far outstrips the damage or harm caused by that crime. One great example involves "crimes against children". While there are serious crimes perpetrated, the sentencing for such crimes has grown significantly out of proportion with actual research findings showing harm and danger to children. A simple pat on the butt or even a hand on the shoulder can net a mandatory minimum sentence of more than 10 years, though studies show that non-penetrative abuse is statistically shown to have very small long term effects on children when the issue is treated with open discussion, trust and patience.
Small-time drug usage also has been shown to have statistically very little negative effect on society as a whole, but is punished with ever-increasing sentences that far outstrip the crime.
On top of this, top officials in our government often speak of the courts or opposition parties as "getting in the way of progress" when they strike down things like the patriot II and DMCA or the Internet Decency Act... when in reality they are struck down because they grossly infringe on our rights as citizens and people. The proper reaction is to be embarassed that they would make the MISTAKE of outstripping their power,but instead they vow revenge and simply re-write the bills with more "sneaky" language to see if they can get them passed in a second round of voting.
Then, they push laws giving the executive branch power to overrule (war powers act) and oversee (2001 PROTECT act) the legislative branch and judicial branch. Soon, they are appointing chairmen sympathetic to their cause regardless of their qualifications to handle the job and instituting collective organizations through wich they can better consolidate the power base and coordinate covert activities and actions. And a small bit of trivia, KGB loosely translates to "Comittee for Motherland Security" through which most Soviet intelligence and covert operations took place. That was Stalin's equivalent to consolidate his power into a single state entity that reported directly to him rather than to other arms of his power base.
I won't even go into the list of seven countries who have directly violated UN resolutions in the last 5 years (S Korea, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, US) or the countries that have executed minors in the last 25 years (Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, US) or the first-world countries that currently prisioners without trial and without recourse (uhhh US, maybe Russia, China, if they count) or should I point out that the US was the second greatest contributor to what are referred to today as "terrorist organizations", as recent
There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
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Joe Biden
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