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'Fourth Amendment Caucus' Aims To Fight Government Surveillance (usatoday.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from USA Today: An unusual coalition of 13 Republicans and 12 Democrats on Wednesday announced the creation of the House Fourth Amendment Caucus to protect Americans' privacy rights against calls for increased government surveillance in the wake of terrorist attacks. The group named itself after the Fourth Amendment because the lawmakers fear that the government is increasingly seeking the power to search Americans' electronic data without a warrant. They see that as a threat to the Constitutional amendment's protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. "In the face of difficult circumstances, some are quick to pursue extreme, unconstitutional measures; the Fourth Amendment Caucus will be a moderating influence that gives voice to countless Americans whose rights are violated by these ill-conceived policies," said Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich), who joined the group led by Reps. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), and Ted Poe (R-Texas).
Sound and fury, like the TSA. (oh the irony)
Speak for yourself.
It's quite frustrating to see my country turn into an Orwellian nightmare. Most voters don't care, either because they don't understand the ramifications of a surveillance state, or because they fall into party lines and turn it into a petty squabble. So seeing a coalition that's equally composed of reds and blues is a very good sign I think. But we'll have to wait and see if this goes anywhere.
Lets see how that works out for them, and the American Citizens....
Donald Trump. It doesn't matter what you think. You will kneel.
Seems a bit late, but OK sure. Just make sure not to "compromise" again after what has already been a huge compromise of our civil rights that has already allowed the wholesale search of business records without constitutionally valid warrants.
So constitution be damned right?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Public records access is probably OK.
But if the TLAs are doing anything I would be arrested for, or would result in a restraining order, then they need a warrant,
but not a secret warrant.
One that I get handed and can publish.
One that my lawyer can inspect.
One that the judge in my trial can refer to.
One that will be unavoidably exposed.
First on the list should be to stop the 4th Amendment free zones
"A Republic. If you can keep it."
-- B Franklin
It seems we're nearing the end of this little experiment.
You're looking for quotes? See my journal.
is often the justification used when reality and the law strike each other head-on. There are many interpretations of the phrase but these days it's used to say that the laws cannot encompass everything that people throw at it. Which, to my mind, is chickening out. It is allowing fear to reign and decide for us the actions we take to protect ourselves from the world.
I believe that it can be agreed that all of us want to live in a safe, civil society. So we write our laws with that in mind. Not everyone agrees as to what "safe" or "civil" means and those bounds are constantly being tested, much to our greater benefit. Thus we want to protect that civility and that safety as much as possible. The problem, this tension in our current world comes from the fact that we know, with intuition and through demonstration that there is only so much we can do. Some of us sigh and accept that there will be those accidents, incidents, and attacks which cannot ever be prevented. That the cost of having a civil and safe society is one in which others, regrettably, will come to harm through no action of their own.
And then there are those who don't. Whose drive to protect has been left unchecked and has become diseased. Somewhere, somehow, these people with the best of intentions has had their perspective mutated to the point where they only see how much control they do not possess. Maybe some of these people see the opportunity to get greater wealth or personal power. Maybe they were never taught how to let go of things in life. Who knows? I certainly don't. I'm in the first group.
All of this was say that it is not against outsiders that we must protect ourselves. It it not the asylum seeker, the immigrant, nor the H1B visa holder that brings a single iota of threat to civility or safety. It is not the fear monger, the hate spewer, nor the yellow journalist. These may be pitied and reviled but never feared.
What we must do is to check our fear. We cannot help but feel it. Nature gave it to us for survival reasons and it did our ancestors well to listen. These are not those days, however, and we cannot fall back to acting as our ancestors did.
WTF. Justin Amash is one of the few members of congress whose words and action match up. He is for limited, constitutional government. He presented himself that way to his constituents and has voted that way.
And, in case it matters, he's Eastern Orthodox. (As your post seemed to imply that he was Muslim and therefore pro-violence.)
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Maybe they can officially apologize to Snowden and get him returned to the US, ideally with a ticker tape parade in his honor. If he hadn't done what he did, the mass violations of the 4th amendment would still be flying under the radar. They're still happening, but at least we are more aware of them now.
How about a Constitutional Caucus? So many politicians like to "protect" this or that amendment while wiping their asses with others. How about we respect the Constitution as a whole, including all amendments in the Bill of Rights, including the 4th, 1st, 2nd, etc that people like to either protect or shit on depending on their agenda. We need to protect them all, and if they are no longer appropriate for our society then we amend the constitution to remove them (it's been done before), not shit all over them and ignore them.
This will only go anywhere if there is no money to be made by one or more major corporations by selling surveillance equipment. If there is money to be made, you can fully expect that the appropriate Congressmen will be bribed.... excuse me, a contribution will be made to their re-election committees, and any legislation will get dropped or neutered (or actively made into the opposite of what it claims to be).
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
The Supreme Court might help with some of it -- they ruled the government needs warrants to listen in on your phone calls, even though it passes through the hands of third parties because, among other things, The People have an expectation of privacy.
As more and more of your private "papers", in 4th Amendment terms, goes online and into "cloud", the idea that it is in 3rd party hands and you thus have no expectation of privacy, needs to die finally.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You do know that the constitution can be amended? If an amendment is no longer appropriate have the states vote to amend it out. It's been done before, and if it doesn't pass a vote then it must be worth keeping. Don't just shit all over one amendment and expect others to be respected.
Make breaking the law a crime. Yeah, totally crazy, right? Except, that's how laws that don't apply to government employees work. We need to criminalize "breaking" the 4th amendment along with the rest of them. It'll only take one or two government criminals going to jail before the rest catch on.
Sadly, it really is that simple and congress could do that tomorrow.
Do you have ESP?
For those wondering who is in the 4th Amendment caucus you can find the list at the bottom here.
Not surprising my congressman John Kline is absent from this list but then he hasn't met a war or surveillance action he didn't like.
Time to offend someone
To answer your question, more than will have died by giving up their privacy.
Time to offend someone
Thanks for pointing that out. It's interesting that of the 13 members, four are from Texas.
I'm hoping this was simply an laughably over-the-top statement to make a point, but just in case...
How about "you will never be truly safe period". No matter how many rights you forfeit to your would-be masters, they will never be able to protect you from every threat, every danger, every bump in the night, every offensive word, or even every perceived slight. You might have to take some responsibility for your own safety, recognize that the world can be a dangerous place, and that some people don't mind the risk of venturing outside for fear of being struck by lighting. Living in complete fear is no way to live.
When I'm president, we're going to have a terrific Fourth Amendment. I support all of the Amendments. The First Amendment, Third, the Twenty-First. And I support all of the Chapters of all of the Amendments.
Now excuse me while I go sue another newspaper for saying bad things about me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They can start be dismantling the USA PATRIOT Act. A bad idea, always was. Tell the security services they need to play by the same rules everyone else does.
If we don't have the 1st AND the 2nd, then the 4th isn't a right, it is a privilege that can be revoked by the government at any time.
All the amendments are necessary and to varying degrees they all protect us and each other. Without the 4th amendment it would be trivial to quell free speech. Same with the 5th. Etc. They all matter. Before the 13th amendment black people were not protected by the 1st amendment and the 2nd actually worked against them. Before the 15th amendment women didn't enjoy full rights of the 1st amendment. They all matter.
The notion that the 2nd amendment is what protects your constitutional rights is a tired and idiotic argument. First, there are plenty of other thriving democracies that have far more restrictive gun control than the US. There is nothing special about the US that requires civilians to own guns to protect their rights. Guns are demonstrably not required to protect your civil rights. Furthermore the most successful civil rights movement in the US during the last century was largely a pacifist one. Guns would were mostly counter productive in securing and retaining civil rights. If you want to see what the civil rights movement in the 1960s would have looked like with lots of guns and weapons, see the Israeli/Palestine conflict. See the recent shooting in Dallas for an example of how counterproductive guns are in "protecting" your civil rights. Second, if the government decides they want to force you to do something, your little pee shooter isn't worth anything against a real army or police force. Individually it provides no meaningful protection. Collectively they are not needed - get enough people together to protest and you don't need to shoot anyone. If the society devolves into a civil war like Syria, none of the amendments will matter anymore anyway.
If you want to own a gun I'm right with you. I own firearms myself. But the only argument that makes any sense is that you own a gun because you like to own a gun. You don't need it to feed your family. You don't need it to protect your rights from the government. You aren't going to protect your family or property from real or imagined criminals. You don't need a semi-automatic or full automatic gun for any practical purpose. You own a gun because you like to shoot and/or hunt. Occasionally people need one for pest control. Nobody is going to take your gun away. Arguing against reasonable measures to keep guns out of the hands of crazy people and criminals is indefensible.
A bunch of wishful thinkers or outright liars. I'll go with the later. Liars lying about the lies they tell.
I live in SW Michigan, am a local union president, and vote mostly for Democrats - with the typical exception of Justin Amash. I have never voted against him.
Justin fought against SOPA, for privacy, and has published his rationale for every vote that he makes.
Because he stands for, and listens to his constituents, I would gladly vote for Justin Amash for President.
The US mail system already scans all packages and letters. It was several years ago this was revealed during the anthrax scares.
They don't scan them for information. They scan them to make sure there aren't explosives or chemical or biological weapons contained. Not the same thing. They are not as a routine mater opening your sealed letter or package to examine the contents.
It seems we're nearing the end of this little experiment.
The "experiment" barely ran three years
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How many people have to die before you give up your outdated sense of privacy? When they wrote the fourth amendment, the framers did not foresee a future where we would be constantly under threat of non-state actors wishing to do us harm. From Muslim extremists to Lone Wolf right wing gunmen, we will never be truly safe. Full stop.
FTFY
We cannot abandon one natural right and expect to keep the others.
Wait, so you're saying we should jettison the entire Constitution? I'm confused. Are you being sarcastic?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Yes, they do. They scan and log the addresses.
Sigh... (facepalm) Let me repeat myself. They are not as a routine matter opening your sealed letter or package. What part of that didn't you understand?
Are you seriously complaining that they read the address on the outside of the box or envelope so that they can deliver your package? Seriously?
They did not foresee a future where we would be under constant threat of non-state actors wishing to do us harm. So all those Native tribes that frequently raided outlying villages and farms didn't exist. They didn't face down the Barbary pirates just years after the Nation was established. Technology has changed, the world has not.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Not sure if that post is more stupid, or more desperate.
Just post instead what shitty little things you're thinking of that you've done that makes you hate yourself. That actually offers a possible useful path to improvement.
They were gonna go with " Justice League " but the name was already taken :D
Go fuck yourself, you goddamn fascist coward!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I may got modded to the depths of hell for speaking my mind on this, but privacy is only an idyllic fantasy that we might like to obtain, and we ultimately only have as much privacy as we have the lawful means to prevent those who might otherwise intrude upon it from doing so. We may at best respect another persons privacy under the expectation that they would reciprocate, but such an agreement is an informal and unspoken arrangement, and quite far removed from anything resembling an inalienable right. That one may happen to dislike having their privacy intruded upon should not offer them any assurance that the privacy they might otherwise enjoy is not actually ephemeral
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Are you seriously so obtuse that you couldn't see the conjunctive clause?
Someone complains about the right side of a conjunctive clause so you defend the left side?
That log of who exchanged mail with whom is kept for years and searchable without warrants. Consider whether you'd have the same reaction if your ISP kept a log of every IP address to which you've connected in the last 10 years and any branch of the federal government was allowed to search it at-will and without judicial oversight.
Obviously you're not paying attention to the American scene, or you're a shill. Which is it?
Sigh. Did you miss the "log" part of my statement? The USPS has no need to log addresses as part of the delivery process.
Actually they do need to do that, at least for a portion of the delivery process. They need to be able to route and track the stuff they are delivering. You cannot do that without logging it somewhere along the way. They don't necessarily have to keep the logs except for purposes of providing proof of delivery where requested but there is no practical way to run a delivery system that size without some amount of data logging. If you think otherwise you don't adequately understand the logistics involved.
To use your own silly analogy: Are you seriously unaware that the government now has the capability to look at the address on the outside of the package, then match it up with data concerning what you've bought recently that would fit in the package, where and when you mailed it, and the religion, sexual orientation and profession of the addressee?
I think your tinfoil hat is on a little too tight. Who do you think is actually doing this? Even if They (ooh, spooky) were somehow putting all this together in real time (which they aren't) does the phrase "needle in a haystack" mean anything to you?
Yeah the government overreaches sometimes (see the NSA) but that doesn't mean we need to get needlessly paranoid.
You haven't yet grasped that this is a bit of a game-changer? Seriously?
It's adorable that you think this is something new. They've always been able to do this when the need arose. It's just theoretically less labor intensive than it used to be to gather some of it. Nothing new here at all. All they would have to do is subpoena Amazon and/or UPS and pull my tax, census or other public records. Not exactly rocket surgery.
Obviously you can't perceive, or accurately render, reality. Which is it?
No Southern Baptist has said this. Not one. Even if one had, it advances whatever your supposed anti-theistic point is, none whatsoever. Back to your make believe troll-land, and your shitty little personal insecurities.
Someone's been drinking the libertarian Kool-Aid.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
It is EXTREMELY important not to minimalize the Amendments. At some point, we began to make concessions in the 1st, 3rd, and 4th Amendments, weakening the entire document and eroding our rights. The 1st was attacked by politically correct morons, the 2nd was attacked by history-illiterate liberals, and the 4th was attacked by overbearing conservatives. Even if you disagree with the provisions, WE HAVE THE POWER TO CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION via amendments. Until such things are passed, the Constitution and Bill of Rights should be heralded as the Ultimate Law of the Land, or we'll continue to have our rights eroded away!
What in the world?! A congressional representative that acts the way the founding fathers intended them to? Did he have to conceal his master plot by bending to wealthy controlling interests and making irrational, sweeping legislation so the rest of them would let him join only to reveal himself to be an upstanding representative that reflects the interest of his constituents?! Dang..
You forget, only the 2nd amendment is sacrosanct.
Riiiiight. A politician will do something to Restore compliance with the 4th.
I would say that We The People have never seen this in the last 50 years, so we need to assume this is complete b.s.
Notice since 1960 how We The People have lost things, but Never got them back?
The problem is that this is likely to be a one-off response. If we started seeing a mass killing of police every time some unarmed citizen is offed by an officer, you would actually see some action. As it is right now, it's not enough of a problem for politicians to want to take on the police unions.
I utterly fail to comprehend why the police unions are not FOR strong gun control. They would benefit from it more directly than any other group in the country. Countries that don't allow guns enables cops to not have to carry guns. It makes them safer in a real, tangible and measurable way and yet instead we are militarizing the police force and escalating the violence even against unarmed people. I get why it is politically difficult but I don't get why police aren't leading the charge for gun control.
The fact that black people were barred from owning firearms is one of the reasons the 13th amendment was passed.
We didn't end slavery to make sure that black people could carry guns. We ended it because it was a reprehensible practice and we fought a real shooting civil war over it. NOBODY at the time was standing around saying "we need to make sure black people can own guns". If anything people back then were generally terrified of the concept of armed black people.
Yeah, look at what a wonderful police state the rest of the world is turning into.
If you think we actually live in a police state you have NO idea what a real police state is or what it is like to live in one. Come back and argue when you have some real perspective and life experience.
The rest of your post is preposterous, gun lobby nonsense so I'll stop here.
I agree with you, but I also believe we can't just ignore the constitution
Never argued otherwise. But we can amend the Constitution and we can clarify what the second amendment means to be different from what it has meant in the past. All it would take is for the Supreme Court to make a ruling. Jim Crow laws used to be held as Constitutional - until they weren't. The Constitution once said that women couldn't vote, that slavery was legal and that alcohol was banned. Society has evolved since then and our gun laws should be no exception to that. How many people have to die needlessly before we start trying to find ways to make our society less violent?
They're pretty late to the party. The fourth amendment has obviously been a "it's just a piece of paper" issue to legislators and the legislation they create since the patriot act was squeezed out of the ass of congress. The rest of the bill of rights hasn't fared much better (3rd amendment excepted.) Lots of other unconstitutional legislation currently in play as well — eminent domain, commerce clause, ex post facto laws, etc. Perhaps I'm just too cynical because of where we are today, but it seems extremely unlikely to me that congress, with or without this... caucus... will get anything done that slows or stops the ongoing government extra-constitutional behaviors.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
"the framers did not foresee a future where we would be constantly under threat of non-state actors wishing to do us harm"
Exactly how much liberty has to be given up to stop all terrorism? (since you're playing stupid absolutist games). Can you stop threats from occurring if you give up every single liberty we have? The answer is no. If you worked with any of the departments protecting us from evil, you would know the best anyone can do is make their presence known and hope that it makes it easier for them to go elsewhere.
If gun restrictions were passed, it is quite likely we would see gun restrictions eventually placed against off-duty law enforcement working security details. Or maybe even off-duty in general.
If America didn't have such prevalent gun ownership the cops wouldn't need to carry all the time. If the cops didn't need to carry all the time there would be more scrutiny of their own paramilitary equipment ownership (Hint: cops are allowed to own a lot of things civilians either are not allowed to, or can only get through dealer licensing.)
Justin fought against SOPA, for privacy, and has published his rationale for every vote that he makes.
Publishing his rationale for every vote is awesome. I looked on his web site, though, and it appears that he only publishes them on Facebook. That probably works well for many, but it makes it hard to search and isn't nearly as nice as if he'd just put the same information on his web site. Kudos to him for explaining his votes, though.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
First, we have the far right that wants to give the feds TOTAL ACCESS TO EVERYTHING THAT WE HAVE, all without a warrent.
Yeah, they claim otherwise, but the fact is, that the far right did the push for the PAT act, and continue to do so today. In addition, they are the ones that removed the hard core oversight of the NSA under W, that allowed them to run amok.
Then we have the far left. They want to deny EVERYTHING to the gov. However, they ignore the fact that their job is to protect America, and have more enemies today than ever before. Of course, when we are attacked, they can not wrap themselves tightly enough in the same flag as the far right.
What is needed is a SANE approach to this. : 1) they should have access to the same clear text data that our enemies have. It makes little sense that China, North Korea, Iran, AQ, and even ISIS can go to a web site and pull up data and make use of it, while we require our own intelligence world to get a warrant. That is INSANE.
2) if clear-text data is sent over open protocols, or easily broken protocols, then again, our intel world should have unwarranted access.
3) if a site is crackable, and they have data such as clear text email, then it WILL be easily accessible to China, etc. Again, it is insane that we would deny our intel world access to same.
4) OTOH, if data is encrypted that indicates that security IS an issue. For example, if I send email and it is encrypted and I send it over smtps so that it is sent double encrypted, that means that security is important that China, et. al, would have difficulty getting to it. At that point, it makes sense for a warrant to be required to decrypt the data.
Now, the above should ONLY be for NSA and chasing terrorists. If it is the FBI, or it is going after drugs, or simple murder, etc. then it should be quite limited in scope.
They obviously should have #1. It is no different than spotting a body in a car. The police can go ahead and use it as evidence.
If web stuff or email, etc is all sent clear text, then it should be considered open to the FBI, police, etc.
Again, this is no different than having something in the back of truck. If you can see it without having to decrypt, etc, then it should be fair game.
So, where does it stop? The FBI/Police should not have the right to crack a system without a warrant. They should also not have the right to grab data off the wire that is encrypted and decrypt it.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The U.S. Constitution is not subject to Congress or the President or the Courts or the States or any other entity other than a Constitutional Convention. We will actively inhibit any so called authority or law that attempts to control or restrict Constitutional rights in any way.
The devil-worshiping homosexuals are "Progressives", not communists, thank you very much.
This is just playing both sides of the field. Were it not, they would be too scared of the CIA to peep.
Pussy ass politicians you die too.
When they wrote the fourth amendment, the framers did not foresee a future where we would be constantly under threat of non-state actors wishing to do us harm
Are you kidding? What do you think Barbary pirates were all about? What do you think the public thought of American Indians? The CotUS is designed to address such matters; the problem is that isn't not ideally designed for your future fascist state. And its not their fault that you don't commit genocides like they did back then. And all the amendments in the CotUS was designed to address fascists like you, who want to feel free to subvert any amendment upon pretext.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
Yeah, maybe somebody has... what about it? There are some good bits in libertarians, republicans, and democrats. Even our Mr. T can hit a nail every now and then. So what? The feds have been banging heads, sometimes where needed, many times in excess (Aliens and Sedition Act only a few years later), since the beginning. Maybe if you rephrased the post, the message, if there really is one, wouldn't be lost.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
what about it?
I find libertarians and their delusions extremely funny.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Some of them are. Same goes for democrats and republicans. You all are a barrel of laughs.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
From Muslim extremists to Lone Wolf right wing gunmen, we will never be truly safe PERIOD/QUOTE
FTFY, there is no such thing as complete safety. The question is how much freedom you're willing to give up in order to get an incremental increase in safety. Personally I think the citizens of this country need to man up and accept that there will be a certain amount of bad things happening and to not allow our fear to drive us to reductions in freedom that play right into the hands of many of the people planning those bad things.
Screwed up the quoting, here's how it should have looked:
From Muslim extremists to Lone Wolf right wing gunmen, we will never be truly safe PERIOD
FTFY, there is no such thing as complete safety. The question is how much freedom you're willing to give up in order to get an incremental increase in safety. Personally I think the citizens of this country need to man up and accept that there will be a certain amount of bad things happening and to not allow our fear to drive us to reductions in freedom that play right into the hands of many of the people planning those bad things.
So, you're shilling for the Baptists then. How many black people have you lynched? When dragging them behind your pickup, do you use rope, or chain? Give me some stats. Do light skinned blacks live longer? Do dark skinned blacks taste better? Got any recipes? See, we know your kind, and it ain't purty! You know what I'm sayin' man? You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down? Well, you should, we're trying to keep America beautiful, and white.
Hillary Clinton is so bought-and-payed-for by Wall St investment bankers that even the Republicans who are bought-and-paid-for like the Bush family are on her side in this fight. There is NOTHING in DC that she will"shake up". One of Hillary's biggest bases of political support is the SEIU - the labor union that represents all the career government workers who can never get fired for bad behavior because of the cushy rules their unions have "negotiated" with the politicians they got elected using campaing cash from union member paychecks protected by those very politicians (sound circular to even YOU?)
Trump on the other hand certainly WOULD shake things up which is why the entrenched interests in BOTH parties are freaked out by him.
Image a President from the Private Sector (something that has not happened in the lifetimes of most Americans) who actually is used to the idea that his employees need to be productive and the tasks they are doing have to be useful...
THAT is all the reason bureaucrats and politicians need to be terrified.
I've been around for a long time, and this is the first truly insider/outsider and status quo vs change election in the US since 1980 when establishment Republicans fought like hell to keep Reagan from winning the GOP nomination and he then put a Bush on the ticket to mend the party before the Novemebr contest. Reagan was an excellent change agent, but unfortunately the American people did so well under him that they tried to get a 3rd Reagan term by electing his veep (who they'd largely forgotten had been a Reagan opponent and "establishment" Republican). Once in office, Bush outed himself as a typical globalist-and-bankers Republican and he could not get reelected. The last time the Democrats offered such bold change was NOT Obama (who was more in bed with Wall St than any candidate in this planet's history, prior to this Hillary run) but was in fact JFK when he ran in 1960 against then-VP Nixon. Trump is NOT Reagan and he is NOT Kennedy. He is Trump, both for good and for ill, as with any human being, but one thing is for sure: This is one of those rare election cycles when the American people truly CAN shake the system and send all the corrupt politicians running and screaming in fear.
I, for one, am already enjoying the popcorn as life-long politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) are freaking-out all over the place. The Bushes and the Romneys, the Clintons, etc are all bug-eyed. All the corruptocrats who have been gradually mixing big-government and big business into ACTUAL fascism/national socialism (complete with police-state-style spying on citizens, and government policies aligned with skin colors) are pointing at Trump and screaming "FASCIST", which just DRIPS with irony (particularly when HE was the guy who broke-up the back-room deals in the rich florida golf clubs that had kept Jews and blacks out). Even the old dingbat Ruth Buzzy Ginsberg could not let ethics contain her.... the only thing that would have made THAT meltdown funnier would have been if Trump had offered to fly her to New Zealand on Trump Force One... (note for the stupid: she's another one of those idiots who thinks so highly of themselves that they think they can get the public to vote the way they want by threatening to remove themselves from our presence if we vote the "wrong" way, and her destination was New Zealand).
The "far right" oppose all this crap, which is why John McCain called these people in his own party "whacko birds" when they opposed all this junk and at one point said he'd be more comfortable with Hillary in the White House than with the right wingers from his own party. Hillary's perfectly fine with spying on everybody else while she deletes all her own stuff to keep others from seeing it.
Remember: in the 1990s Bill and Hillary hired a bar bouncer, gave him White House credentials, sent him over to the FBI to get the FBI raw background files on all the Republicans in DC, then fired him and claimed they did not know how he ever got on the White House payroll (but they kept the FBI records).
The Clintons are HUGE fans of spying, and they have been spying, lying, and hiding stuff for 30+ years.
Police Unions do tend to favour gun control.
Not that I can tell. They frankly are pretty quiet about it for the most part. Sometimes they get involved but it's the exception. They should be on the front lines of that debate but you almost never hear police talking about it publicly. They should be voting and funding the most anti-gun political candidates possible if but they don't. Makes little sense.
Note that Chicago has some of the strongest gun control laws in the country, and a rather higher than average murder & crime rate.
A single locality having strong gun control accomplishes little if the surrounding areas don't share that philosophy. Particularly in a large city with a bad gang problem. Strengthen gun control in the rest of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin and go clean up the gang problem and see what happens.
For that matter, seems to me Rwanda did the gun control thing just before they did the "massacre those other guys" thing....
Are you really worried about getting massacred in the US and if so by whom? If you are I'd suggest moving to a safer country. Sounds like a straw man to me.
Personally, I'm in favour of strict gun control laws. For the police. They don't need to carry a handgun, a shotgun & an assault rifle
Neither do you. The only thing you are going to accomplish by carrying a gun is to increase the likelihood of getting shot yourself. Let's say you were in Dallas during the recent tragedy and you were carrying a piece. How exactly are the police to supposed tell you apart from the bad guys? Guess what? They can't. And given how twitchy they've become lately you're probably going to get shot.
When the cops disarm, I'll think about it. Probably won't get rid of my guns, but I'll at least think about it....
So you prefer to have a Mexican standoff with the police that you cannot possibly hope to win. Good luck with that. Let me know where to send the flowers.