I ask because of these recent threads:
It is now illegal to wear an anti-Bush shirt in west Virginia
Should a six pack a day drinking habit cost a person his drivers license?
Doesn’t sound like the land of the free to me.
Right. Compared to other advanced countries, the US now looks rather poorly in the Freedom Department:
*Brutal “War on Drugs”
*Arbitrary and oppressive immigration policies
*Patriot Act and other Gestapo statutes
Not the US I used to know and love.
It’s scary. Has this been going on all along and it’s just becoming obvious? Or are the “powers that be” just so arrogant they don’t even care any more.
What’s happening to “The Bill of Rights?” The first ten amendments to the US Constitution that are supposed to protect our inviolable rights?
The first amendment still has all the popular stuff - freedom of worship, freedom of expression, but we are losing freedom of speech! The so-called “Campaign Finance Reform” that was passed a few years ago prevents us from publicizing the records of candidates for Federal office within a blackout period immediately before primary and general elections. Tons of Democrats voted for this one! (I mean you’d expect it from Republicans, right?)
The second amendment is going down. As Minty Green ponted out, the majority of decisions on the interpretation of the second amendment say it doesn’t have anything to do with individual rights (even though the other nine amendments in the bill of rights have to do with individual rights). “… the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” It don’t take a lawyer to know what that means, but soon it will be the rights of the National Guard, and their weapons can’t LOOK LIKE assault weapons.
I’m not too worried about the Patriot Act, I think that will be temporary as the restrictions during WW II were… of course now they got their foot in the door… who knows. But I’m more concerned about the attacks on the freedoms guaranteed by our constitution.
I hate Bush (Hate! Hate! Hate!) and everything that his administration stands for, but I’m curious who here has actually been hurt by the Patriot Act? SOOO many people whine and complain about it, but has it affected anyone you know or you yourself in any way at all?
The only sign of it I’ve even seen in day to day life is this piece of paper posted up at the bank that says “in compliance with the USA patriot act, you may be required to disclose information” or something similar.
The government will find a way to conduct its usual trickery anyway. The fact that it now has a public face shouldn’t mean anything. The government will do as it pleases; Patriot act or no.
How would we know?
Section 213 states that the government can enter and search your home without informing you until sometime “later”; how do you know they haven’t paid you a visit already?
Section 216 allows law-enforcement officials in ordinary criminal cases to get a warrant to track which websites a person visits and collect general information about the emails a person sends and receives, without proving the need for this information.
Section 218 states that the government can carry out secret searches and covert wiretaps without showing probable cause. They could be listening to you for a year now, and you wouldn’t know it.
Again… how would we know?
I am a firm believer that the government is already doing all of this.
PF: *I’m curious who here has actually been hurt by the Patriot Act? SOOO many people whine and complain about it, but has it affected anyone you know or you yourself in any way at all? *
Take this example: I know a number of librarians who feel strongly that the PATRIOT Act’s overriding of state library laws protecting confidentiality of library records is an unwarranted intrusion on privacy. As a result, many libraries have simply changed their policies so that they no longer collect the information that they think should be kept private (the Act doesn’t require you to collect it, just to show it if you got it and they ask for it). This is a pain in the ass for the libraries in many cases and deprives them of useful data: e.g., electronic tracking of use of online resources, which helps them identify which resources are most needed.
You may think that this is no big deal to get upset over, and maybe it’s not. However, considering how many people feel themselves entitled to “whine and complain” incessantly about, say, some government spending program for adding seventeen cents to their annual federal taxes, I don’t think it’s necessarily inappropriate to make a fuss about similarly minor inconveniences due to the PATRIOT Act.
I don’t whine and complain about the Patriot Act because I’ve never been inconvenienced by it. Most of the people who do whine about it probably have never been inconvenienced by it; they have taken it up as a cause for protesting the system (and the system IS worth protesting.) But these same people rarely complain about, for example, confiscatory income tax that takes money that I earned at my job and uses it to buy textbooks for students who’d rather smoke crack in the bathrooms than go to class. I wonder why.
People should fight the whole system, not just some parts of it. The whole thing is worth destroying.
Here we go again. Let’s see how accurately rjung reported the provisions of the Patriot Act.
BZZZT. rjung’s summary suggests that the Patriot Act lets the government simply do this – simply enter and search your home without informing you until later. What it actually does is give an independent, neutral judge the chance to grant additional authority for the government to delay notification of a search warrant, ONLY IF the judge if reasonably convinced that an adverse result will occur if the search is immediately revealed. What constitutes an adverse result?
How long can the government delay? rjung says “later.” He even puts it in quotes to suggest that THAT is exactly what the law says; that a vague law allows the government to, at its whim, decide how long that might be; that the Patriot Act only says “later” and it’s all up to the government.
Actually, it’s no more than 90 days.
OK, rjung didn’t do so well with his first example. Let’s see how honest and complete he was with his second:
BZZT! Wrong again! Section 216 modifies 18 USC § 3123(a), which relates to the installation of pen and trap registers. These are devices for tracking phone numbers dialed without recording the contents of phone calls, and are used as a less-intrusive method of phone surveillance. Section 216 adds a “trap and trace” device to the list of usable devices. This device, when placed on a computer network, does indeed show websites visited, and I suppose “general information” isn’t an unfair way to describe what it collects about e-mails… not header information, but the fact of a port 25 connection from the monitored computer to the SMTP host. It does not record the contents of the destination of e-mails, though.
But “without proving the need for this information?” Really?
Wow, rjung. Why did you choose to gloss over that requirement?
Any guesses on how rjung did on this one?
Just as swimmingly as he did on the first two.
Section 218 modifies, inter alia, 50 USC § 1823, which deals with the issuance of warrants by the FISA court, a court established to provide judicial oversight when the government is investigating foreign espionage. In order to apply, Section 218 requires a finding by a neutral judge that:
Even then, there is no doing away with the requirement of “probable cause.” The information supporting the search warrant must still must meet the standards of probable cause, and still describe in detail what is t be searched and seized.
What frosts me the most about this is that this is not the first time I have spent 45 minutes crafting a post to rebut the ignorance about the provisions of the Patriot Act. What some ignorant poster can throw up in thirty seconds takes much longer to accurately debunk. In a sense, I should not complain: after all, debunking ignorance is the reason we’re all here. But when it has to be done OVER AND OVER, it does get tiresome.
In any event, there are certaubly legitimate reasons to question the scope and breadth of the Act’s changes. rjung’s efforts, above, are not examples of those legitimate reasons. Rather than accuratelty summarize the Act’s real provisions, rjung chose to post inaccurate information in an apparent effort to convince the reader of his position.
If his position is so obvious, why the need to resort to misinformation, I wonder?
- Rick
I don’t know about you, Bricker, but I don’t feel any better after your explanation. Seriously. If anything you’ve vindicated rjung to me. Lower burdens of proof, and more devious investigations… and you’re worried rjung might have implied something? Shouldn’t you be worried that a police officer was inspecting your underwear drawer without serving you a warrant?
Because that is not how we see it?
Gee, what could backfire THERE, lemme think…
Er, what a brilliant strategy. Straight back to the 19th century.
Yes, you probably do.
O_o
Hmmm. Just like the temporary income tax during the civil war?
Not that I’m complaining about income tax…
They would have left footprints in the effluvia and I haven’t seen any.
Their only other option would have been to clean up after themselves, and I would surely have noticed that.
Idea for rjung: there was a Nero Wolfe mystery in which the detective investigated (and considerably irritated) J. Edgar Hoover’s F.B.I. By ingenious use of ruses and doubles he and Archie fooled the F.B.I. into thinking they had temporarily vacated their brownstone, and when agents illegally snuck in to search/wiretap, our heroes were waiting, armed, and caught them in the act.
You could try it yourself. You’d be famous. Or dead (I suppose), but think of the notoriety.
It isn’t. But it is “freer” than England IMO. And the leftwingnuts are as fine with destroying freedom as rightwingnuts are if it is a freedom they don’t like. And even non-political types and ‘moderates’ support the destruction of many freedoms.
You don’t think the FBI have seen that one, too? 
How do you see it?
I don’t know what O_o means.
That it is not “confiscatory” and its purpose isn’t for buying books for kids who’d rather smoke crack (this part is just an extra benefit; wait until drugs are legalized and we just buy them the crack directly).
I have to take issue here; our immigration policy is far, far more liberal than most of the other advanced countries.
I agree with the others though.
I’m scratching my head over this as well. While Bricker is nitpicking over minor details like the process of getting permission before breaking into your home, he ignores the bigger question of why the feds are breaking into your home to begin with.