Your location is all-telling.
Uh-huh.
Nice try.
Yeah, lonesome! You’re not going to get Isky to admit that he HAS thoughts that easily…
And in any event, he has his tinfoil helmet on so you can’t steal them. :: points accusingly ::
Sure it scares me. So does the Patriot Act, secret searches without warrants, secret lockups without trials, all of it. I like mswas’ attitude, but I doubt I’d have the nerve to tell an FBI guy to fuck off. I’d sure make a lot of copies of their “letter” for CYA/revenge purposes though, and they’d be widely circulated among ACLU lawyers, and my government attorneys/associates/cronies. Always keep a CYA Pearl Harbor file.
There really are terrorists. They really are trying to kill us.
I suppose that when the Titanic was sinking there were some who complained about the quality of the Waiters’ service.
I beleive in civil liberties, all of them. I just place them on a graduated scale. I am happy to compromise some of the niceties like privacy a little bit so the important ones (like not getting blown up) are preserved.
I beleive we are at war. I don’t think it’s a game, or hyperbole for political purposes. I think it’s real.
Terrorist sympathizing putz :wally !
Eminent Domain abuses does not fight Terrorism. The eroding of the Fair use rights does not fight Terrorism. Could we stop these at least.
Jim
Yes, of course.
Ben is my favorite American but he probably did not say this great and true quote.
Please see: Benjamin Franklin - Wikiquote
It was such a wise statement, people just assumed it must have been Ben’s. 
This does not make the quote any less true or valid. It was one of the founding principles of this country.
Jim
[sarcasm]Wow, REALLY? I never would have guessed![/sarcasm]
Of course, there are terrorists and there people like Murat Kurnaz. Who, according to the preponderance of evidence which was apparently declassified by accident, has no ties to terrorism whatsoever. But of course he’s still stuck in Guantanamo Bay because his Combat Status Review Tribunal declared him an enemy combatant based apparently on nothing more than unsubstantiated claims on a single unsupported memo by an unidentified government official.
Oh, and Senator Lindsey Graham and 47 other U.S. Senators just did an end-run around Rasul v. Bush by passing an amendment to the defense appropriations bill, stripping federal courts of the jurisdiction to hear habeus corpus petitions of Guantanamo detainees. If this amendment becomes law Mr. Kurnaz will have no further legal recourses and will be entirely at the mercy of the U.S. government apparatus which has already proven itself remarkably resistant to exculpatory evidence in his favor since 2002.
[sarcasm]But you just keep patting us on the head, Scylla, and telling us to trust the government to look after us without any oversight whatsoever. I’m sure that’ll work out juuuust fine. [/sarcasm]
Actually, allow me to amend my statement somewhat in the name of accuracy. Mr. Kurnaz is one of the few Guantanamo detainees to have had a day in federal court. It was apparently there that the officers in charge of his tribunal claimed to have classified evidence of his guilt, which later turned out to be minimal to say the least. Now Sen. Graham and other senators have decided that those Guantanamo detainees who haven’t seen a courtroom yet should be left entirely at the mercy of the CSRT system which worked so well for Mr. Kurnaz.
But, hey, there’s a war on, as Scylla so helpfully points out. Trust the government to take care of you, they’ll do a bang-up job.
Did you read that article in Business Week? The FBI isn’t using these letters to target suspected terrorists, they’re casting fucking drift nets on the water, and seeing if any tuna get caught, along with everything else in the sea.
The damned records can kept permanently, and to what end?
I seem to recall a bit of an outcry a few years back when the NICS background check records of gun purchasers were kept for 90 days or so:
That record keeping was a terrible burden on our freedoms. Now they sweep up a million or so who just happen to be in Las Vegas at the wrong time, and create permanent records on them, and it’s not a problem? How the hell does that logic work?
Please post a link to the declaration of war, passed in Congress, so I can believe it, too.
Oh I’m sorry, my bad. I guess it’s not actually a “war” until it is officially declared by Congress. How clever of you to point that out. You’re very smart.
CHOKEONATURDLEFTWINGCUTESYSEMANTICBITCH!!!
You were dismissing an entire major issue with one broad stroke that sounds like a line from a responsible worker in a police state.
Once you surrender a liberty it is hard to get them back. Ours have been eroding very rapidly in the last few years.
Does this make sense as a concern?
Jim
But 9/11 changed everything! I believe that’s the stock answer to all questions now. Besides, anyone who doesn’t bend over and spread their cheeks for Big Gubmint is a terror lovin’ traitor.
My opinion is those that really love the USA are the ones most willing to make trouble to preserve it. I willingly serve in the fight against Communist Dictatorships that once threatened the world. (Just showing my Right Wing Creds).
I now wish to fight against the oppressors from within that endeavor to strip from us our long held and cherished liberties. To Bush, Cheney and their cronies I say give us back our beloved country. We were the good guys, now I am not so sure.
Jim
You used to be reasonable and funny. What happened to make you a Bush-lickin’ wanker, anyway?