Posted on 11/10/2003 2:34:53 PM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Former Vice President Al Gore says the Bush White House is using the Sept. 11 terror attacks to justify a major offensive against the freedoms and liberties Americans have enjoyed for centuries. "They have taken us much farther down the road toward an intrusive, 'big brother'-style government – toward the dangers prophesied by George Orwell in his book '1984' – than anyone ever thought would be possible in the United States of America," Gore charged in a speech. Gore, who lost the disputed 2000 presidential election to President Bush, brought many in the crowd of 3,000 to their feet Sunday when he called for a repeal of the Patriot Act, which expanded government's surveillance and detention power, allowing authorities to monitor the books citizens read and conduct secret searches. He said terrorism-fighting tools granted after Sept. 11, 2001, amount to a partisan power grab that has led to the erosion of the civil liberties of all Americans. The Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, said Monday that while he's not ready to support repealing the Patriot Act, he is skeptical of the way it's been used by the White House and said there is "a lot of concern about the assault on civil liberties." The Bush administration, he said on the NBC "Today" program, "created this campaign to bolster their standing in the polls, to bolster their political support around the country. They used these devices, to a certain extent, to intimidate people, to recognize that perhaps using this as a vehicle was a way to enhance their own standing." Gore chided the administration for what he said was its "implicit assumption" that Americans must give up traditional freedoms in order to be safe from terrorists. "In my opinion, it makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden," Gore said. In both cases, Gore said, the administration has "recklessly put our country in grave and unnecessary danger." He also said the administration still has "no serious strategy" for domestic security – charging that there aren't sufficient protections in place for ports, nuclear facilities, chemical plants and other key infrastructure. His speech was sponsored by the liberal activist group Moveon.org, which earlier this year held an online presidential primary in which Howard Dean finished first. The second sponsor, the American Constitution Society, is a national organization of law students, professors, lawyers and others that says it seeks to counter what it characterizes as the dominant, narrow conservative vision of American law today. The Patriot Act was passed overwhelmingly by Congress, but has been under attack by liberals and many conservatives who say the law intrudes too much into Americans' lives in the name of fighting terror. Democrats have been trying to build support in the Senate to rolling back portions of the law and some Republicans say it needs to be changed. "The Patriot Act crossed the line on several key areas of civil liberties," Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee said last month. Changes must be made to the law if it is to be renewed in 2005, agreed GOP Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, another member of the Judiciary Committee.
Who is this Gore character???
1. Arafat has already stayed in the Lincoln Bedroom....twice.
2. Helen Thomas is giving daily briefings - telling the rest of the presscorp to "shut up" every 5 minutes.
3. Saddam is still murdering, raping, and maiming his countrymen & women.
4. France lands contract to dig mass graves throughout Iraq.
5. Taliban rules Afghanistan and has a seat on the U.N. Security Council. >br> 6. President Gore has Usama Bin Laden to Camp David a second time to try to negotiate a non-agression pact with Al-Q.
7. The 500 terror suspects Ashcroft has deported under the Patriot Act are still in the country.
8. There are no Gitmo enemy combatants because that would not be politically correct.
9. President Gore has quarterly "town hall meetings" to discuss how we can better understand radical Islam and why they hate us.
10. Iran tested their first nuke 6 months ago.
11. Kim Il is receiving 8th shipment of American food surplus in trade for President Gore agreeing not bringing Tipper to NK for a visit.
12. We no longer have a Space Needle in Seattle, a clean water supply in Nevada, and the Sears Tower is closed for massive repairs.
They mean MoveOn.org formerly linked on the FRONT PAGE of the communist party website. Why do the dems have so much to do with moveon.org?
Al Gore had them sponser and pack attendence @ 2 speeches, donations to the Texas dems to runaway to NM and rallies after their return.
8 years of Clinton-Gore, along with the most unconstitutional Executive Orders ever issued, have dramatically lowered my threshold for disbelief of what would be possible in the United States of America. Imagine what this nation would look like with another 8 years of Queen Hillary and unelected co-president Bill Clinton...
Morondotorg began as the Clinton Cronies behind "Censure and Move On". Seems like they never did "succeed" in getting Congress to "censure" Bill Clinton over perjury. They sure did "move on" to other things after Bill Clinton was safe from impeachment.
Linda Vester hinted about this on her show today, but she chickened out and did not use the C word. She led up to it with, "You'll never guess who sponsored Al Gore's speech," and then she asked some audience members to guess. She said that Move On calls themselves progressives, and she kind of played around with that word a bit, but she didn't go in for the kill and make the connection between Move On and the Communist Party.
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