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If the Patriot Act is Soooo Bad... (Vanity)

Posted on 12/17/2005 1:20:58 PM PST by Uncle Vlad

Okay, everyone, I have a question about the Patriot Act: if it's so horrible, if it's such a threat to our liberties, where are all the stories about people who have had their civil liberties so egregiously violated? I haven't seen a single story. Even the New York Times hasn't been able to make up a single story about it. Can somebody help me out here?


TOPICS:
KEYWORDS: act; cia; fbi; moneylaundering; nationalsecurity; patriot; patriotact; smuggling; whitecollarcrime
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1 posted on 12/17/2005 1:20:59 PM PST by Uncle Vlad
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To: Uncle Vlad
But if you ask the DUmmies, I bet you would get many claims about being "watched" or having to live under the scrutiny of the government.

I haven't read one verifiable story about a person being wrongly imprisoned, tortured, or anything else due to the Patriot Act.

2 posted on 12/17/2005 1:23:48 PM PST by SaveTheChief (Merry Christmas)
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To: Uncle Vlad
where are all the stories about people who have had their civil liberties so egregiously violated? I haven't seen a single story.

All of the violated people are in secret, locked dark rooms with panties on their heads.

3 posted on 12/17/2005 1:24:18 PM PST by Stentor
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To: Uncle Vlad
where are all the stories about people who have had their civil liberties so egregiously violated?

The victims are all being detained without trial. </sarc>

4 posted on 12/17/2005 1:24:55 PM PST by TheGhostOfTomPaine
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To: Stentor

You mean my rights are being violated... I thought I had the panties on my head for the heck of it... :)


5 posted on 12/17/2005 1:25:44 PM PST by Americanwolf (Support the Minutemen Civil Defense Corp...Doing the Job our government won't !)
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To: Uncle Vlad

Oh yeah it's terrible. Guards actually asked people for ID before they entered a federal facility in Colorado.


6 posted on 12/17/2005 1:26:02 PM PST by RGSpincich
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To: Uncle Vlad

What I can't figure out is why it's such a big deal to the White House to make the Patriot Act permanent. It's not as if the provisions are any weaker if there's a sunset clause.


7 posted on 12/17/2005 1:26:34 PM PST by AntiGuv (™)
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To: Uncle Vlad
Nope. Not me. I've never heard anything about an abuse of the Patriot Act.

Good insight and thanks for the post. The NYT would be all over something like this if there were an abuse. If they don't have anything it's probably because there is nothing there.

8 posted on 12/17/2005 1:28:03 PM PST by manwiththehands ("Merry Christmas .... and Happy New Year ... you can take your seat now ...")
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To: Uncle Vlad

You won't read stories because the media doesn't want Americans to know about the Democrat-AlQueda connection and the secret appeasement negotiations proffered by the Democrats. It is rumored that Russ Feingold has offered Bin Laden unlimited free cheese if he doesn't attack Milwaukee.


9 posted on 12/17/2005 1:32:36 PM PST by RTINSC (Being Offended is the Natural Consequence of Leaving Your Home...)
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To: SaveTheChief

The DUmmies NEED to believe they are being monitored as enemies of the state. It reinforces their Drama Queen view of themselves, and keeps them from the awful realization that in actuality no one anywhere really gives a $#%& about them.


10 posted on 12/17/2005 1:32:43 PM PST by JennysCool (Non-Y2K-Compliant)
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To: Uncle Vlad
Have you made a cash deposit of over $1,000 to your bank account since 9/11? Chances are the Patriot Act has caused the bank to fill out a form if they are the least suspicious of where you got the money.

I deposited $1600 once, and the clerk casually asked what the source of the funds were. I told her that it was slot machine winnings at a local casino. She said congratulations etc. They never ask if it is a check or a funds transfer.

A friend paid cash for some furniture he bought, and the salesman had to ask the same question, "What is the source of this money". HMMMMMM

IMHO, it isn't anybodies business where I get $1100. Of course, they will say they are making sure drug money doesn't get into the system.

Do a goggle search using the term "patriot act abuses" and you will find a lot of articles out of the MSM on abuses. Most, of course, are liberal slanted, but some are true.

Who would complain a little old lady got her money back from a con artist that had provisions of the Patriot Act used against him?

Remember, little by little, they are taking away your personal liberties.

It is like the salami that bit by bit, a little at a time, they take a small piece of your salami. Not enough to fight over, but in the end, all you will wind up with is the string.
11 posted on 12/17/2005 1:52:35 PM PST by Lokibob (Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
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To: Uncle Vlad

"...where are all the stories about people who have had their civil liberties so egregiously violated?"

Don't give the liberals any encouragement. They will make up stories the same way they did with Sen. McCarthy...as a well known conservative writer so accurately states regarding the horrors of McCarthyism "One would think you couldn't walk down the street in the 50's without the body of some poor, maligned innocent victim of McCarthyism throwing themselves off the top of a building and landing on top of you..."


12 posted on 12/17/2005 1:52:41 PM PST by rlmorel ("Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does." Whittaker Chambers)
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To: Lokibob
Have you made a cash deposit of over $1,000 to your bank account since 9/11? Chances are the Patriot Act has caused the bank to fill out a form if they are the least suspicious of where you got the money.

Are you sure that's not the "Know Your Customer" law, which has been around for some time already? I know that when you make a cash deposit that exceeds a certain amount, they do start a lot of unnecessary prying. I'm not sure that's part of the Patriot Act. If it is part of the Patriot Act, that part of it needs to go, and they need to get rid of the "Know Your Customer" law, if that is in fact, still in effect.

13 posted on 12/17/2005 6:42:04 PM PST by Uncle Vlad
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To: Uncle Vlad
 
"Know Your Customer" established the rules that the Patriot Act now follows with one exception; "know your customer" had a $10,000 front porch, while today, it seems to be $1,000.
 
As I said, they take little by little, and we will be left holding the string.  I have nothing to hide, but I resent  the government treating me as a criminal.
 
Here is a interesting transcript concerning Know your Customer: 
 
 


"Know Your Customer" as Incoherent Privacy Policy

Testimony of
Solveig Singleton, Lawyer, The Cato Institute

before the

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law

Oversight Hearing, "The 'Know Your Customer' Rules: Privacy in the Hands
of Federal Regulators,"

March 4, 1999.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Solveig Singleton and I am a lawyer at the Cato Institute. In keeping with the truth in testimony rules, I first note that the Cato Institute does not receive any money at all from the federal government, nor has it in the past.

Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the FDIC’s proposed “Know Your Customer” regulations. The goal of my testimony today is to examine where the “Know Your Customer” proposal fits in the “Big Picture” of this administration’s privacy policy. The FDIC's "Know Your Customer" proposal is inconsistent with declarations made by the FTC, the Commerce Department, and by Vice President Al Gore on American's privacy rights.

Government-supported programs like "Know Your Customer" pose a unique threat to human rights, because government alone has the power or arrest and prosecution, and to demand asset forfeitures.

The "Know Your Customer" proposal fosters mistrust and resentment of government, particularly among immigrants and minority groups.

The proposal sidesteps the Fourth Amendment.

“Know Your Customer” will not make our streets or banks safer.

"Know Your Customer" eerily recalls Communist China, where neighborhood committees of retired communist party members reported on their neighbors.

Abuses of information collected by government in the past show that that government will not observe safeguards intended to prevent the abuse of the power to collect information.

The Administration's Stance on Privacy

Since electronic commerce began to put on a growth spurt, headed for ungainly adolescence, various agencies and individuals in the executive branch and in various agencies have offered up many pronouncements on privacy. These announcements are entirely inconsistent with the "Know Your Customer" policies developed by the FDIC, as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

Since 1996, the FTC has initiated a large number of workshops, reports, and proceedings on the importance of privacy. These have been directed at the private sector businesses that collect information from customers for marketing purposes. The FDIC's proposal to have banks monitor their customer's transactions and create profiles of "normal" banking patterns, though, suggests that the FTC should turn its scrutiny from the private sector to government. The banks will not use the information they collect to develop new services, cut costs, or to contact customers with information about new products. Rather, the banks would provide information to regulators who possess powers of arrest and to bring citizens to trial or to seize assets in forfeiture proceedings--powers the private sector lacks.

In privacy proceedings, the FTC and the Commerce Department have each emphasized that their view of privacy includes giving consumers a choice about privacy. The FTC explains that "choice means giving consumers options as to how any personal information collected from them may be used." The FDIC's "know your customer" proposal, however, would give customers no escape from surveillance. This top-down regulatory mandate would impact all FDIC-insured banks.

In 1998, Vice President Al Gore has proposed, with great fanfare, an Electronic Bill of Rights. In discussing privacy, he said:

Privacy is a basic American value - in the Information Age, and in every age. And it must be protected. We need an electronic bill of rights for this electronic age. You should have the right to choose whether your personal information is disclosed; you should have the right to know how, when, and how much of that information is being used; and you should have the right to see it yourself, to know if it's accurate.

Why should government, with its unique law enforcement powers, be permitted to disregard "basic" privacy principles? In targeting the uses of information in the private sector and allowing government-sponsored information gathering to grow, this administration has turned the privacy problem upside down.

The FDIC’s Proposed Know Your Customer Rule

The proposed "Know Your Customer" rule represents regulators' attempts to discover where U.S. citizens get their money and whether the citizens' banking activities are "normal."

The "Know Your Customer" proposal fosters mistrust and resentment of government.

The FDIC has already received thousands of comments from people outraged at this prospect. People know the difference between being treated as a citizen and being treated as a suspect. Imagine the anger and fear that recent immigrants, African Americans and Hispanics will feel, knowing their banks are recording information about their jobs and patterns of withdrawals and deposits.

The proposal sidesteps the Fourth Amendment.

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects our privacy from government intrusions. If the police suspect a U.S. citizen of a crime, they would need a warrant to legally see his or her private papers. The “Know Your Customer” proposal forces banks to become agents of the police, spying and reporting on their own customers—without ever obtaining a warrant. It’s an end run around our constitutional rights of privacy. Unless and until the police have probable cause to suspect someone of a crime, where he gets his money is none of the government's business.

“Know Your Customer” will not make us safer.

The FDIC argues that the new rules are somehow needed to ensure the “safety” and “reputation” of the banking system. But banks—Swiss banks in particular—have managed to respect their customers’ privacy for decades without endangering the “safety” of the banking system.

With the "Know Your Customer" proposal, the government would sacrifice the rights of all to catch a tiny number of alleged wrongdoers. Of the 7,300 defendants charged with money laundering from 1987 and 1995, only 580 were convicted, in almost all cases the “small fry.” Money laundering is essentially a paperwork offense, the crime of trying to conceal the proceeds of a crime. Historically, it was not a crime at all. Money laundering convictions are obtained at enormous taxpayer expense, and the streets are no safer because of them. Only a desk-bound view of law enforcement would see more surveillance to catch money laundering as a meaningful way to protect the rights of crime victims.

"Know Your Customer" or "Know Your Comrade?"

Under the proposed rule the banking system would act like a network of police spies—not unlike the neighborhood committees of retired party members in communist China (known as a “a bridge between the government and the masses”). Those committees of elderly women with bound feet were known as the “KGB with tiny feet.” They padded about to report their neighbors for having too many children or a dirty house or harboring “capitalist roaders.” There are differences between the two systems—”Know Your Customer” isn’t intended to support a Communist Party program. But there is a key similarity: in both systems, an intrusive program of regulation requires the government to force the private sector to help by reporting on everybody, everywhere. This is a sure sign that the government is on the wrong track.

In a free society, there’s no need to turn private businesses into spy agencies. Most laws are self-reporting. If I murder someone, his relatives will demand justice; if I defraud him, he will complain himself and do his best to see that I am caught; if I spill foul chemicals into his stream, he will complain loudly when he finds out. There’s no need to force bankers, grocers or neighbors to report that kind of behavior, or to threaten them with the forfeiture of their property if they don’t. Using neighbors or private businesses as spies is a sure sign that the state has departed from the central job it is supposed to perform—protecting our liberties and rights.

Government Abuses of Information

Government cannot be trusted with the power to collect complex and private facts about our lives without a showing of probable cause. History shows that government will not observe safeguards intended to prevent the abuse of the power to collect information:

During World War II, U.S. census data was used to identify Japanese-Americans and place them in internment camps.

When Social Security numbers were introduced in 1935, the public was repeatedly assured that they would be used only to ensure that workers were paying the payroll tax; they are now used throughout the federal government and private sector for many purposes entirely unrelated to social security.

In 1995 over 500 Internal Revenue Service agents were caught illegally snooping through tax records of thousands of Americans, including personal friends and celebrities. Only five employees were fired for this misconduct.

In response, the IRS developed new privacy protection measures. These measures were useless, with hundreds of IRS agents being caught in early 1997, again snooping through the tax records of acquaintances and celebrities.

The Clinton administration reportedly obtained hundreds of FBI files, including those of:

Billy R. Dale: Fired Travel Office Director

Marlin Fitzwater: Bush's press secretary

Ken Duberstein: Reagan's chief of staff

James Baker: Bush's secretary of state

Tony Blankley: Newt Gingrich's spokesman

The complexity of our lives and the government’s lack of knowledge about them are a bulwark against authoritarianism as important as the Constitution. As James C. Scott noted in Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, all through history governments have struggled to collect more information about citizens. But the more they strive, the more unlikely it is that their goals can be compatible with the complex, fast-moving life in free society. No American citizen should be treated like a suspect unless and until he is one. The “Know Your Customer” rule has no place in a free country.


14 posted on 12/17/2005 8:57:35 PM PST by Lokibob (Spelling and typos are copyrighted. Please do not use.)
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To: Lokibob

Leave it to the government never to have a sense of proportion.


15 posted on 12/18/2005 5:28:58 AM PST by Uncle Vlad
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To: Stentor
"where are all the stories about people who have had their civil liberties so egregiously violated? I haven't seen a single story"........

I've never seen one. Possibly, there may be a "mistaken identity" tale out there...somewhere. But, easy enough to resolve.

Bring back the Patriot Act full bloom.....no sunset clause. Bad Guys don't like it. It crimps their style. Boo-Hoo.

16 posted on 12/18/2005 9:49:35 AM PST by IntheHillsGolden (DemoRATS out..........one Party system in place.)
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To: IntheHillsGolden

Limbaugh is bringing up this discussion on his show today.


17 posted on 12/19/2005 10:40:28 AM PST by Uncle Vlad
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To: Uncle Vlad

According to the Gun Owners of America, as of a week ago the "renewal" of the Partiot Act included new language which would allow the FBI to seize and copy all gun purchase records from all gun sellers without the knowledge of the gun purchasers. This would be defacto gun registration, the first serious step on the road to tyranny.


18 posted on 12/19/2005 8:21:24 PM PST by jonathonandjennifer
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To: jonathonandjennifer

According to the Gun Owners of America, as of a week ago the "renewal" of the Partiot Act included new language which would allow the FBI to seize and copy all gun purchase records from all gun sellers without the knowledge of the gun purchasers. This would be defacto gun registration, the first serious step on the road to tyranny.


19 posted on 12/19/2005 8:25:35 PM PST by jonathonandjennifer
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To: jonathonandjennifer
If that's the case, it's a very bad thing indeed. Is there a copy of the Patriot Act out there somewhere that we can get our hands on and dissect? It seems to me, if there was ever a place to dissect something, it's Free Republic. Just ask Dan Rather and Mary Mapes.
20 posted on 12/19/2005 8:30:15 PM PST by Uncle Vlad
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