Posted on 06/14/2005 12:14:50 PM PDT by neverdem
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Conservatives, liberals align against Patriot ActBy James G. LakelyTHE WASHINGTON TIMES Published June 14, 2005 Conservative groups have found common ground with the liberal American Civil Liberties Union in their opposition to the USA Patriot Act and pledge to wage a high-profile fight against it, claiming even its renewal is shrouded in secrecy.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
Read my earlier posts to you, the answer is there.
The Cato Institute (a conservative organization) among others, filed the case before the Supreme Court.
More information here: http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-21-03.html
Good thing you are not a lawyer.
You make out like you control things. You don't. The neverending war on terror will be over when THEY say it is.
We have no named enemies. We have a war on a tactic.
In short, I call bulls**t on you.
You're getting hysterical again. :^)
President Bush has named Iran, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea. 2 down, 3 to go.
To be honest, I'm much more concerned about the loss of freedom from the "War on Drugs".
There is ZERO chance we will be invading nuclear-armed North Korea.
Not even a small chance.
And if you think that terrorism will be defeated by invading 5 countries, then I have a Bill of Rights and a jar of white-out to sell you.
This is a neverending war.
To be honest, I'm much more concerned about the loss of freedom from the "War on Drugs"
That's when it started.
Looks like the "war" on terror is where it will be ending.
It is an interesting question. How will the NK regime be put down? Is it simply a matter of convincing the PRC it is in their best interest? An invasion may or may not be required. If you are worried about NK detonating a nuke on American soil, or on the soil of one of our allies, should we just wait for it to happen? Or should we do whatever it takes to prevent it? I go with the latter.
Well fine!
Thank you for being rude and insulting.
Instead .. you could have enlightened me and perhaps a lot of other people.
As long as your attitude is one of condescension because I don't know what you know .. our conversation is over.
Actually .. I believe I said "that hate has to come from within the family".
... tax evaders, speeders, anti-abortion activist, second amendment supporters..
And yet fully a quarter of freepers want to make the PA perminate... thats not how one views a wartime emasure..
Today, the federal government has powers over law enforcement, the military, our intelligence services, and the courts. Do you want anarchy instead?
As for "calling BS" on people you disagree with, you need to start with your own posts. With all due respect.
Do you have life insurance? If so, why, after all, you have not died yet.
I trust you are intelligent enough to see the analogy.
But perhaps not.
Yeah...there is lots of hostility and condescension from the Black Helicopter/Chicken Little crowd here. They know so much more than we mere "sheeple" do. Then they wonder why no one else listens to them. Well, duh! Fortunately, their views are not widely shared even among FR members, much less the general population. And I bet the government hasn't done a single bad thing to any of them under the Patriot Act.
I see.
So it is very important to actually have cancer before doing what you can to prevent it.
Neat philosophy.
President Hillary Clinton
Do you have life insurance? If so, why, after all, you have not died yet.
But what exactly do you think the government can do to harm you under authority of the Patriot Act? So far all are here are general conclusions that it "restricts liberty," "violates the Constitution" or "violates civil rights." But this is merely begging the question under dispute. And courts, for the most part, have upheld the Patriot Act against such challenges.
But as I said yesterday, if she becomes President, the Patriot Act will be among the least of our problems.
Among its most severe problems, the bill Diminishes personal privacy by removing checks on government power, specifically by Making it easier for the government to initiate surveillance and wiretapping of U.S. citizens under the authority of the shadowy, top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (Sections 101, 102 and 107) Permitting the government, under certain circumstances, to bypass the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court altogether and conduct warrantless wiretaps and searches. (Sections 103 and 104) Sheltering federal agents engaged in illegal surveillance without a court order from criminal prosecution if they are following orders of high Executive Branch officials. (Section 106) Creating a new category of domestic security surveillance that permits electronic eavesdropping of entirely domestic activity under looser standards than are provided for ordinary criminal surveillance under Title III. (Section 122) Using an overbroad definition of terrorism that could cover some protest tactics such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico as a new predicate for criminal wiretapping and other electronic surveillance. (Sections 120 and 121) Providing for general surveillance orders covering multiple functions of high tech devices, and by further expanding pen register and trap and trace authority for intelligence surveillance of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. (Sections 107 and 124) Creating a new, separate crime of using encryption technology that could add five years to any sentence for crimes committed with a computer. (Section 404) Expanding nationwide search warrants so they do not have to meet even the broad definition of terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act. (Section 125) Giving the government secret access to credit reports without consent and without judicial process. (Section 126) Enhancing the governments ability to obtain sensitive information without prior judicial approval by creating administrative subpoenas and providing new penalties for failure to comply with written demands for records. (Sections 128 and 129) Allowing for the sampling and cataloguing of innocent Americans genetic information without court order and without consent. (Sections 301-306) Permitting, without any connection to anti-terrorism efforts, sensitive personal information about U.S. citizens to be shared with local and state law enforcement. (Section 311) Terminating court-approved limits on police spying, which were initially put in place to prevent McCarthy-style law enforcement persecution based on political or religious affiliation. (Section 312) Permitting searches, wiretaps and surveillance of United States citizens on behalf of foreign governments including dictatorships and human rights abusers in the absence of Senate-approved treaties. (Sections 321-22) Diminishes public accountability by increasing government secrecy; specifically, by Authorizing secret arrests in immigration and other cases, such as material witness warrants, where the detained person is not criminally charged. (Section 201) Threatening public health by severely restricting access to crucial information about environmental health risks posed by facilities that use dangerous chemicals. (Section 202) Harming fair trial rights for American citizens and other defendants by limiting defense attorneys from challenging the use of secret evidence in criminal cases. (Section 204) Gagging grand jury witnesses in terrorism cases to bar them from discussing their testimony with the media or the general public, thus preventing them from defending themselves against rumor-mongering and denying the public information it has a right to receive under the First Amendment. (Section 206) Diminishes corporate accountability under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically, by Granting immunity to businesses that provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if their actions are taken with disregard for their customers privacy or other rights and show reckless disregard for the truth. Such immunity could provide an incentive for neighbor to spy on neighbor and pose problems similar to those inherent in Attorney General Ashcrofts Operation TIPS. (Section 313) Undermines fundamental constitutional rights of Americans under overbroad definitions of terrorism and terrorist organization or under a terrorism pretext; specifically by Stripping even native-born Americans of all of the rights of United States citizenship if they provide support to unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by our government, even if they support only the lawful activities of such organizations, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned in their own country as undocumented aliens. (Section 501) Creating 15 new death penalties, including a new death penalty for terrorism under a definition which could cover acts of protest such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, if death results. (Section 411) Further criminalizing association without any intent to commit specific terrorism crimes by broadening the crime of providing material support to terrorism, even if support is not given to any organization listed as a terrorist organization by the government. (Section 402) Permitting arrests and extraditions of Americans to any foreign country including those whose governments do not respect the rule of law or human rights in the absence of a Senate-approved treaty and without allowing an American judge to consider the extraditing countrys legal system or human rights record. (Section 322)
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