Posted on 06/21/2005 7:58:19 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The U.S. House of Representatives dealt a blow to Big Brother last week.
The House voted 238-187 to protect our library records and bookstore receipts from willy-nilly government perusal.
The bipartisan vote sent a clear message to the U.S. Senate and to President Bush that the privacy rights of law-abiding American citizens must be respected even as the hard work of fighting and preventing terrorism continues.
Congress and the president are preparing to extend the Patriot Act, an anti-terrorism law quickly approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The president has threatened to veto the measure if Congress makes changes. The Senate should call the president's bluff by accepting the House change.
Libraries and bookstores are not havens for terrorists. They are learning centers for vast numbers of Americans who shouldn't have to worry about which titles or authors they happen to be reading.
Quirky taste in reading material shouldn't prompt or prop up bogus investigations of innocent bookworms. If the Justice Department or the FBI has good reason to suspect someone of terrorism, they should be able to convince a judge that a search warrant for library and bookstore records is warranted. The House change wouldn't prevent that.
A majority of Wisconsin's House members, including all four Democrats and Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Petri of Fond du Lac, voted to block easy government access to our reading records. Those favoring broad government power to peruse our library and bookstore records were U.S. Reps. Mark Green, R-Green Bay - who wants to be Wisconsin's next governor - Paul Ryan, R-Janesville, and James Sensenbrenner, R-Menomonee Falls.
The federal government hasn't even used the provision to obtain library or bookstore records, according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. If that's the case, why leave this broad, invasive power in place? By the government's own admission, it hasn't done any good and hasn't been needed despite significant and numerous terrorism warnings issued by the government in recent years.
In all likelihood, a potential terrorist would use the Internet to find information for their plot - not the public library or a Borders. And accessing the Internet takes little more than a cheap computer plugged into a phone line at a motel.
Adding to the uselessness of government snooping powers at libraries is the fact that many libraries regularly purge from their computers everything but overdue items.
Even if staunch proponents of a sweeping Patriot Act remain unconvinced, the House threw them a bone. The House version of the Patriot Act carves out permission for government to seek records on Internet use at libraries.
We doubt that power will be any help in terrorism prevention and prosecution, either. But it's less offensive because many libraries limit access to certain Web sites, such as those devoted to pornography.
The Patriot Act may still be needed to make sure our nation is adequately protected. But it's continuation must be coupled with careful thought and concern for the privacy rights of ordinary Americans.
The House vote last week was a welcome step toward protecting people's lives and their liberty.
"If they want privacy, go buy them."
Good thought, but that doesn't neccesarily work, either. I get e-mails from amazon.com on a regular basis stating, "Since you purchased and enjoyed thus & such, try this new author..."
Actually, if I were an employer or a lawyer or a voter, I'd like that information on people in those examples.
It might save me from hiring a pedophile to work in my day care center, from giving child custody to a drug dealer or voting for a person who talks the talk, but doesn't walk the walk. (Hillary? LOL!)
Believe it or not, people LIE on paper, in life and in court. ;)
OK. What's the problem here? I agree with all of this, and you know why? I don't ever plan to have any property seized that will be or has been used in the commission of a crime against the laws of the United States, if someone does he should be thrown in jail. You libs amaze and confuse me. How can you have problem with this?
What books would you use to check if someone is a drug dealer or a pedophile?
Wow. Does paronoia run in your family. There's no point in even arguing with that. It's like trying to prove to someone 1+1=2, who insists it equals 11.
It's also useless to argue the worth of the Bill of Rights with someone who values their political party more than the principles this country was founded on.
Ahhh, I remember when I was young, passionate and idealistic. I then grew up and learned to think with my head and not my heart. I'm sure if the founding fathers knew there would be a day when the bill of rights provided people who hate and kill Americans protection, they would certainly agree with a few changes.
So .. this says basically that AN OFFICIAL WARRANT WAS ISSUED .. and now the investigation has seized a computer .. ON THAT COMPUTER IS INFORMATION WHICH WILL .. LEAD TO OTHER TERROR CELLS .. LEAD TO SOURCES OF MATERIALS PURCHASED FOR THE TERROR CRIME .. LEAD TO OTHER COUNTRIES OR ORGANIZATIONS WHICH ARE PROVIDING SUPPORT.
At that point .. the investigator does not have to return to the court to get another warrant to continue on with the investigation. Because if the officer had to take the time to do that .. the element of surprise is lost .. and it's possible the other cells would be able to move or hide or destroy their association.
I know it could be misused. Any law can be misused. But .. if one of those terror cells is in your neighborhood .. you're a dead man .. because that cell is going to your local mall where your wife and children shop to plant their bomb.
Well .. those of us on FR KNOW WHO THESE PEOPLE ARE.
Lots of Living Document Conservatives around.
Living document "neocons" is more like it. But yes, there certainly are a lot of government apologists around here.
What do you think I meant by changes?? That's what ammend means. If the officials that we elect deem it necessary to amend the constitution or bill of rights to keep us from being killed, that's what I expect them to do. Privacy is a beautiful and wonderful thing....unless I've been blown up by a terrorist who learned how to make a bomb from books he checked out at my town library.
You wrote this before you had my answer.
I have a life - not all if it is spent answering your whining about the Patriot Act.
And .. 95% of the Patriot Act was only to give our police the same laws to fight terror as we already had to fight other crime. So .. I'm just not upset about it. And .. I beg to differ with you about my outlook being liberal - it's the liberals who don't want any of the Patriot Act - not me.
But the "patriot" act is a law, not an amendment! If your law violates the Constitution, it cannot stand. I have clearly demonstrated that this law violates the Constitution, you have stated that the founding fathers would want to amend it to catch the "terrorists," so here we are. They are trying to amend the Constitution without actually amending it! That should piss you off, regardless of how much you want to be protected from terrorists, or drugs, or whatever other issue is the hot one at the any particular time.
I'm sure you and mysterio are very intelligent, well educated individuals but your lack of common sense betrays your political affiliation. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, "to be young and a liberal means you have a heart, to be old and a liberal means you lack a brain".
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