Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
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.
Its pretty simple to me. If there are sites that provide bomb making formulas, (Maybe even set up as a sting.) I am willing to let the Feds track who visits.
If the sites they want to check on are sites that offer reconnaissance of potential targets, then the question is more of helping the FEDs track where a terrorist will strike next, and in this case they probably know the terrorist is someone that merits watching. In the present version of the patriot act they FEDs go to a special judge set up to facilitate access to a search warrent and then go after this data. The dems want to make the FEDs go to a regular judge, (one not working with them) to get this authorization. Not much difference except that the judge may need more convincing than just the FEDs saying they are suspecious of this guy. This will slow down an investigation. (Re: the show 24, sometimes the FEDs need to work fast. I would let them have their way until the day of teror threats has passed, or until they start making life difficult for Mr. Average Citizen by arresting the wrong people, like you or me.)
Since Conservatives discovered that Andrew Young and Gary Hart (authors of the Patriot Act) represented Conservatism better than the ACU.
No, I'm not naive. There are always abuses - because people are human. And .. IT'S OUR JOB AS VOTERS to select only those people who want to protect us and don't want to use our laws against us like the liberals do.
But .. would you rather have an occasional abuse .. or would you rather have an occasional homicidal idiot be allowed to use the library to KILL THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ..?? Your choice.
While you're willing to be so lenient with terrorists .. I still say .. I hope he picks your neighborhood.
"... they can search it without demonstrating probable cause ..."
Please show me in print from the Patriot Act where this will be allowed. According to many lawyers I heard from .. there is no such statute allowing searches which are not first approved by a judge.
And what I'm trying to get across is there is "PUBLIC" property and "PRIVATE" property. We don't refer to our citizens as "public citizens" we are "private citizens" with a right privacy in our own private residences, private businesses, private vehicles etc..., but as soon as you attach the word "PUBLIC" to it all bets are off. The police will arrest you if you walk around naked in a "PUBLIC" park, but I can walk around my house in my birthday suit all day long with no repercusions.
It's not as though we ever have a wide variety of people to choose from. It's pretty much only two per election. And it's very difficult to know all much about them in detail. Even when you think you know them, that could change. Just look at the link at #63.
Absolutely.
It's one thing to be cautious and it's another to be a raving paranoid about this.
A fair number of posts on here fall into the raving paranoia class.
Many of these same people (they know who they are) will be the ones screaming the loudest when a sleeper Al-Qaeda cell commits a mass fatality terrorist act on US soil.
They'll be the ones screaming "Why didn't we know about this? Who was supposed to be watching out for our security?!"
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
No, what I was impying was, that if it walks, talks and acts like a terrorist, it probably is, just like if you step in something that feels, looks and smells like s#%t, it peobably is.
This is exactly my point......am I missing something??
Then I half agree with them, but even under those circumstances, technical publications on how to manufacture devices of destruction should be flagged and the purchaser should be tracked.
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