BTW, did you know that the Juduciary posted BAIL to students who were on a mission to assassinate Col North. Now there is some first rate judicial oversight. Put known terrorist non-US citizens in the same class as US citizens. You can probably guess what happened to them, they fled.
Ok, student privacy is not a big issue to me. If illegal aliens cant stand being spied upon if they are associating with the wrong groups, such as fronts for Hezbollah, I have little or no sympathy for them.
That pretty much sums up my feelings on known associations. If I associate with whack-jobs, thats my problem. NO one seemed to care that the FBI did this to White Militia groups WITHOUT legal authority. So, would it be OK if we did this illegally?
In all due respect to the ACLU, I did not see a verbatim reproduction of the act itself, just selected phrases that were then commented on.
NOw, I may be wrong but what from I read, most of these "intelligence," ideas are merely cooperation between local Police and the Intelligence services.
Again, further glancing at the wording of the ACLU regarding immigrants and associations, they state that "The USA PATRIOT Act creates a very serious risk that truly innocent individuals could be deported for truly innocent association with political groups that the government later chooses to regard as terrorist organizations. There would be no notice."
Of course there is a risk. There is risk in everything. The question is, how GREAT is the risk and is it big enough to justify doing nothing.
It goes on further to say that the destruction of property shall be deemed a terrorist act so anti-abortion protestors could be prosecuted for destruction of property. Well, since they ALREADY are targeted as terrorists, I dont see the point... except to show that the ACLU is being inclusive and feigning concern over pro-life vigilantes. Yet the point is if they are aliens harassing abortion clinics and blowing up property, SHOULDNT they be viewed as Terrorists. A moot point because they already are.
The only change I see is that other groups may be classed as terrorists.
RICO just means that if a member of a suspected crime family is caught, all members of the family are guilty. Thats a simplistic explantion but it works. When Organized Crime sent thier minions out, the big guys would avoid prosecution because it could not be traced back to them. Now, the act basically meant that if the fed was of the opinion that someone worked for someone else, the suspected employers were as guilty as the ones who were caught.
This is blatantly unconstitutional but it did cripple Organized Crime. Now, did some innocents suffer, I would wager that they did.
My feelings are that if we can steamroll the MOb, then we can steamroll people who wish for and work for our annihilation. Against crime, we harassed American citizens. I really cant feel sorry for non-americans. What the ACLU is advocating is more protection for non-citizen suspected gangsters while US citizens had no such protection.
If and when the abuses occur that are foretold by the ACLU, then I will be the first in line fighting to repeal the Patriot Act. I mean wide-spread systematic abuse, not an isolated case.
The only thing I hear coming from the Dems is that we need to understand and appease terrorists. As one leader of the Hezbollah has said...
"We are not fighting with you so that you will offer us incentives, we are fighting to destroy you."
Unlike the Dems, I believe him. I wonder why they can not.
If and when the abuses occur that are foretold by the ACLU, then I will be the first in line fighting to repeal the Patriot Act. I mean wide-spread systematic abuse, not an isolated case.
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Very well stated. I have said on talk radio that if we do not do enough now to allow authorities to find the terrorist bastards on our soil, when a nuke goes off in this country we will not recognize the Constitution.