Posted on 07/22/2003 6:21:38 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Edited on 07/07/2004 4:48:55 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
United States Attorney General John Ashcroft told federal and local officials Monday the USA Patriot Act should be expanded, not softened, even as protesters gathered nearby and the Anchorage Assembly and state Legislature have passed resolutions protesting the national anti-terrorism law.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
I wish we had the old Ashcroft back, not this statist.
Holy $#!t!!! Now Ashcroft thinks Americans want the KGB to monitor their lives??? I gotta say he's gone over the top.
Stregthening the Patriot Act??? We can kiss the Bill of Rights goodbye and welcome Orwell's Oceania
MY question:
If a Democrat were to get in the White House (say Hillary in 2008), to what extent could this "Patriot Act" be used against gun owners, and/or against Conservative Christians?
Is there any chance that this "Patriot Act" being pushed by Ashcroft (who is supposedly pro-gun and pro-life in his beliefs) being used at some time in the future to put gun owners and/or abortion protestors in jail?
Now I'm going to have a hard time sleeping tonight, thanks. I firmly believe that the Patriot Act should go away before Dubya leaves office, but I'm not sure how much before.
Theres no time to see a liberal judge and get denied a search warrant right before a nuke goes off in a major American city (and it aint gonna be in friggin Idaho or Michigan, Detroit is already bombed out).
Approriate modifications are prudent and necessary,those opposing them irresponsible at best and in league with the enemy at worse.
Amy Christiansen wore blue cloth around her chest and draped across her shoulder, mocking the cloth Ashcroft ordered placed over a half-nude statue at the Department of Justice last year. She said her outfit demonstrated Ashcroft's agenda, including a justice system that limits citizens' civil liberties.
"I don't feel safe in my own country," said Christiansen, 41, a veterinary technician. "I'm embarrassed to be an American."
Are you sure you wanna be on her side?
So there's good reasons to "piss" on parts of the Constitution? Which other amendments are OK to "piss" on? The 2nd? 1st?
Exactly. I, as much as anyone else, recognize the need to fight the mohammedan radicals but the post 9/11 security measures, patriot act included, impose the burdens of security not on the terrorists but on normal US citizens.
Same goes for the government buildings in DC. Post 9/11 there is not a single one of them that doesn't have an airport style security clearance station to simply get in the door and many are not even accessible to citizens anymore on a regular basis. I was up in DC during the Clinton impeachment only 4 years ago and you could walk into the capitol building from pretty much any door. They made you go through a metal detector, as it should be, but you could enter at leisure. Now normal citizens can't even get inside unless they are part of a guided tour going through a controlled access checkpoint in a doublewide on the lawn. That also means that you have to make arrangements in advance to get tickets for a tour, or wait in line for hours. Now I understand the need to protect the capitol from terrorists, but exactly what was wrong with the old system? Why couldn't they have simply kept the metal detectors at the doors? It offends me that Congress, the so-called legislature of, by, and for "the people" of the United States, has locked itself up in a building that doesn't grant access to its citizens.
Same goes for the other buildings. You now have to show a photo ID and go through a security checkpoint to simply get into the FOOD COURT of the federal triangle building, home to the oh so terrorist-vulnerable agency called the EPA. Same goes for the smithsonian museums, which of course means long lines of frustrated tourists having their bags of souveniers searched at each and every building to simply get through the door. Now I understand metal detectors at Congress etc. to prevent somebody from harming one of the officials, but the Smithsonian? Is some terrorist seriously gonna throw a knife at the wright brothers plane? And on July 4th they even set up the same stuff on the national mall. That isn't even a building - it's a grassy field and they ran us through metal detectors before we could go sit on the grass in an open field! One has to ask exactly what the purpose of it all is and when the insanity will ever stop.
YES. That is the real problem. The same thing happened back in the early 1920's with the federal budget process. A GOP congress reorganized the federal budgeting process in a way that vastly increased presidential power to control its formation. Warren Harding was in the White House so they didn't worry about any leftist radicals using the new powers to push through social programs. But all that changed a decade later when FDR got into office. He seized upon the powers that had been exercised with greater prudence under Republicans Coolidge and Hoover then put them to work in cramming the New Deal through Congress. The procedures remained the same but they had fallen into the bad guy's hands with disastrous results.
There is NEVER, EVER, a good reason to piss on the constitution.
Theres no time to see a liberal judge and get denied a search warrant right before a nuke goes off in a major American city (and it aint gonna be in friggin Idaho or Michigan, Detroit is already bombed out).
If there's a nuke pending, there won't be a denial, even from someone like Judge Reinhardt.
Approriate modifications are prudent and necessary,those opposing them irresponsible at best and in league with the enemy at worse.
Then AMEND the constitution. Those that support these bills are ignorant of history and are cowards at best, police state advocates at worst. See, I can play the same type of game there.
Are you sure you wanna be on her side
I'm not on her side. I'm on MY side. I don't trust Ashcroft with these powers, let alone another Butcher of Waco like Reno.
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