Posted on 01/15/2002 12:42:47 PM PST by Askel5
...the United States has out-sovieted the former Soviet Union.
When I went to San Jose airport to pick up my mom, they searched every car which entered the parking garage. NO warrants, no probable cause, nothing. When I asked a SJ cop about the practice (I'm a Texan), he said that he is required to search the cars for guns, drugs or other terrorist paraphanalia. I asked if he had seen the Clint Eastwood film "Firefox," where it depicted the USSR with its "your papers please..." and the checkpoints where cars were searched by the secret police. He said he had, and I replied "It's time for the Russians to make fun of us." He agreed.
The realist votes for #2.
The main effect that this monstrosity of legislation will have is that it will not only give the government the authority to surveille its citizens in a myriad of ways (all unconstitional), without a warrant or provable just cause, but it will also have us all serving as snitches against one another, under penalty of law if we don't. It's called government by intimidation.
And the requirements of both big- and small-business are Orwellian. The mandatory reporting of 'suspicious transactions' (now there's a definition that's about as clear as swamp water) represents a giant Big-Brother step that goes far beyond even the Bank Secrecy Act.
This representative republic, existing under this Constitution, cannot allow its citizens to be required to submit to unconstitutional surveillance by its government. Nor can it allow its businesses to be required to report transactions to the government, in effect opening their books in order to gain government 'approval.'
Congresses, and Presidents, have been passing unconstitutional legislation for decades, but this piece of legislation not only circumvents the Constitution, it declares it irrelevant. And the American people are either to ignorant to realize that the foundation of their republic is being buried without ceremony, or they are too apathetic to care. (My guess is 75% - 20%, with the other 5% of us left shaking our heads in disbelief).
Patriotism has officially been redefined to be submission to the 'legalized' government confiscation of wealth and usurpation of individual liberty.
There's more than one kind of terrorism....
Don't you get it?
What sort of Patriot Act do we have that encourages the searching of old ladies at airports but permits the gangster Gusinsky into this country?
But this is not 'Isvestia'. ;^)
Little Russian jokes.
I still can't figure out, then, what Mrs. Cheney's problem was with the academics she thought weren't "patriotic ENOUGH".
Thanks, joanie-f. Always a pleasure to read you. Regards.
Wasichu
Maybe they'll be accessorized with little symbolic cover plates.
I'll go with 'Miss Liberty' maybe, or that coiled rattlesnake thingy. (sarcasm off)
And you have a problem with that? Freedom has a price you know.
/sarcasm
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