[mmandahl]

Civil liberties?

I keep on hearing that my civil liberties have and are being violated.

I really have not noticed.

Why do these nuts keep on claiming this?

What civil liberties are being violated?

SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME!!!!

[unixfox]

Don't ask any questions and you will be fine. Be a good little serf and life will be grand.

[Teacher317]

What civil liberties are being violated?

The bar to obtaining a warrantless search was lowered even further with the Patriot Act. (FISA lowered it previously)

Will you only worry once the 4th Amendment is officially and publicly repealed, with a ribbon-cuting ceremony?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

What civil liberties are being violated?

The ability of foreign and domestic terrorists to operate computers and telephones with impunity and without any fear of monitoring has been curtailed. That would include the whackjobs of the far right, the whackjobs of the far left, the whackjobs of the islamofascist world and the whackjob nationalists. The enablers of the whackjobs who would use the American communications network to do us harm are people like these senators and their sycophantic talking head friends.

[Jason_b]

Some if not all liberties can be viewed as potential liberties. I don't own a gun. But I can if I want and the 2nd Amendment guarantees that I can exercise that right when I choose or deem necessary.

For my own sake, and others, I would not want the 2nd amendment to be taken away for any reason. That would be a loss of a potential liberty for me and an actual liberty for others. I think if the RKBA was respected on the airlines, then some folks might have been carrying and shot the hijackers preventing them from taking down the WTC. But curtailments and infringements of the RKBA that happened prior to the Patriot Act has ensured that no one will bother trying to carry a loaded gun on board unless they themselves are a criminal (and then it would have to be snuck on board).

I don't trust people with information they may get about me, so I think it best if they not have it. If I am a criminal that is something different. But these new powers are not about pursuing specific criminals when a tap could be on a phone that anyone can pick up and use.

If a corrupt enough future administration were to be elected, it might abuse the new powers the Patriot Act gives them. And such powers might be used against people who complain too much or organize peaceful political opposition.

Rather than have a government possess large amounts of power to use against the people, and trust it not to use those powers in an abusive way, some people prefer not to let the government have those powers at all. Especially if they directly threaten Bill of Rights protections. And that might prevent potential future abuse.

A person whose leanings or biases might be described as "statist" could disagree and prefer the government to have the power and wait until the actual abuses occur before anything is done about it, but often by that time it is too late to do anything about it.

[vigilo]

Remember the RICO act? It was supposed to be used to fight organized crime but it has instead been used to silence political speech that counters the political philosophies of the devils in black robes. Remember this phrase...selective inforcement. You must also understand that lawyers and judges DON'T care about truth and justice, they only care about the law. For most of the men and woman sitting on the bench today, truth and justice are alien concepts and just don't have any meaning. That's why Greer has done what he has done, the law says he can, so, even thought a child can see it's wrong, he can't.