"Well I'm all broken up about their 'rights'!" -Inspector Harry Callahan
I guess you are ready to throw your rights away for them, huh?
I’m coming to your house at 2, wire tapping your phone and searching every knook and cranny in your house to see if you are aiding and abetting terrorism. I’ll also be monitoring your TV, what food you take in and what you search on the internet (including that “right wing extremist” website, Free Republic). If you will not let me, you are an enabler and a sympathizer and should have no rights, period.
Perhaps not, but certainly American citizens should have rights. Maybe these laws aren't being used to violate the rights of Americans now, but history shows that governments have a tendency to stretch, abuse, and misuse the powers they are given. What is used today to protect us from terroristic threats could very easily be used against us 10 or 20 years down the road. This is especially true when the government has little oversight or accountability.
Giving law enforcement these powers now will probably make us safer in many ways. But you have to admit that there is a significant long term risk involved. I don't think it's fair to question the allegiance of people who recognize this risk and are bothered by it.
Guys like do not understand that they can haul you away and they do not even have to tell your lawyer or your family where you are or if they even have you. There are 5-7 such cases right now. Habeas Corpus is gone.
Oh and exactly how many cases have been initiated and stopped terrorist actions because of wiretapping. Exactly NONE! Fort Dix was an informant and so and so on.
Besides as long as the border is open this is all just mental masturbation.
When you consider that the people who will be likely wielding these powers are the same group who refer to suicide bombers as "militants", and yet have the penchant for calling any group to the right of Hillary (especially if they advocate the ownership of fireatms--like the NRA) "terrorists", I think concern is warranted.
Hmmm...socialists can easily redefine “terrorist” and “enabler/sympathizer” to mean “gun owner”, “constutionalist”, “conservative”, “pro-lifer”. We need to be VERY careful about labelling people before they are given due process.
A popular communist tactic is to label anyone who disagrees with you as “insane”.
Your faith in the good intentions of the federal government is curious (especially here at FR), and quite inconsistent with anything I’ve ever studied from the Founders.