[dirtboy]

Thanks for the post. An interesting take on the matter. Of course, there is the opposing view on this matter, that the onset of tyranny is not like turning off a light switch, but instead is a long, gray, almost imperceptible twilight into darkness.

[sam_paine]

Good point. We need a running scorecard in Times Square!

[DCPatriot]

Thanks for your post.

I happen to agree with you. I am more pissed off that there is a seat-belt law (which they are currently ratcheting up during the Thanksgiving Holidays for enforcement) than the government having the ability to monitor my spending habits and my emails.

Sure, it's an invasion of privacy and I should be concerned.....IF I WERE BREAKING THE LAW!

Until we weed out the possible terror cells living in our country due to inept enforcement of INS rules, we all have to understand that to ensure our safety, the government needs the ability to track suspects.

I AM NOT A SUSPECT and I will give them no reason to be concerned with me.

[Blood of Tyrants]

How about posting the number of Americans who have had property seized in the WOD without ever having charges filed against them?

Besides, we have seen that GWB is an honorable man. What happens when we get another unprincipled person like clintoon in the Oval Office? You cannot grant power to a good and decent president without granting that same power to a hopelessly corrupt and evil president.

[Publius6961]

Most of them, for sure.
The societal equivalent of Munchausen by proxy.

The U.S. the second most neurotic area on earth.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

The main concern I hear regarding the new powers granted the Justice Department are that they may someday be used by someone like Hillary. But to use them against innocent citizens, she would have to break the law in some fashion, which she would do anyway, as she has amply demonstrated by her past behavior. She would just be breaking DIFFERENT laws.

Or perhaps the concern is that the new laws make specious invasions of privacy more justifiable, under the linguistic cover of broadened Justice/Homeland Security powers. Is that the crux of the matter? I would really like to know if the sometimes brutal criticism I've seen at FR over this new legistlation is appropriate and warranted. I admit that I want President Bush and his administration to succeed, and that such desire may blind me somewhat to what is happening. But I also don't want to run around like a chicken with my head cut off, in an inchoate overreaction. Are there any good threads debating this stuff rationally?

[ctdonath2]

Ya think police states just spring into existance fully-formed? Hardly. They develop over a period of decades, with one administration implementing more tools - always surrounded with warm fuzzy rhetoric - which the next administration abuses.

Remember the flap about Clinton obtaining 700 FBI files? Consider if he had 300,000,000 far more detailed files.
Remember all the rhetoric about how gun registration won't be abused? 50,000 AR-15 owners were recently tracked down and persuaded (under color of law) to hand them over, non-returnable, for "testing".
Remember how we have been assured all medical, credit, flight, tax, etc. records would be kept confidential to the intended use? Now we have the beginning of the Total Information Awareness Office, directed to gather and profile all such data.

Obviously we're not at a full police state yet. Nobody is seriously contending that (except a few fringers). HOWEVER, the path is clear, the methods are being put in place, the "everyone is violating something" laws are building up, and history repeatedly shows the consequences.

Sneer as you like, use carefully selected facts as you like, but do read history lest you repeat it.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[PatrioticAmerican]

How many people have had their homes broke into last year by SWAT teams at the wrong house or using a bad warrant?

How many cops have automatic weapons in the trunk of their cruiser?

If an automatic weapon is only useful for killing large amounts of people, and we should ban them because of that, why do cops have them? Do they need to kill large amounts of people?

How many legal cases are filed against cops for violent use of force?

Howe many cops are actually prosecuted for assault when they beat a suspect, instead of just "transferred"?

Whena gun is involved in any situation, why is it that the person with the gun is autmatically arrested?

Why does the government maintain computer records of who buys weapons?

Why do the feds maintain intel on citizens who are not suspects in a crime?

[freepatriot32]

go to www.allewislive.com (better known as grandpa munster)and listen to his radio show everyday oh wait you cant the goverment had it shut it down before the office of homeland security officially existed

[zoyd]

They're only "Drama Queens" if the buck stops here, in terms of invading your privacy.

But when was the last time the Government didn't try and expand their power?

Government will always try and expand its power over the populace, as these privacy-killing measures prove. Who knows what a Democrat administration would do with a federal database/profiling system of every American? I don't want to find out.

The potential for future abuse, IMHO, is much greater than the benefits such measures are supposed to accrue. That just seems to be the way government programs go.

And I'm not necessarily talking about explicit programs -- think about the possible behind-the-scenese abuse bureaucrats could heap on citizens (like gun-owning citizens) with accesss to every facet of your personal history and federal profile... it's just a baaaad idea.

[thepitts]

Seems to me this is more about what some future admin. could do with such things as the USA Patriot Act.

W's real legacy.