[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.

[dirtboy]

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.

Great. So change the rules for aliens, both legal and illegal. If someone can prove they are a citizen, leave them alone.

[dirtboy]

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

Of course, once the government has the information, they can always change the law to make you a lawbreaker. Or they can just decide that since probable cause doesn't matter any more, neither does due process.

The trick is not to apply the brakes where you want this process to stop. The political momentum will carry it much further. The brakes need to be applied now, and quite possibly the vehicle will need to subsequently thrown into reverse.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You post here. That is reason enough for a Rat administration to suspect you as a "possible subversive". What do you think hitlery clintoon would do with this type of power?

[ctdonath2]

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

When's the last time you read the laws?
How do you know you're not breaking any laws?
Do you actually know what the law actually says, or are you just going on what a few ignorant people have told you?

I have read a portion of the NY penal law. It is terribly complicated, does not use words in normal ways, and requires a long time to understand properly. And it's surprising how many people violate it without knowing.

Don't be too sure of your legal innocence.

[ApesForEvolution]

Kind of like when the democr@p communists used the IRS to harass conservative organizations. The point of the matter is, the power and information in the wrong hands is never used in the benign manner that it is intended.

The point of having thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of laws, ever growing, is to grow a web big enough that *ANYONE* you disagree with or threatens your idealogy/ambitions - can 'catch' you, prosecute you - and persecute you.

I.e., Conservatives, "Hate-speech", Christians, etc.

If you believe the Word of God, which I do, then you see that inevitably the PC crowd takes over until the Lord comes back.

[eno_]

You are thinking along the correct lines. No, FISA and most post-9/11 changes do not herald a new police state. OTOH, it is completely good and rational for everyone to be on alert for their privacy. There has been much erosion of privacy and civil liberties BEFORE 9/11. Roll back that erosion, and people will be much more accepting of security-related changes in how much privacy they have. Does the gopvernment deserve to be criticised? Yes! Government is making the mistake of taking without giving any counter-balancing privacy back to citizens. With a small amount of effort, the storm over the Patriot Act could have been avaoided.