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Monopoly Money
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For those that dont know what the patriot act does, go here
http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
For those that need to reread, or read for the first time, the Decloration of Independance go here
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
For those that wish to write to there senator to see if they supported the patriot act and scold them or praise them, go here
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress/

And for the latest update on what happend with the vote today, go here
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/16/senate.patriot.ap/index.html

Basically the Patriot act gives the law enforcement and Intelligency agencies the power of the Gestzpo. When reading the patriot act keep several things in mind
A quote from Benjamin Franklin
"Those who would give up a little freedom in order to gain a little security, will gain neither and lose both."
The Decloration of Independance, paragraph 2, line 14 word 5, and continue on from there.
Finally keep in mind that Nazi Germany did not forcibly take away everyones rights, it was voted away.

The Patriot Act is the begging of Americans losing there civil liberties, and if you have a representative in your area that did voted yes to the extension of the patriot act, then i suggest you write them and ask for their resignation.

And thank God for thsee guys ***Five Republicans voted against the reauthorization: Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, John Sununu of New Hampshire, Craig and Frist. Two Democrats voted to extend the provisions: Sens. Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.*** who stopped The Patriot Act from being renewed.

Didnt see any topic about this and i thought it was very important to bring up the issue since it does affect us all, unless you dont like your current freedoms that is.

--------------------
M.M.
Semester #3 started,Only 7 more semesters to go.
Why, in an age where information is so easy to get, cant we find information on one man.
Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it.

Posts: 1002 | From: Southaven, Mississippi, US | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
Monopoly Money
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whoops those were the guys who were for it, i read it wrong, the credit goes to liberman and Mccain for stopping this. SOrry for the misinformation.

--------------------
M.M.
Semester #3 started,Only 7 more semesters to go.
Why, in an age where information is so easy to get, cant we find information on one man.
Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it.

Posts: 1002 | From: Southaven, Mississippi, US | Registered: Nov 2004  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
bdgee
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Your mistake is corrected.

Better than that, "Bush's Act" = The Patriot Act = dictatorship isn't anymore.

Posts: 11304 | From: Fort Worth, Texas | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
kaos
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Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
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Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the **** that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.
Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

--------------------
life is short..go for the long shot and ride it all the way home...

Posts: 154 | From: nyc | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged | Report this post to a Moderator
kaos
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The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said.


Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Websites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.


Christian refused to hand over those records, and his employer, Library Connection Inc., filed suit for the right to protest the FBI demand in public. The Washington Post established their identities - still under seal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit - by comparing unsealed portions of the file with public records and information gleaned from people who had no knowledge of the FBI demand.


The Connecticut case affords a rare glimpse of an exponentially growing practice of domestic surveillance under the USA Patriot Act, which marked its fourth anniversary on Oct. 26. "National security letters," created in the 1970s for espionage and terrorism investigations, originated as narrow exceptions in consumer privacy law, enabling the FBI to review in secret the customer records of suspected foreign agents. The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies.


The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms. The letters - one of which can be used to sweep up the records of many people - are extending the bureau's reach as never before into the telephone calls, correspondence and financial lives of ordinary Americans.


Issued by FBI field supervisors, national security letters do not need the imprimatur of a prosecutor, grand jury or judge. They receive no review after the fact by the Justice Department or Congress. The executive branch maintains only statistics, which are incomplete and confined to classified reports. The Bush administration defeated legislation and a lawsuit to require a public accounting, and has offered no example in which the use of a national security letter helped disrupt a terrorist plot.


The burgeoning use of national security letters coincides with an unannounced decision to deposit all the information they yield into government data banks - and to share those private records widely, in the federal government and beyond. In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined.


National security letters offer a case study of the impact of the Patriot Act outside the spotlight of political debate. Drafted in haste after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the law's 132 pages wrought scores of changes in the landscape of intelligence and law enforcement. Many received far more attention than the amendments to a seemingly pedestrian power to review "transactional records." But few if any other provisions touch as many ordinary Americans without their knowledge.


Senior FBI officials acknowledged in interviews that the proliferation of national security letters results primarily from the bureau's new authority to collect intimate facts about people who are not suspected of any wrongdoing. Criticized for failure to detect the Sept. 11 plot, the bureau now casts a much wider net, using national security letters to generate leads as well as to pursue them. Casual or unwitting contact with a suspect - a single telephone call, for example - may attract the attention of investigators and subject a person to scrutiny about which he never learns.


A national security letter cannot be used to authorize eavesdropping or to read the contents of e-mail. But it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.


As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an expiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret surrender of private records.


The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy.


Like many Patriot Act provisions, the ones involving national security letters have been debated in largely abstract terms. The Justice Department has offered Congress no concrete information, even in classified form, save for a partial count of the number of letters delivered. The statistics do not cover all forms of national security letters or all U.S. agencies making use of them.


"The beef with the NSLs is that they don't have even a pretense of judicial or impartial scrutiny," said former representative Robert L. Barr Jr. (Ga.), who finds himself allied with the American Civil Liberties Union after a career as prosecutor, CIA analyst and conservative GOP stalwart. "There's no checks and balances whatever on them. It is simply some bureaucrat's decision that they want information, and they can basically just go and get it."


'A Routine Tool'


Career investigators and Bush administration officials emphasized, in congressional testimony and interviews for this story, that national security letters are for hunting terrorists, not fishing through the private lives of the innocent. The distinction is not as clear in practice.


Under the old legal test, the FBI had to have "specific and articulable" reasons to believe the records it gathered in secret belonged to a terrorist or a spy. Now the bureau needs only to certify that the records are "sought for" or "relevant to" an investigation "to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."


That standard enables investigators to look for conspirators by sifting the records of nearly anyone who crosses a suspect's path.


"If you have a list of, say, 20 telephone numbers that have come up ... on a bad guy's telephone," said Valerie E. Caproni, the FBI's general counsel, "you want to find out who he's in contact with." Investigators will say, " 'Okay, phone company, give us subscriber information and toll records on these 20 telephone numbers,' and that can easily be 100."


Bush administration officials compare national security letters to grand jury subpoenas, which are also based on "relevance" to an inquiry. There are differences. Grand juries tend to have a narrower focus because they investigate past conduct, not the speculative threat of unknown future attacks. Recipients of grand jury subpoenas are generally free to discuss the subpoenas publicly. And there are strict limits on sharing grand jury information with government agencies.


Since the Patriot Act, the FBI has dispersed the authority to sign national security letters to more than five dozen supervisors - the special agents in charge of field offices, the deputies in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, and a few senior headquarters officials. FBI rules established after the Patriot Act allow the letters to be issued long before a case is judged substantial enough for a "full field investigation." Agents commonly use the letters now in "preliminary investigations" and in the "threat assessments" that precede a decision whether to launch an investigation.


"Congress has given us this tool to obtain basic telephone data, basic banking data, basic credit reports," said Caproni, who is among the officials with signature authority. "The fact that a national security letter is a routine tool used, that doesn't bother me."


If agents had to wait for grounds to suspect a person of ill intent, said Joseph Billy Jr., the FBI's deputy assistant director for counterterrorism, they would already know what they want to find out with a national security letter. "It's all chicken and egg," he said. "We're trying to determine if someone warrants scrutiny or doesn't."


Billy said he understands that "merely being in a government or FBI database ... gives everybody, you know, neck hair standing up." Innocent Americans, he said, "should take comfort at least knowing that it is done under a great deal of investigative care, oversight, within the parameters of the law."


He added: "That's not going to satisfy a majority of people, but ... I've had people say, you know, 'Hey, I don't care, I've done nothing to be concerned about. You can have me in your files and that's that.' Some people take that approach."


'Don't Go Overboard'


In Room 7975 of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, around two corners from the director's suite, the chief of the FBI's national security law unit sat down at his keyboard about a month after the Patriot Act became law. Michael J. Woods had helped devise the FBI wish list for surveillance powers. Now he offered a caution.


"NSLs are powerful investigative tools, in that they can compel the production of substantial amounts of relevant information," he wrote in a Nov. 28, 2001, "electronic communication" to the FBI's 56 field offices. "However, they must be used judiciously." Standing guidelines, he wrote, "require that the FBI accomplish its investigations through the 'least intrusive' means. ... The greater availability of NSLs does not mean that they should be used in every case."


Woods, who left government service in 2002, added a practical consideration. Legislators granted the new authority and could as easily take it back. When making that decision, he wrote, "Congress certainly will examine the manner in which the FBI exercised it."


Looking back last month, Woods was struck by how starkly he misjudged the climate. The FBI disregarded his warning, and no one noticed.


"This is not something that should be automatically done because it's easy," he said. "We need to be sure ... we don't go overboard."


One thing Woods did not anticipate was then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's revision of Justice Department guidelines. On May 30, 2002, and Oct. 31, 2003, Ashcroft rewrote the playbooks for investigations of terrorist crimes and national security threats. He gave overriding priority to preventing attacks by any means available.


Ashcroft remained bound by Executive Order 12333, which requires the use of the "least intrusive means" in domestic intelligence investigations. But his new interpretation came close to upending the mandate. Three times in the new guidelines, Ashcroft wrote that the FBI "should consider ... less intrusive means" but "should not hesitate to use any lawful techniques ... even if intrusive" when investigators believe them to be more timely. "This point," he added, "is to be particularly observed in investigations relating to terrorist activities."


'Why Do You Want to Know?'


As the Justice Department prepared congressional testimony this year, FBI headquarters searched for examples that would show how expanded surveillance powers made a difference. Michael Mason, who runs the Washington field office and has the rank of assistant FBI director, found no ready answer.


"I'd love to have a made-for-Hollywood story, but I don't have one," Mason said. "I am not even sure such an example exists."


What national security letters give his agents, Mason said, is speed.


"I have 675 terrorism cases," he said. "Every one of these is a potential threat. And anything I can do to get to the bottom of any one of them more quickly gets me closer to neutralizing a potential threat."


Because recipients are permanently barred from disclosing the letters, outsiders can make no assessment of their relevance to Mason's task.


Woods, the former FBI lawyer, said secrecy is essential when an investigation begins because "it would defeat the whole purpose" to tip off a suspected terrorist or spy, but national security seldom requires that the secret be kept forever. Even mobster "John Gotti finds out eventually that he was wiretapped" in a criminal probe, said Peter Swire, the federal government's chief privacy counselor until 2001. "Anyone caught up in an NSL investigation never gets notice."


To establish the "relevance" of the information they seek, agents face a test so basic it is hard to come up with a plausible way to fail. A model request for a supervisor's signature, according to internal FBI guidelines, offers this one-sentence suggestion: "This subscriber information is being requested to determine the individuals or entities that the subject has been in contact with during the past six months."


Edward L. Williams, the chief division counsel in Mason's office, said that supervisors, in practice, "aren't afraid to ask ... 'Why do you want to know?' " He would not say how many requests, if any, are rejected.


'The Abuse Is in the Power Itself'


Those who favor the new rules maintain - as Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, put it in a prepared statement - that "there has not been one substantiated allegation of abuse of these lawful intelligence tools."


What the Bush administration means by abuse is unauthorized use of surveillance data - for example, to blackmail an enemy or track an estranged spouse. Critics are focused elsewhere. What troubles them is not unofficial abuse but the official and routine intrusion into private lives.


To Jeffrey Breinholt, deputy chief of the Justice Department's counterterrorism section, the civil liberties objections "are eccentric." Data collection on the innocent, he said, does no harm unless "someone [decides] to act on the information, put you on a no-fly list or something." Only a serious error, he said, could lead the government, based on nothing more than someone's bank or phone records, "to freeze your assets or go after you criminally and you suffer consequences that are irreparable." He added: "It's a pretty small chance."


"I don't necessarily want somebody knowing what videos I rent or the fact that I like cartoons," said Mason, the Washington field office chief. But if those records "are never used against a person, if they're never used to put him in jail, or deprive him of a vote, et cetera, then what is the argument?"


Barr, the former congressman, said that "the abuse is in the power itself."


"As a conservative," he said, "I really resent an administration that calls itself conservative taking the position that the burden is on the citizen to show the government has abused power, and otherwise shut up and comply."


At the ACLU, staff attorney Jameel Jaffer spoke of "the profound chilling effect" of this kind of surveillance: "If the government monitors the Websites that people visit and the books that they read, people will stop visiting disfavored Websites and stop reading disfavored books. The FBI should not have unchecked authority to keep track of who visits [al-Jazeera's Website] or who visits the Website of the Federalist Society."


Links in a Chain


Ready access to national security letters allows investigators to employ them routinely for "contact chaining."


"Starting with your bad guy and his telephone number and looking at who he's calling, and [then] who they're calling," the number of people surveilled "goes up exponentially," acknowledged Caproni, the FBI's general counsel.


But Caproni said it would not be rational for the bureau to follow the chain too far. "Everybody's connected" if investigators keep tracing calls "far enough away from your targeted bad guy," she said. "What's the point of that?"


One point is to fill government data banks for another investigative technique. That one is called "link analysis," a practice Caproni would neither confirm nor deny.


Two years ago, Ashcroft rescinded a 1995 guideline directing that information obtained through a national security letter about a U.S. citizen or resident "shall be destroyed by the FBI and not further disseminated" if it proves "not relevant to the purposes for which it was collected." Ashcroft's new order was that "the FBI shall retain" all records it collects and "may disseminate" them freely among federal agencies.


The same order directed the FBI to develop "data mining" technology to probe for hidden links among the people in its growing cache of electronic files. According to an FBI status report, the bureau's office of intelligence began operating in January 2004 a new Investigative Data Warehouse, based on the same Oracle technology used by the CIA. The CIA is generally forbidden to keep such files on Americans.


Data mining intensifies the impact of national security letters, because anyone's personal files can be scrutinized again and again without a fresh need to establish relevance.


"The composite picture of a person which emerges from transactional information is more telling than the direct content of your speech," said Woods, the former FBI lawyer. "That's certainly not been lost on the intelligence community and the FBI."


Ashcroft's new guidelines allowed the FBI for the first time to add to government files consumer data from commercial providers such as LexisNexis and ChoicePoint Inc. Previous attorneys general had decided that such a move would violate the Privacy Act. In many field offices, agents said, they now have access to ChoicePoint in their squad rooms.


What national security letters add to government data banks is information that no commercial service can lawfully possess. Strict privacy laws, for example, govern financial and communications records. National security letters - along with the more powerful but much less frequently used secret subpoenas from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - override them.


'What Happens in Vegas'


The bureau displayed its ambition for data mining in an emergency operation at the end of 2003.


The Department of Homeland Security declared an orange alert on Dec. 21 of that year, in part because of intelligence that hinted at a New Year's Eve attack in Las Vegas. The identities of the plotters were unknown.


The FBI sent Gurvais Grigg, chief of the bureau's little-known Proactive Data Exploitation Unit, in an audacious effort to assemble a real-time census of every visitor in the nation's most-visited city. An average of about 300,000 tourists a day stayed an average of four days each, presenting Grigg's team with close to a million potential suspects in the ensuing two weeks.


A former stockbroker with a degree in biochemistry, Grigg declined to be interviewed. Government and private sector sources who followed the operation described epic efforts to vacuum up information.


An interagency task force began pulling together the records of every hotel guest, everyone who rented a car or truck, every lease on a storage space, and every airplane passenger who landed in the city. Grigg's unit filtered that population for leads. Any link to the known terrorist universe - a shared address or utility account, a check deposited, a telephone call - could give investigators a start.


"It was basically a manhunt, and in circumstances where there is a manhunt, the most effective way of doing that was to scoop up a lot of third party data and compare it to other data we were getting," Breinholt said.


Investigators began with emergency requests for help from the city's sprawling hospitality industry. "A lot of it was done voluntary at first," said Billy, the deputy assistant FBI director.


According to others directly involved, investigators turned to national security letters and grand jury subpoenas when friendly persuasion did not work.


Early in the operation, according to participants, the FBI gathered casino executives and asked for guest lists. The MGM Mirage company, followed by others, balked.


"Some casinos were saying no to consent [and said], 'You have to produce a piece of paper,' " said Jeff Jonas, chief scientist at IBM Entity Analytics, who previously built data management systems for casino surveillance. "They don't just market 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.' They want it to be true."


The operation remained secret for about a week. Then casino sources told Rod Smith, gaming editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, that the FBI had served national security letters on them. In an interview for this article, one former casino executive confirmed the use of a national security letter. Details remain elusive. Some law enforcement officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge particulars, said they relied primarily on grand jury subpoenas. One said in an interview that national security letters may eventually have been withdrawn. Agents encouraged voluntary disclosures, he said, by raising the prospect that the FBI would use the letters to gather something more sensitive: the gambling profiles of casino guests. Caproni declined to confirm or deny that account.


What happened in Vegas stayed in federal data banks. Under Ashcroft's revised policy, none of the information has been purged. For every visitor, Breinholt said, "the record of the Las Vegas hotel room would still exist."


Grigg's operation found no suspect, and the orange alert ended on Jan. 10, 2004."The whole thing washed out," one participant said.


'Of Interest to President Bush'


At around the time the FBI found George Christian in Connecticut, agents from the bureau's Charlotte field office paid an urgent call on the chemical engineering department at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. They were looking for information about a former student named Magdy Nashar, then suspected in the July 7 London subway bombing but since cleared of suspicion.


University officials said in interviews late last month that the FBI tried to use a national security letter to demand much more information than the law allows.


David T. Drooz, the university's senior associate counsel, said special authority is required for the surrender of records protected by educational and medical privacy. The FBI's first request, a July 14 grand jury subpoena, did not appear to supply that authority, Drooz said, and the university did not honor it. Referring to notes he took that day, Drooz said Eric Davis, the FBI's top lawyer in Charlotte, "was focused very much on the urgency" and "he even indicated the case was of interest to President Bush."


The next day, July 15, FBI agents arrived with a national security letter. Drooz said it demanded all records of Nashar's admission, housing, emergency contacts, use of health services and extracurricular activities. University lawyers "looked up what law we could on the fly," he said. They discovered that the FBI was demanding files that national security letters have no power to obtain. The statute the FBI cited that day covers only telephone and Internet records.


"We're very eager to comply with the authorities in this regard, but we needed to have what we felt was a legally valid procedure," said Larry A. Neilsen, the university provost.


Soon afterward, the FBI returned with a new subpoena. It was the same as the first one, Drooz said, and the university still had doubts about its legal sufficiency. This time, however, it came from New York and summoned Drooz to appear personally. The tactic was "a bit heavy-handed," Drooz said, "the implication being you're subject to contempt of court." Drooz surrendered the records.


The FBI's Charlotte office referred questions to headquarters. A high-ranking FBI official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the field office erred in attempting to use a national security letter. Investigators, he said, "were in a big hurry for obvious reasons" and did not approach the university "in the exact right way."


'Unreasonable' or 'Oppressive'


The electronic docket in the Connecticut case, as the New York Times first reported, briefly titled the lawsuit Library Connection Inc. v. Gonzales. Because identifying details were not supposed to be left in the public file, the court soon replaced the plaintiff's name with "John Doe."


George Christian, Library Connection's executive director, is identified in his affidavit as "John Doe 2." In that sworn statement, he said people often come to libraries for information that is "highly sensitive, embarrassing or personal." He wanted to fight the FBI but feared calling a lawyer because the letter said he could not disclose its existence to "any person." He consulted Peter Chase, vice president of Library Connection and chairman of a state intellectual freedom committee. Chase - "John Doe 1" in his affidavit - advised Christian to call the ACLU. Reached by telephone at their homes, both men declined to be interviewed.


U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall ruled in September that the FBI gag order violates Christian's, and Library Connection's, First Amendment rights. A three-judge panel heard oral argument on Wednesday in the government's appeal.


The central facts remain opaque, even to the judges, because the FBI is not obliged to describe what it is looking for, or why. During oral argument in open court on Aug. 31, Hall said one government explanation was so vague that "if I were to say it out loud, I would get quite a laugh here." After the government elaborated in a classified brief delivered for her eyes only, she wrote in her decision that it offered "nothing specific."


The Justice Department tried to conceal the existence of the first and only other known lawsuit against a national security letter, also brought by the ACLU's Jaffer and Ann Beeson. Government lawyers opposed its entry into the public docket of a New York federal judge. They have since tried to censor nearly all the contents of the exhibits and briefs. They asked the judge, for example, to black out every line of the affidavit that describes the delivery of the national security letter to a New York Internet company, including, "I am a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation ('FBI')."


U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero, in a ruling that is under appeal, held that the law authorizing national security letters violates the First and Fourth Amendments.


Resistance to national security letters is rare. Most of them are served on large companies in highly regulated industries, with business interests that favor cooperation. The in-house lawyers who handle such cases, said Jim Dempsey, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, "are often former prosecutors - instinctively pro-government but also instinctively by-the-books." National security letters give them a shield against liability to their customers.


Kenneth M. Breen, a partner at the New York law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, held a seminar for corporate lawyers one recent evening to explain the "significant risks for the non-compliant" in government counterterrorism investigations. A former federal prosecutor, Breen said failure to provide the required information could create "the perception that your company didn't live up to its duty to fight terrorism" and could invite class-action lawsuits from the families of terrorism victims. In extreme cases, he said, a business could face criminal prosecution, "a 'death sentence' for certain kinds of companies."


The volume of government information demands, even so, has provoked a backlash. Several major business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complained in an Oct. 4 letter to senators that customer records can "too easily be obtained and disseminated" around the government. National security letters, they wrote, have begun to impose an "expensive and time-consuming burden" on business.


The House and Senate bills renewing the Patriot Act do not tighten privacy protections, but they offer a concession to business interests. In both bills, a judge may modify a national security letter if it imposes an "unreasonable" or "oppressive" burden on the company that is asked for information.


'A Legitimate Question'


As national security letters have grown in number and importance, oversight has not kept up. In each house of Congress, jurisdiction is divided between the judiciary and intelligence committees. None of the four Republican chairmen agreed to be interviewed.


Roberts, the Senate intelligence chairman, said in a statement issued through his staff that "the committee is well aware of the intelligence value of the information that is lawfully collected under these national security letter authorities," which he described as "non-intrusive" and "crucial to tracking terrorist networks and detecting clandestine intelligence activities." Senators receive "valuable reporting by the FBI," he said, in "semi-annual reports [that] provide the committee with the information necessary to conduct effective oversight."


Roberts was referring to the Justice Department's classified statistics, which in fact have been delivered three times in four years. They include the following information: how many times the FBI issued national security letters; whether the letters sought financial, credit or communications records; and how many of the targets were "U.S. persons." The statistics omit one whole category of FBI national security letters and also do not count letters issued by the Defense Department and other agencies.


Committee members have occasionally asked to see a sampling of national security letters, a description of their fruits or examples of their contribution to a particular case. The Justice Department has not obliged.


In 2004, the conference report attached to the intelligence authorization bill asked the attorney general to "include in his next semiannual report" a description of "the scope of such letters" and the "process and standards for approving" them. More than a year has passed without a Justice Department reply.


"The committee chairman has the power to issue subpoenas" for information from the executive branch, said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a House Judiciary Committee member. "The minority has no power to compel, and ... Republicans are not going to push for oversight of the Republicans. That's the story of this Congress."


In the executive branch, no FBI or Justice Department official audits the use of national security letters to assess whether they are appropriately targeted, lawfully applied or contribute important facts to an investigation.


Justice Department officials noted frequently this year that Inspector General Glenn A. Fine reports twice a year on abuses of the Patriot Act and has yet to substantiate any complaint. (One investigation is pending.) Fine advertises his role, but there is a puzzle built into the mandate. Under what scenario could a person protest a search of his personal records if he is never notified?


"We do rely upon complaints coming in," Fine said in House testimony in May. He added: "To the extent that people do not know of anything happening to them, there is an issue about whether they can complain. So, I think that's a legitimate question."


Asked more recently whether Fine's office has conducted an independent examination of national security letters, Deputy Inspector General Paul K. Martin said in an interview: "We have not initiated a broad-based review that examines the use of specific provisions of the Patriot Act."


At the FBI, senior officials said the most important check on their power is that Congress is watching.


"People have to depend on their elected representatives to do the job of oversight they were elected to do," Caproni said. "And we think they do a fine job of it."

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life is short..go for the long shot and ride it all the way home...

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Monopoly Money
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Thanks i apprecaite that

quote:
Originally posted by bdgee:
Your mistake is corrected.

Better than that, "Bush's Act" = The Patriot Act = dictatorship isn't anymore.



--------------------
M.M.
Semester #3 started,Only 7 more semesters to go.
Why, in an age where information is so easy to get, cant we find information on one man.
Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it.

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bdgee
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kaos,

This deserves to be kept fresh. I've selected a few lines from it for emphisis and listed them after your initial post

quote:
Originally posted by kaos:
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
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Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”
“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”
I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the **** that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that “goddamned piece of paper” used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the “Constitution is an outdated document.”
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn’t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.
Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a “living document.”
“"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have—a 'living document,’” Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, “I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.”
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a “union between a man and woman.” Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”
And don’t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just “a goddamned piece of paper.”

“I don’t give a goddamn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

I’ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution “a goddamned piece of paper.”

Every federal official – including the President – who takes an oath of office swears to “uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."

“We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,” Scalia warns. “Don't think that it's a one-way street.”

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kaos
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to the people who read this..i am very sorry if the articles i post are long..but they are very relevant to the subject at hand..i will try to post shorter matter in the future...thanks

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life is short..go for the long shot and ride it all the way home...

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bdgee
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Don't worry about length as long as you are saying somehing worth reading.
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Monopoly Money
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I asked my boss about the Patriot Act, he had no idea what was in it, furthermore he is actually putting faith in the government to use it as it was originally intended and not twisted to suit different administrations needs, such as controlling the population in more and more agressive ways.

It's a shame that people are so naive and put too much trust in the government to do what they are suppose to do. First time i read the Patriot Act was when it was first introduced, and i thought it was a good thing to take care of the "impending terrorist threat." Now that the Bush administration, and company, are tring to get it renewed, i reviewed the Patriot Act, and with a fresh perspective i see that its nothing more then infringing on everyones civil liberties.

The admendment use has come and gone, there is no reason to continue its full use unless our representatives has the intention of taking away our rights. If this is the case then it is our responsibility as informed citizens to depose of the administartion attempting to help themselves to our rights.

--------------------
M.M.
Semester #3 started,Only 7 more semesters to go.
Why, in an age where information is so easy to get, cant we find information on one man.
Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it.

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glassman
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so? basically? 911 nullified the constitution?

gee? isn't that the primary gaol of the terrorists?

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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Monopoly Money
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i would say a combination of 9/11 and the idiot that got voted into office is tring to nullify it. What can you do, accept try to get this national attention. Which i might add is quite hard unless you know upper echelon people with a tendancy for suicidal stunts [Smile]

--------------------
M.M.
Semester #3 started,Only 7 more semesters to go.
Why, in an age where information is so easy to get, cant we find information on one man.
Experience is something you dont get until just after you need it.

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kaos
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Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex) told the Washington Times that no member of Congress was allowed to read the first Patriot Act that was passed by the House on October 27, 2001. The first Patriot Act was universally decried by civil libertarians and Constitutional SECRET PAT scholars from across the political spectrum. William Safire, while writing for the New York Times, described the first Patriot Act's powers by saying that President Bush was seizing dictatorial control.

On February 7, 2003 the Center for Public Integrity, a non-partisan public interest think-tank in DC, revealed the full text of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003. The classified document had been leaked to them by an unnamed source inside the Federal government. The document consisted of a 33-page section by section analysis of the accompanying 87-page bill.

The Patriot Act II bill itself is stamped "Confidential -Not for Distribution." Upon reading the analysis and bill, I was stunned by the scientifically crafted tyranny contained in the legislation. The Justice Department Office of Legislative Affairs admits that they had indeed covertly transmitted a copy of the legislation to Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, (R-Il) and the Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney as well as the executive heads of federal law enforcement agencies.

It is important to note that no member of Congress was allowed to see the first Patriot Act before its passage, and that no debate was tolerated by the House and Senate leadership. The intentions of the White House and Speaker Hastert concerning Patriot Act II appear to be a carbon copy replay of the events that led to the unprecedented passage of the first Patriot Act.

There are two glaring areas that need to be looked at concerning this new legislation:
1. The secretive tactics being used by the White House and Speaker Hastert to keep even the existence of this legislation secret would be more at home in Communist China than in the United States. The fact that Dick Cheney publicly managed the steamroller passage of the first Patriot Act, insuring that no one was allowed to read it and publicly threatening members of Congress that if they didn't vote in favor of it that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack, is by the White House?' own definition terrorism. The move to clandestinely craft and then bully passage of any legislation by the Executive Branch is clearly an impeachable offence.

2. The second Patriot Act is a mirror image of powers that Julius Caesar and Adolf Hitler gave themselves. Whereas the First Patriot Act only gutted the First, Third, Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and seriously damaged the Seventh and the Tenth, the Second Patriot Act reorganizes the entire Federal government as well as many areas of state government under the dictatorial control of the Justice Department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command. The Domestic Security Enhancement Act 2003, also known as the Second Patriot Act is by its very structure the definition of dictatorship.

I challenge all Americans to study the new Patriot Act and to compare it to the Constitution, Bill of Rights and Declaration of Independence. Ninety percent of the act has nothing to do with terrorism and is instead a giant Federal power-grab with tentacles reaching into every facet of our society. It strips American citizens of all of their rights and grants the government and its private agents total immunity.

Here is a quick thumbnail sketch of just some of the draconian measures encapsulated within this tyrannical legislation:

SECTION 501 (Expatriation of Terrorists) expands the Bush administration'?s enemy combatant definition to all American citizens who may have violated any provision of Section 802 of the first Patriot Act. (Section 802 is the new definition of domestic terrorism, and the definition is any action that endangers human life that is a violation of any Federal or State law.) Section 501 of the second Patriot Act directly connects to Section 125 of the same act. The Justice Department boldly claims that the incredibly broad Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act isn't broad enough and that a new, unlimited definition of terrorism is needed.

Under Section 501 a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activities can be grabbed off the street and thrown into a van never to be seen again. The Justice Department states that they can do this because the person had inferred from conduct that they were not a U.S. citizen. Remember Section 802 of the First USA Patriot Act states that any violation of Federal or State law can result in the enemy combatant terrorist designation.

SECTION 201 of the second Patriot Act makes it a criminal act for any member of the government or any citizen to release any information concerning the incarceration or whereabouts of detainees. It also states that law enforcement does not even have to tell the press who they have arrested and they never have to release the names.

SECTION 301 and 306 (Terrorist Identification Database) set up a national database of suspected terrorists and radically expand the database to include anyone associated with suspected terrorist groups and anyone involved in crimes or having supported any group designated as terrorist. These sections also set up a national DNA database for anyone on probation or who has been on probation for any crime, and orders State governments to collect the DNA for the Federal government.

SECTION 312 gives immunity to law enforcement engaging in spying operations against the American people and would place substantial restrictions on court injunctions against Federal violations of civil rights across the board.

SECTION 101 will designate individual terrorists as foreign powers and again strip them of all rights under the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 102 states clearly that any information gathering, regardless of whether or not those activities are illegal, can be considered to be clandestine intelligence activities for a foreign power. This makes news gathering illegal.

SECTION 103 allows the Federal government to use wartime martial law powers domestically and internationally without Congress declaring that a state of war exists.

SECTION 106 is bone-chilling in its straightforwardness. It states that broad general warrants by the secret FSIA court (a panel of secret judges set up in a star chamber system that convenes in an undisclosed location) granted under the first Patriot Act are not good enough. It states that government agents must be given immunity for carrying out searches with no prior court approval. This section throws out the entire Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures.

SECTION 109 allows secret star chamber courts to issue contempt charges against any individual or corporation who refuses to incriminate themselves or others. This sections annihilate the last vestiges of the Fifth Amendment.

SECTION 110 restates that key police state clauses in the first Patriot Act were not sunsetted and removes the five year sunset clause from other subsections of the first Patriot Act. After all, the media has told us: this is the New America. Get used to it. This is forever.

SECTION 111 expands the definition of the enemy combatant designation.

SECTION 122 restates the government's newly announced power of surveillance without a court order.

SECTION 123 restates that the government no longer needs warrants and that the investigations can be a giant dragnet-style sweep described in press reports about the Total Information Awareness Network. One passage reads, thus the focus of domestic surveillance may be less precise than that directed against more conventional types of crime.

SECTION 126 grants the government the right to mine the entire spectrum of public and private sector information from bank records to educational and medical records. This is the enacting law to allow ECHELON and the Total Information Awareness Network to totally break down any and all walls of privacy. The government states that they must look at everything to determine if individuals or groups might have a connection to terrorist groups. As you can now see, you are guilty until proven innocent.

SECTION 127 allows the government to takeover coroners? and medical examiners operations whenever they see fit.

SECTION 128 allows the Federal government to place gag orders on Federal and State Grand Juries and to take over the proceedings. It also disallows individuals or organizations to even try to quash a Federal subpoena. So now defending yourself will be a terrorist action.

SECTION 129 destroys any remaining whistleblower protection for Federal agents.

SECTION 202 allows corporations to keep secret their activities with toxic biological, chemical or radiological materials.

SECTION 205 allows top Federal officials to keep all their financial dealings secret, and anyone investigating them can be considered a terrorist. This should be very useful for Dick Cheney to stop anyone investigating Haliburton.

SECTION 303 sets up national DNA database of suspected terrorists. The database will also be used to stop other unlawful activities. It will share the information with state, local and foreign agencies for the same purposes.

SECTION 311 federalizes your local police department in the area of information sharing.

SECTION 313 provides liability protection for businesses, especially big businesses that spy on their customers for Homeland Security, violating their privacy agreements. It goes on to say that these are all preventative measures — has anyone seen "Minority Report?" This is the access hub for the Total Information Awareness Network.

SECTION 321 authorizes foreign governments to spy on the American people and to share information with foreign governments.

SECTION 322 removes Congress from the extradition process and allows officers of the Homeland Security complex to extradite American citizens anywhere they wish. It also allows Homeland Security to secretly take individuals out of foreign countries.

SECTION 402 is titled Providing Material Support to Terrorism. The section reads that there is no requirement to show that the individual even had the intent to aid terrorists.

SECTION 403 expands the definition of weapons of mass destruction to include any activity that affects interstate or foreign commerce.

SECTION 404 makes it a crime for a terrorist or other criminals to use encryption in the commission of a crime.

SECTION 408 creates lifetime parole (basically, slavery) for a whole host of crimes.

SECTION 410 creates no statute of limitations for anyone that engages in terrorist actions or supports terrorists. Remember: any crime is now considered terrorism under the first Patriot Act.

SECTION 411 expands crimes that are punishable by death. Again, they point to Section 802 of the first Patriot Act and state that any terrorist act or support of terrorist act can result in the death penalty.

SECTION 421 increases penalties for terrorist financing. This section states that any type of financial activity connected to terrorism will result to time in prison and $10-50,000 fines per violation.

SECTIONS 427 sets up asset forfeiture provisions for anyone engaging in terrorist activities.

There are many other sections that I did not cover in the interest of time. The American people were shocked by the despotic nature of the first Patriot Act. The second Patriot Act dwarfs all police state legislation in modern world history.

Usually, corrupt governments allow their citizens lots of wonderful rights on paper, while carrying out their jackbooted oppression covertly. From snatch and grab operations to warrantless searches, Patriot Act II is an Adolf Hitler wish list.

You can understand why President Bush, Dick Cheney and Dennis Hastert want to keep this legislation secret not just from Congress, but the American people as well. Bill Allison, Managing Editor of the Center for Public Integrity, the group that broke this story, stated on my radio show that it was obvious that they were just waiting for another terrorist attack to opportunistically get this new bill through. He then shocked me with an insightful comment about how the Federal government was crafting this so that they could go after the American people in general. He also agreed that the FBI has been quietly demonizing patriots and Christians and those who carry around pocket Constitutions.

I have produced two documentary films and written a book about what really happened on September 11th. The bottom line is this: the military-industrial complex carried the attacks out as a pretext for control.

Anyone who doubts this just hasn't looked at the mountains of hard evidence.

Of course, the current group of white collar criminals in the White House might not care that we're finding out the details of their next phase. Because, after all, when smallpox gets released, or more buildings start blowing up, the President can stand up there at his lectern suppressing a smirk, squeeze out a tear or two, and tell us that See I was right. I had to take away your rights to keep you safe. And now it's your fault that all of these children are dead.

From that point on, anyone who criticizes tyranny will be shouted down by the paid talking head government mouthpieces in the mainstream media.

You have to admit, it's a beautiful script. Unfortunately, it's being played out in the real
world. If we don't get the word out that government is using terror to control our lives while doing nothing to stop the terrorists, we will deserve what we get — tyranny. But our children won't deserve it.

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life is short..go for the long shot and ride it all the way home...

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glassman
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instrestin' stuff, the patriot act....

check this out:
SEC. 302. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.

(a) FINDINGS- The Congress finds that--

(1) money laundering, estimated by the International Monetary Fund to amount to between 2 and 5 percent of global gross domestic product, which is at least $600,000,000,000 annually, provides the financial fuel that permits transnational criminal enterprises to conduct and expand their operations to the detriment of the safety and security of American citizens;

(3) money launderers subvert legitimate financial mechanisms and banking relationships by using them as protective covering for the movement of criminal proceeds and the financing of crime and terrorism, and, by so doing, can threaten the safety of United States citizens


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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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glassman
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there are obviously a lot of thing IN the patriot act we NEED to keep....

SEC. 356. REPORTING OF SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITIES BY SECURITIES BROKERS AND DEALERS; INVESTMENT COMPANY STUDY

how come this is being ignored [Big Grin] them nekked short sellers are all terrorists as far as i'm concerned... [Razz]

i'm no lawyer, but it looks like
Sec 626 .....a consumer reporting agency shall furnish a consumer report of a consumer and all other information in a consumer's file to a government agency authorized to conduct investigations of, or intelligence or counterintelligence activities or analysis related to, international terrorism when presented with a written certification by such government agency that such information is necessary for the agency's conduct or such investigation, activity or analysis.
this menas they don't need a warrant to pull your credit....that ain't no big deal? is it?

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T e x
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quote:
Originally posted by glassman:
so? basically? 911 nullified the constitution?

gee? isn't that the primary gaol of the terrorists?

as I recall, the point of the Uruguayan model--"the original"--was exactly that: force the government to crack down so hard on basic liberties that the populace would revolt...

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
Adventures in microcapitalism...

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glassman
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now this is wierd....
TITLE IV--PROTECTING THE BORDER

Subtitle A--Protecting the Northern Border

SEC. 401. ENSURING ADEQUATE PERSONNEL ON THE NORTHERN BORDER.

The Attorney General is authorized to waive any FTE cap on personnel assigned to the Immigration and Naturalization Service on the Northern border.


this section goes on to set several new mandates for the "northern border"


the wierd part? i can't find the section on protecting the SOUTHERN border.....

duh????????????

am i missing somthing????

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Don't envy the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise.

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T e x
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for canada, they had to have sumpin in writing?

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
Adventures in microcapitalism...

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glassman
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canada? heyeck that thar ain't the northern border... the northern border is the Mason-Dixon line [Big Grin]


i guess the part that leaves me wondering is how fast they got this written and introduced....

these guys usually can't even decide when to have a vote without more than 6 weeks of discussion...

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Dustoff 1
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Good take on the History channel tonight about Iraq and internal investigations by the locals finaly getting back into the information buisiness.

Rumsfield really dropped the ball, as glass called it months ago,,

Sadams security and intel forces are finaly being put to good use..

I think Bush should finish his dead Duck [not lame] term fishing in his Bass pond...

The Dude needs some Texas Air, and a good belt or two of cheap Whiskey..

He was earnest in his early reaction to 9/11, but just did not have the leadership ability to break from Hang um high mentality, and think thru what the ramifacations would be to his actions..

In other words he behaved like the rest of us, not like the Commander in Chief of the United States Armed Forces..

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T e x
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speed of getting it written? remember FEMA boyzzz? The guy that hired "Brownie" to succeed him had a consulting biz to "rebuild Iraq" ... 4 months before the war...

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Nashoba Holba Chepulechi
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glassman
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the latest hulluballo? about Bush's secret directives?

the NY Times held the article for over a year.....

let's see? tick back to one year ago? hmmmm... the election campaign?

so this was leaked during the election campaign by someone in the intel community?

and the NY Times held the article? another example of the "liberal media" playing ball with the politicians...

but which politicians were they playing ball with?

Hillary didn't want Kerry to win, or she couldn't run in '08


i can't say as i blame any NY paper for wanting to do the right thing after 9-11, and support the President, but holding the article until after the election seems a little suspicious to me.


the problem is that we are in a very long anti-terror war, how long do we suspend the constitution? everybody was willing to give up SOME freedom to get rid of these bastrds.

i think the partisanship shown by both sides is doing much more long-term damage to our republic than the terrorists can.

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Aragorn243
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I think the people complaining about the Patriot Act need to sit back and do a bit of research on the actions taken during WWI and WWII. The Patriot Act is not permanent, it is temporary and must be renewed by Congress. It is also much milder than the restrictions placed during either of the World Wars and we are in a much more technologically/communications advanced era.
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RiescoDiQui
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Those who oppose us in this global fight are proving quite clearly that they have been set out to help destroy this country by any means nessecary... currently they are choosing the coward's way... Bickering and hindering...
I'm sure at some point they will step up their attacks.

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permanentjaun
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The point that should be taken from your post Aragorn is that we're making the same mistakes as in WWI and WWII. In fact, the United States has been infringing on our rights since even the civil war. In hindsight none of the actions taken during the world wars are seen as the right decisions. It took decades but the US government did give reparations to Japanese Americans affected by their unjust "relocation."

The restricting or revoking of our civil rights and liberties today, is still as unjust as it was during this countries past wars.

The actions taken during WWI and WWII were not permanent because after the wars the government always fixed their mistake. Where is the end to this war? There WILL ALWAYS be terrorism. One person has the power to kill thousands. Are we going to kill all evil doers? It's impossible. The patriot act is going to be more permanent than you may think.

Here is a very eductional link to a debate between two scholars.

http://www.uncommonknowledge.org/700/717.html

If something is unconstitutional, it's unconstitutional. It shouldn't be justified by time frames or the current state of the country. Matt

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glassman
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they are trying to make the patriot act PERMANENT strider, that is what the last weeks debate is about.... it was supposed to be temporary...

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Aragorn243
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Permanentjaun,

The point that should be taken from my post is that many things were done during the world wars for security reasons. Most of them were effective at maintaining security and none of them were continued beyond the end of the war. We do need to learn from the mistakes of the past such as the internment camps, not the best of decisions and I'm not calling for that now. I'm simply pointing out that the infringements of the Patriot Act are not of anywhere near the same inconvenience as those brought on by the world wars. You were restricted as to travel, food rationing, purchases, what you could manufacture, etc, etc. The first world war had some severe penalties for even discussing the US in a bad light.

Glassman,

I am under the impression that the debate on the Patriot Act is to extend it, not make it permanent. This is part of the original act, it must be renewed periodically. If that is not the case, then I will have to review my position on it.

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glassman
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US House blocks renewal of Patriot Act

WASHINGTON, Dec 17: A group of US senators, demanding increased protection of civil liberties, defied President George Bush on Friday by blocking renewal of the USA Patriot Act, a centrepiece of his ‘war on terrorism’.

A showdown bid to end debate and move to passage of renewal legislation fell eight votes short of the needed 60 in the 100-member Senate. The vote was 52-47, with a handful of Republicans joining most Democrats in a procedural roadblock.

The Patriot Act was first passed after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks to expand the authority of the federal government on such fronts as information sharing, obtaining private records and conducting secret searches and roving wiretaps in its effort to track down suspected terrorists.

Approved earlier this week by the House of Representatives, the renewal legislation would make permanent 14 provisions set to expire on Dec 31, and extend three others for four years.


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glassman
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i frequently disagree with the ACLU....

however, i believe that they are a necessary part of the democratic process....
here's a link to their position on the Patriot Act part 2

http://www.aclu.org//safefree/general/17346leg20030320.html

many of the statements they make are extreme...

you have to really push the limits of the laws to get to some of their claims,

BUT?

i believe we have seen the current admin do just that, probably without the intent to subvert our rights...

the problem is these things tend to snowball...

there are a lot of checks and balances that are disappearing fast.....

search warrants issued by judges are still fundamental rights even under the patriot act...

stopping a terrorist act is a good thing...

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[ December 18, 2005, 16:03: Message edited by: Polarbear17 ]

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bdgee
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quote:
Originally posted by Aragorn243:
I think the people complaining about the Patriot Act need to sit back and do a bit of research on the actions taken during WWI and WWII. The Patriot Act is not permanent, it is temporary and must be renewed by Congress. It is also much milder than the restrictions placed during either of the World Wars and we are in a much more technologically/communications advanced era.

I think the people complaining about the people complaining about the Patriot Act need to sit back do a bit of research. They need to look at how very much like early 1930s Germans, who justified loss of liberties right into absolute dictator ship. In case you haven't paid attention to dubya's take recently on the limitations of the Constitution and laws on the Administratation, specifically the Presidency itself, He and the whole of the shrubery think the Supremem court didn't annoint him president, but Dictator.
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Aragorn243
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bdgee,

Why would I research and/or compare Germany when we have examples of Constitutional rights being temprarily suspended in mild forms in this nation in times of war or national emergency. German examples don't fit, our own do. I have by the way researched Germany prior to WWI, during WWI, after WWI and during WWII. I see no exmaples of what occured there occuring here. If you think we are heading toward absolute dictatorship, guess again. Bush will leave office in January of 2009 and a new President will be sworn in, no dictatorship.

Have you done the research or are you just passing on the liberal talking points about Germany?

Bush was never appointed by the Supreme Court, he was elected. There was an attempt by the Florida Supreme Court to overturn existing election laws which was refused by the US Supreme Court. That does not make an appointment, but a legitimate prevention of a lower courts ability to influence an election. Bush is not acting as a dictator. He is taking reasonable steps to secure us against another 9/11 and so far, it's worked, 4 years without a repeat performance on US soil.

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permanentjaun
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The point is, if it's unconstitutional, no matter how insignificant, then it's unconstitutional. The Patriot Act directly infringes on our right to privacy.

The difference between being inconvenienced on travel, shopping, manufacturing, and our rights and liberties are huge. For example, racism is not allowed under the equal protection of the laws clause. Racism tends to be unconstitutional when the law is not narrowly tailored. This is why affirmative action is allowed while something such as the relocation of over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans would not be legal.

This is then why the US was, and perhaps still can, restrict travel, production, etc. If they can provide a mandate that is not in place to benefit a single group or hinder a single group of people, then they can do it. At the same time, a convincing compelling interest would help their cause.

In times of war, a compelling interest to conserve resources while inconveniencing anyone might fly. Taking away our rights, such as right to privacy, or equal protection of the laws, is not an inconvenience but simply unconstitutional; no way around it.

quote:
Originally posted by Aragorn243:
Permanentjaun,

The point that should be taken from my post is that many things were done during the world wars for security reasons. Most of them were effective at maintaining security and none of them were continued beyond the end of the war. We do need to learn from the mistakes of the past such as the internment camps, not the best of decisions and I'm not calling for that now. I'm simply pointing out that the infringements of the Patriot Act are not of anywhere near the same inconvenience as those brought on by the world wars. You were restricted as to travel, food rationing, purchases, what you could manufacture, etc, etc. The first world war had some severe penalties for even discussing the US in a bad light.


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Aragorn243
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permanentjuan,

There is no right to privacy. Read the Constitution. Isn't there, didn't exist as a concept until Roe vs Wade and that one of the reasons that ruling is so contentious.

You are protected from UNREASONABLE searches and seizures. That is not a right to privacy. If there is reasonable reason, they can act to protect the nation. Wars create special circumstances. What is occuring now is not new, it is in fact milder than restrictions placed on the population in other wars.

The government has to determine what presents a serious threat to national security. That is one of the functions of the executive branch and the President is given powers under the Constitution to act in these manners. Today unfortunately one of the greatest threats is the near instantaneous transfer of information worldwide. One simple phone call can set into motion things which have been prepared in advance for months or even years. E-mail messages can do the same. They can also transfer all sorts of data which put people in danger.

Back in WWII, they used to have a phrase "loose lips sink ships". Too much talk could provide information to German spies who could be standing next to you. These spies then had to go on a set schedule, set up a radio and hope they get a clear signal to a sub that hopefully wasn't sunk in the meantime to relay the information across the Atlantic. It might take days for it to all get sorted out to the right people so they could in turn relay the information back to the wolfpack to prepare for the sailing convoy. Today all it takes is turning on the computer or making a cell call. These are dangerous times.

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glassman
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this isn't WW2... we aren't fighting any country, ( at least right now) and terrorsim will never go away...

this war is one of indefinite duration, cuz there's no way to say it's over...


who have we made a declaration of war on exactly?

the problem is partisanship bickering and lying...

when you have politicians on both sides that are willing to say just about anything to make the other party look bad, you can't fix anything....

there's more than a war on terrorism going on here, there's an internal war as well....
and it appears that these guys have decided it's winner take all.....

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