When the politicians violate the Bill of Rights with the Patriot Act or some other guaranteed-to-bring-peace-and-security-to-the-world scheme, they always reassure us by saying:
“If you aren’t guilty, you have nothing to fear.”
If only that were so.
and ummm…
this came from where?
I know this is random bro…but c’mon.
:-\
someone wants to argue…
Rev
i’m a bit confused by your post Fester.
*Originally posted by reverendflash *
**someone wants to argue…
Rev **
No, no my fine tall white hatted friend. I am actually in a great mood today.
odedvard,
Your post just seemed completely left field to me. It just didnt seem like enough meat to strike up a conversation. More like just…
“Blam” heres a random statement I just had pop into my head.
Tell a businessman he has nothing to fear from the piles of forms he must file to prove he doesn’t discriminate.
Exactly a random statement, in the random forum…hmmmm doesn’t sound off so far.
I was aiming to discuss the Bill of Rights, if you for any reason you don’t want to participate s c r e w off! You make me sick.
I agree with odedvard, but yet, i also agree with fester…
What prompted you to start this thread?? Was it an article that you read? Why not create a poll, and see if people agree with your statement… Im just saying, like Fester pointed out, there seems to be no direction or ‘meat’ to this thread…
-fact
Every year a few million innocent people suffer special burdens greater than those the government places on all of us. The dismantling of the Bill of Rights has allowed the government to disrupt their lives, confiscate their property, or even kill them even though they’ve committed no crimes.
I hope you never become one of them Fester.
*Originally posted by odedvard *
**you don’t want to participate s c r e w off! You make me sick. **
Hey Alfonso,
before I s c r e w off! I have to say that I am certainly willing to discuss the Bill of Rights with you, however you are off because that would not be a random topic, that would be a better suited conversation for the ordered threads.
It would be an ordered conversation. So try to leave the s c r e w off!'s at home.
Fester
i’ll leave it up to you to categorize my threads–thread nazi.
it makes no diff to me. i’ll discuss it anywhere, anytime.
ha ha…Thread Nazi.
That was one of the coolest things I have ever been called.
I like you man, your silly.
Maybe you haven’t been hurt yet by a government agent acting on a malicious report or on his own ambition. So far, a mean-minded office rival or business competitor hasn’t stooped to giving a false tip about you to the police or the IRS.
I’m in agreement with Od. I think that the Patriot act basically puts the bill of rights thru a shredder.
Our privacy and other RIGHTS that we “guaranteed” under our Constituion are ripped away from us.
So I’m not coming from “left field” here is an article I’ve found. If this doesn’t make your blood boil as an American citizen maybe you should move somewhere else.
The Patriot Act:Last Refuge of a Scoundrel
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
[email protected]
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
—Samuel Johnson
First of all, I’m a hawk. I believe we should be in Afghanistan, I’d like to see bin Laden oh, say, six feet under, and behind my bifocals, this middle-aged veteran cheers her colleagues in the armed forces defending our nation.
However, the USA Patriot Act (AL, Jan., p. 20) is treason pure and simple, and you need to know how and why, because it presents particularly pernicious issues for the users who rely on your Internet services.
The Patriot Act is not antiterrorism legislation; it’s antispeech legislation, and is no more a direct response to the September 11 attacks than the Children’s Internet Protection Act is a direct result of sincere concern by members of Congress about the safety of minors. The cold, cynical reality is that the Patriot Act is a bloated hodgepodge of speech-chilling law that lurked in congressional corridors not only before September 11 but in large part before the Bush administration. It was hustled into reality in the post-9/11 environment so quickly, secretively, and undemocratically that our Bill of Rights had been clocked with a one-two punch well before any of us realized it was under attack.
Did you miss the passage of the Patriot Act? No wonder; it was smuggled into law. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported, “several of the key procedural processes applicable to any other proposed laws, including inter-agency review, the normal committee and hearing processes and thorough voting, were suspended for this bill.”
What does it mean?
As the Center for Democracy and Technology explains, the Patriot Act:
• Allows government agents to collect undefined new information about Web browsing and e-mail without meaningful judicial review; as the EFF put it, the “FBI and CIA can now go from phone to phone, computer to computer without demonstrating that each is even being used by a suspect or target of an order.”
• Allows Internet service providers, universities, and network administrators to authorize surveillance of “computer trespassers” without a judicial order;
• Overrides existing state and federal privacy laws, allowing the FBI to compel disclosure of any kind of records, including sensitive medical, educational, and library borrowing records (including, I suspect, Internet records), upon the mere claim that they are connected with an intelligence investigation;
• Allows law enforcement agencies to search homes and offices without notifying the owner for days or weeks after, not only in terrorism cases, but in all cases—the so-called “sneak and peek” authority.
There are many more scary parts to the Patriot Act, some of them almost unbelievable. As EFF explains it, the government can investigate even simple Web searching “by merely telling a judge anywhere in the U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is ‘relevant’ to an ongoing criminal investigation.”
Be prepared
First, read the documents provided by CDT, ACLU, EFF, EPIC, and all the other tweedy do-gooders we usually associate with—they’re all linked from the ALA Washington Office site. Learn what is meant by pen and trap, FISA, court order, and probable cause. Next, explain the Patriot Act to your staff, board, and Friends.
Meanwhile, do an inventory to identify all documents that track your patrons’ Internet activities: Internet sign-up sheets, Web logs, caches on individual computers as well as servers, and so forth. Talk to your techies; point out what the Patriot Act means for sensitive patron data, and solicit their advice.
Keep in mind that any documentation you retain (intentionally or otherwise) is potentially susceptible to law enforcement inquiries, court orders, and so forth. Follow through on your policies with procedures and training to ensure that if you want sign-up sheets shredded every day, that is in fact what happens. When the court order comes, it is too late to “pull an Enron” and rush to the shredder; at that point, you are legally obligated to comply with the law.
It’s my belief that libraries need to be forthright with patrons about the potential for seizure of confidential information related to their activity. Tell patrons just what you do with the data you collect about them, so they can then decide whether to log on to their favorite anti-government chat room at the library or go elsewhere.
Weed your Inner Ashcroft
Following September 11, many of us have struggled with our conflicting concerns about national security and our strong beliefs in civil rights. Michael Kinsley, writing in the January 4 Washington Post, observed that “in part because of self-censorship [Attorney General] John Ashcroft can relax because people have been listening to their Inner Ashcroft.” Meanwhile, the Outer Ashcroft has gone so far as to say that we shouldn’t even question attacks on freedom such as the Patriot Act because we will “only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve.”
Don’t just sit there reading this article: Go out onto the floor and look at the faces of the people using your computers. Do you really think it helps democracy to put everyone in America under the lens of unbridled government surveillance?
Rebuking both Inner and Outer Ashcrofts, I respond that there is nothing more corrosive to our national unity than diluting the rights for which we as Americans can be justifiably proud. We as librarians can be true patriots—by doing what we can to protect the Constitution and the people we serve.
Unfortunately, the Constitutional safeguards are ignored more and more by Congress, the police, federal officials, and the courts. Disregarding the Bill of Rights has done nothing to reduce the crime rate, but it has put your life and mine in jeopardy.
As a result, we have neither physical protection from the guilty nor legal protection for the innocent.
here is an interesting news article… Rather than starting a new thread, i thought i’d just share this with those that are interested:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/150333_helenthomas30.html
“Isn’t that the first thing dictators do – shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving it is intolerable.”