Weelllll....Franch and Germany are trying to take over the EU and the Euro is going down the drain, but , still, better than a dictatorshipCrazycat690 said:
WARNING! this is a real threat to basic human freedoms!
- Thread starter Joseph Alexander
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Of course it's still pretty scary. I guess the uspoken part in my post was "Do some research, and then come up with Your own conclusions". I'm just a bit baffled that a dubious article with a dubious source is taken at face value. If I'd have to read the entire 400 pages of the thing to check, I could understand being lazy about it, but since the article cites the sections in question, I'd say it's everyone's responsibility to take 5 minutes and check it.Racecarlock said:
Especially the "blahblah state controls everything blahblah You're just sheeple" crowd. It's funny, in a sad way.
~Sylv
Why do I get the mental image of Obama standing before the bill wielding a giant hammer with the word VETO etched into the head.KeyMaster45 said:
OT: It violates several constitutional rights so I highly doubt it will pass and if it does then I will be moving to Canada.
yes i have done my research, and those frankly don't make goose shit differance.Sylvine said:
why?
due to vagueness of most of the sub section and the currently active patriot act those parts are annulled.
just cause its on paper doesn't mean it can stop shit.
Well I'm safe, it says American citizen. Being British I'll help the our Canadian cousins to invade America for a second time and burn the white house down...again.
I have mixed opinions on the subject.Joseph Alexander said:
To be honest people in the US have never had a lot of the "absolute" freedoms they think they do. You find this out quickly if you take things like Criminal Justice. Indeed most of those freedoms are quite subjective, and were always something that could be stripped away instantly by the goverment invoking emergency, or war-time powers.
Things like "The Patriot Act" were an attempt to give the goverment partial war time powers without outright declaring martial law, it's had very mixed success because it doesn't go far enough when it really needs to, and ultimatly it's caused issues of those powers being used in purely civil matters, largely because when you get down to it anything that involves attempted intimidation can be defined as terrorism with the proper use of semantics.
Overall I *DO* think what this law is doing needs to be done, largely because of the number of terrorists that have US Citizenship due to how easily we grant it. We have a lot of problems with guys who are say university professors running hubs to pass out information and support to terrorists and hiding behind the US laws because they themselves are citizens and can defend themselves through things like search and seizure laws no matter how much damage they were doing or what they were enabling.
I also have to say I have increasingly little sympathy for the OWS movement which does need to be shut down. Simply put crowds of unwashed liberals do nothing in of themselves. Effective protests are not, and never have been, legal. Before a non-violent protest can work you need to have people willing to committ crimes and take hardcore action, then a show of support works. Those hippies and stuff back in the 60s succeeded in the shadow of liberal terrorist groups like the SLA (the guys who abducted and brainwashed Patty Hearst). Today your average young "save the world" liberal doesn't have even the remotest clue about how things are done and what went on behind the scenes. Most would decry the methods the very groups they claim to support used to get to that point.
The bottom line is that OWS is nothing but a public nuisance, and perhaps even terrorists given the idea is to intimidate people into compliance or support... though annoyance-ists would probably be more accurate. It's not that I have no sympathy for what they stand for (my opinions are mixed) but the bottom line is they accomplish nothing and need to be gotten off the streets. Truthfully though I very much doubt these laws were passed with them in mind.
Speaking for myself I say my opinions of this law are mixed, because while I can support the idea of it, and agree with the need given current events, I'd prefer that the goverment actually INVOKE WAR POWERS and DECLARE A STATE OF EMERGENCY if they feel the US is a sufficient battleground. I do not care for such things being enabled in peacetime law because that's a recipe for abuse. In the end either declare Martial Law, and I'll stand behind these kinds of arrests as a time of emegency, or don't and leave it the heck alone.
I'll also say there tends to be a bit more oversight here than you seem to realize. The big differance is wheter the desicians being made are a matter of public record or not. The military and goverment doesn't have the resources to imprison limitless numbers of people for no reason. If they are going to take some dude off the street and lock them up for an indefinate amount of time they are going to have a reason other than "it makes my balls feel big". Usually those reasons involve intelligence of a sort that can't be revealed publically, say through an intelligence agent or snitch/source that can't remain in play if outed for a public trial or whatever. Thus the review of the process happens among those with an appropriate security clearance to decice if it's really worth the effort and resources.
Those concerned that the OWS protestors are going to be rounded up and held forever or whatever should relax. While something like this might be used to get them off the street(and let's be honest, what they are doing is obvious) I doubt they will actually be held for long because the goverment just doesn't have the resources for something of that scale. Heck, we have people like Linsay Lohan avoiding prison time because there isn't enough room to justify putting them in jail for minor offenses, and by all accounts the federal and military prisons don't seem to be doing much better.
The people affected by this law are those who have been hiding behind the letter of the law (as opposed to the spirit of the law) to undermine the goverment and support terrorist acts. If your say running a computer hub that is compiling and distributing information like blueprints, bomb specs, the schedules of goverment officials, and other things to prospective terrorists, helping distribute videos and anti-American propaganda from overseas to motivate such movements, and similar things hidden behind search laws and such... well then your about to have your day ruined. Someone like that is liable to wind up on the receiving end of this.
Also understand that if a group like the CIA finds an international terrorist cell coming back to the US, and decides to say bug a mosque (and due to security clearance issues and the protection of Agents it might not tell the FBI or even have to go through civilian channels) leading to outing some terrorists who are US citizens, there are all kinds of problems. See, this could probably be justified given some of the things the CIA can do, but to explain the whole chain of information, who the agents are, how they knew what they did, and what lead to what, you could blow an entire operation that could still stop tons of terrorists, not to mention putting all of those people in danger. If say the favored lieutenant of some terrorist kingpin is actually a CIA Agent or Mole you don't want to lose that so he can sit on a stand once and say "oh yeah, the terrorist guy actually told me what he was doing and I watched him get it ready, I just had him picked up before he could make it happen".
It's hard for liberals to swallow, but well, there it is. Personally, I think if the problem is that extensive the goverment just needs to say so and declare martial law. Of course I suspect a lot of the problem has to do with guys like Obama and the Clintonistas that are still in power because they generally support ending the war on terror due to a combination of "peace at any price" principles, and that like any long war it's unpopular with the people and can earn any politician who ends it a lot of support. Obama saying "The US is a battlefield and under constant threat" kind of contridicts "everything is fluffy kittens and pink bunnies, all those we think are our enemies are our friends. The war is over, everyone rejoice for we are safe". The law passed so handily because the former is a lot closer to the truth. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the logic behind this came down to countering anti-war policy and being ready to deal with the fallout if we do actually withdraw entirely.
Yeah, I hear you there. People skim my posts all the time. And some of them go "Too long, didn't read". If they don't want to read that's fine, but don't post in the thread if you're going to do that. Yet people do it all the time. Pisses me off.Sylvine said:
It's not too late to leave, you know. You've had the USA PATRIOT Act for years now, and this was just the logical step forward from it.
You have no power. You have no rights. And your government is working it's hardest to make those two facts into law.
You have no power. You have no rights. And your government is working it's hardest to make those two facts into law.
