Beware What You Read

RR, correct me if I'm wrong. My understanding was that the Patriot Act II was leaked from the Justice Department in draft form and still today has not been formally published as a proposal. Is that so? Now, I think it merits discussion by the public because it was written and it is publically known. Hopefully, the attention it brings now will force the Justice Department to tone it down before it does publish it. But, I can also understand why Ashcroft would be reluctant to discuss it before he even publishes it. If he does eliminate some of the things people are complaining about, it'll be a moot point.

 

What with the whole controversy in Iraq over,er...missiles ...I am unsure if any of us should be seen reading in this here...er...Rockets forum...

 

Delete the word 'terrorist' and replace it wth the word 'Communist' if any of you are in the mood for some 50's nostalgia...

 

If you are asking me this...my answer would be that I don't believe that this is a big enough deal to worry about.

I don't believe that anybody will be affected by it.

That is just my personal opinion and I could be wrong...I just have a lot more worries in my life that take precedent over an issue that will affect an insignificant amount of people in the country...and the people most likely it will affect are people under investigation for international terrorism.

I think that if you are on the list of people that are being looked at by the FBI for possibly being a terrorist, the books you look at aren't going to be why they arrest you if they do...it's going to be your illegal activities, and the books you read will just be further proof.

 

So we should not investigate people with possible ties to international terrorism?


We should just leave them alone and let them be?

 

If they need these signs anywhere, its Santa Cruz. I have never been anywhere with a lower concentration of mainstream people. The population there is such that glynch and No Worries would be considered right of center (well maybe not No Worries ), and anyone that would think of voting republican would be considered a facist (hey, kinda like this board , are we sure the majority of our posters are from Texas). If your into the hairy armpit, tie-dye shirt w/ faux leather fringe jacket, PETA style crowd, I highly recommend it. Of course the weather is great, the beaches are pretty nice, and (if your into that kind of thing) pot is readily available (the deputy mayor was protesting the shutdown of a hash bar.)

 

Actually, this is false...the constitution offers no public "right to privacy."

We make assumptions about the constitution.

One of the basic assumptions is that if the constitution says it...we must hold it to be true. The constitution says that you have the right to freedom of speech...thus we hold true that you have freedom of speech.

The other assumption is that if the writers of the constitution did not put it in the document...they meant for it not to be there...thus...since there is no "right to privacy" in the constitution, the writers of the constitution must have meant for there to be no right to privacy.

They did protect against illegal search and seizure, but that is hard to prove in a case where they look at the books you checked out.

Many court cases have focused on the right to privacy...some saying you do, and some saying you don't...but for right now...until there is an amendment to the constitution...saying that "right to privacy" is a constitutional right is a fallacy.

 

The fourth amendment says:

It is debatable whether such records fall under the umbrella of person/house/papers/effects of the suspect. I'd think it would at least fall in that category on the behalf of the library or bookstore in question.

The more important part, I think, is that warrants should only be issued under probable cause. I'm sure there's plenty of case history I'm not aware of in regards to what constitutes probable cause. Would it include suspecting someone was a member of terrorist organization without any evidence showing that he might actually be conspiring to commit a crime?

 

The problem is with the word 'possible' and the degree of invasive measures said 'investigation' is made up of...To be 'mentioned in connection' is an incredible leap of reasoning from having probable cause, and, worse still, completely up to the discretion of the investigators to perceive...

The founders of this country realized, as does anyone who has done any study of history and/or politics, that those in power will, by thier very position, try to increase thier ability to rule as they see fit. We were founded in opposition to this, and set up a system of checks and balances to ensure that this did not happen, and we are the greatest 'check' to their ability to give themselves more power over us. What we are willing to tolerate is the final hurdle, and we have, at times in the past ( McCarthyism, Japanese-American camps, segregation, etc.) been sadly willing to allow some of our basic liberties to be compromised in the face of potential or perceived threats, and have almost always regretted them later. It is always 'safer' in the short run to give away authority..see Mussolini or Hitler or Stalin for prime examples of how much 'safer' and better run nations which submit to authority are, on the surface...But the sacrifice is greater than that, as we have seen in oue own and others history, abd if we give way in the system designed to have us hold the power to stop those in authority from taking more, if we surrender what Jefferson called our greatest responsibility, to be the check on the power of the governent, out of fear, we have lost more than a war, or innocent lives..we have lost what we are.

 

The key word here, is investigate...it doesn't say arrest...it doesn't say blackmail or extort, it says...investigate.

We have to investigate people who possibly are in contact with terrorists or we would never find out anything.

Its not a push on your civil rights to be investigated.

The police investigate people all the time, sometimes they are innocent, sometime guilty...that's how you find out if you arrest them...you investigate.

You aren't going to convince many people that we should not INVESTIGATE people with POSSIBLE ties to terrorism. By investigating...we find out if they do or not.

You could argue that it is good that the investigation is secret, otherwise the public would find out and it would be more of a detriment to the person being investigated if the public found out rather than the public not knowing.

 

Paranoia.