First, let me preface this post by saying that personally I don't think the civil rights afforded to citizens of this great country should be extended to non-citizens. I don't believe that anybody entering this country, legally or otherwise, deserves the same rights as somebody born here until they have proven to be an adequate addition to civilized society. In my opinion, if you come to this country and behave in a manner that is any less than eternally grateful that we took you in, you deserve a lifetime deportation after a year in a maximum security prison.

Having said that, I was mortified to fully comprehend the rights and priveledges taken away from me, a 5th generation US citizen, by the passage of The Patriot Act. I highly suggest that all of you watch the film 'Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties'. It airs at the following dates/times on DirectTV.

08.28 - 09:00AM (Sundance Channel)
08.28 - 10:20PM (Sundance Channel)
08.31 - 05:00AM (Sundance Channel)

After watching this, I don't know who to fear...

Cypher

I don't have DirectTV.... any highlights? I haven't noticed any difference in my civil liberties, but I'm curious to know what they are that have been removed.

They've been taken Frosty, you just haven't experienced it yet. What always shocked me about the whole situation was that Ashcroft was going to push for a second, more restrictive Patriot Act. I'm reading Zakaria's The Future of Freedom right now for a class and the Patriot act goes hand in hand with what he addresses as an erosion of liberties in the name of "democracy." Very interesting read, highly recommended, NYTimes bestseller.

Elaborate...

whats new? we are not free.. havent been for years. what do you think the 60's were about? no one has the patience to fight for freedom, im no TE but society dont care too worried about the mighty american dollar. freedo, is not shooting a man 200 times because he tried to get away in his truck... self defense for the cop is not running in front of the truck and everyone shooting. i just coast along with the gov. no reason to fight by myself, no one else cares... ill move to CA sooner or later...

Real where in the constitution or any of our values as a democratic and liberal society does the government draw the ability to kidnap U.S. citizens, deporting them to be interrogated in foreign countries only to be returned without any charges being brought. That is a consequence of the Patriot Act and a well documented one at that.

Well thank God for the patriot act then.

i have started to question some of the things in the patroit act, like kidnapping citizens and holding them indefentily w/o charges, the usae of cameras in public..(what good is a camera if the guyt is a suicide bomber...i would wave to the camera..) the fact that the gov can pull your school records and lib4rary records w/o a warrent... shit dont make no sense... get the terrorists not us... the terrorists are muslim men 18-35. (I would assume) lets start looking at the mosques with extremeists etc... not a muslim guy working on his thesis for medicine...

If only it were that simple....

I know, I know...

Hey guys, it's called the Patriot act it's got to be good right? Who would dissagree with anything called the "Patriot Act".


Gone are our rights to privacy.


The funny thing is that as Americans, we didn't even fight it. I don't know about you guys but a couple jets going down every 25 years or so would be acceptable IMO to not have to give up Civil Liberties and personal rights that were bestowed upon us by our forefathers and taken away by George Dubya.




aobtc

wow, finally something we can all agree on. welcome to my world fellas the patriot act was passed on October 27th, 2001, without being read by any of the ppl passing it. it is nothing new, although it is still there and needs to be confronted. someone mentioned the second patriot act, which i have seen, and u guys can see for yourselves by searching under its full name, "The Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003". like Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who give up liberty for security will only get tyranny," which is 100% true.

Wrong. I am all for the Patriot Act. Someone tell me what I am missing out on?

I guess you don't enjoy your fourth ammendment right to protection from Illegal search and seizure. Remember every bad law ever passed was written with good intentions.

when i was at the bank yesterday i saw a sign that said the govt has a right to freeze my account and keep track of it. all under that pice of shit act

the govt. can arrest you and hold you with out cause for an indefinent amount of time, as well have access to yur medical records, library records, well lets just say you have no rights and they can even take your home and give it to a developer... (last part isnt part of the PA)

Hmmmm... But if I am a good American citizen with nothing to hide... does it really matter?

what if one of your friends isnt? the tie betwen you and him might be enough to have you brought in, what about charitable contributions and who your employer's contacts are. (not for you but other peoples employers etc.) schools etc. alot of what ifs but its still unreasonable to say that they have the right to do this to us. we still control the gov. (so we think) but I think seriously its a mix of bolth, gov. over stepping its bounds and people like TE talking to much. we do need to push the Gov. back a little bit, I dont want to be xrayed every 2 seconds and being searched w/o cause I dont have anything to hide but yet they have no reason to search me. Im a white male @ 27 y/o. I dont fit the terrorist profile. they want to stop this, cut it off at the border. that is truly the only serious protection we have. enlist the help of the public, make a national border protection of voulenteers to cover the border such as the minute men did. we have people poping up all over the border and cant control it. We are on the verge of a Cold war era Russia... sick if you ask me. I supported bush up to this point, time he made the effort to lesson the restrictions on the public. the local police are over powered (in sense that they have too much power), example is putting 200 rounds in a car that the driver was trying to escape. BS

You have entirely too much trust in the government. The Patriot Act has no checks and balances.

http://www.infowars.com/pdfs/patriot2-hi.pdf
patriot act II.
http://www.infowars.com/print/patriot_act/alexs_analysis.htm
u can read thru this then look at the legislation to check the accuracy of what he says.

Yes.

How so? So they can see what library books I borrow?

I think, like someone before has said, that you place way too much trust in this administration. There is nobody to ensure that the government does not abuse this power. Under the PA, American citizens can be charged in military tribunals, and not federal courts, which means that the process will be secret, and that many of the rights normally granted them would be taken away. Theoretically, that is very scary. I do not trust this government, or any government for that matter, with that kind of power. Sorry.

In the big scope of things, looking at which books I check from the library out is not a big deal, and if that was all it took to make these problems go away, I would gladly give that freedom up. People like to ridicule those who criticize the patriot act by saying, "If you care so much about terror, why do you care so much about something so trivial like library books?" But it's the principle of it all. If our civil rights are violated in any way, small or large, it would open the door and justify other "sacrifices" we would have to make. And again, half of us just doesn't trust this administration. my 2 c.

More lies from the people you seem to kneel down to pray to.
This is taken from the opening line form the page you linked to
"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 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.

Here is why that is an absolute joke and proves how fools are so quick and conveniently served crap that they will happily gobble it up, if it backs what they already believe or want to believe.

Here are the two points that glared out at me when I read the 1st paragraph.
"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"

I did a google search for the exact phrase "no member of Congress was allowed to read"
I wasn't at all surprised to see not a single of the 100 hits using that exact phrase linked to the Washington Times who it supposedly came from. The 100 Google hits all pointed to sites saying the exact same thing but not a single one of them linking to where this phantom quote came from, at best 20 of them linked back to one of 3 infowars pages saying much the same thing as the one you linked to.
I especially liked the infowares page that has a picture of Bush in a Hitler outfit waving a Nazi flag ( Yep thats where I would go to get unbiased information )

Heck maybe I was wrong, and there really was something from the Washington Times saying something... anything close to that. I spent another 10 minutes using the Washington Times archive search to find anything from Congressman Ron Paul making this statement. Nope not a single word. I would be very interested if you could tell me where this quote form Congressman Ron Paul came from, that is besides out of thin air.
BTW I got a huge laugh out of the fact there were 100+ sites using this exact same quote and not a single one willing or able to say where it came from.
Then again, I'm sure the people copying this statement would care less if it was true or not.

The other part I found funny was the assertion no one in Congress was allowed to read the bill they voted on. All I can say to that is
pleeeaasseee, is anyone actually dumb enough to believe that.
I really have to wonder how many people read over that line, which appears 3 times in this post so far, without giving it a second thought.
Oh yea man it happens all the time, the senate and house vote on stuff daily which they are not allowed to read. Wake the hell up guys, that isn't how it works.

The critics of the patriot act have done a great job misrepresenting possible and hypothetical abuses as holy fact.
I'll give you an example of the wide latitude of reasoning these people adopt with their criticisms
The right to bear arms could be misused or abused to allow people to kill other innocent people, therefor the second amendment should be repealed.
This is the same type of logic used by those who knowingly misrepresent what the Patriot Act is about and it's effects on U.S. citizenry

A few examples of what and how they misrepresent the facts,Contrary to what some people think or at least want you to think, the sky is not falling.
Here are a few of the points the critics try to use to inflame people.
Sneak & Peeks warrants are unconstitutional
Sorry but they have been around for 2 decades, regardless of the rhetoric used by critics about how they will be abused.
Although a lot of information about usage of the patriot act isn't released, the number of sneak and peek warrants have been.
This wide scale abuse people like the ACLU talk about amount to a total of 61.
This is 61 out of over 32,000 federal search warrants, which equals less than 2% were these terrible "sneak and peek warrants" that critics claim will be so abused that big brother will be spying on every citizen.

Oh my god they can look at my Library records
1st of all this has been completely misrepresented by critics.
3rd party records never had any special protection, nor should they.
The ACLU cry of concern has centered on
"this lets the FBI "spy on a person because they don't like the books she reads, or because . . . she wrote a letter to the editor that criticized government policy."
Total hogwash, critics seem to blink and miss this part of the act where it says several times that it doesn't apply to citizen activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Kind of an important distinction the critics keep missing for whatever reason.

The FBI doesn't need to get a court order for warrants under the patriot act
Untrue, in two different ways. Some critics even go so far as to insinuate a judge doesn't need to sign the order.
All warrants under the Patriot Act go through the FISC court which is comprised of 7 federal district courts judges, which BTW isn't picked by the administration as many people try and act like, they are picked by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Each member of the FISC court serves a seven year term with 1 member rotating out every year.
While on the subject of the FISC court I find it rather amusing none of the current critics had boo to say when the FISC powers were greatly expanded by Clinton under the Intelligence Appropriation Act of 1995. Hmmm... I wonder why that is???
Or even better along the same lines how about the same critics never said boo when Clinton gave the Attorney General authorization to approve physical searches under EXECUTIVE ORDER 12949. This ability of the Attorney General which people are screaming about now has actually existed for 10 years.
Just so there will be no misunderstanding, I'm not bringing up this last bit as a Clinton bash, I actually agree with it because I know it was the answer to limitations found during the investigation of how Aldrich Ames got away with spying for so long.

William Safire is a hack. I don't care how many words he knows.

This is another great example of misconceptions surrounding the Patriot Act.
The Patriot Act has nothing to do with anyone being charged in a military tribunal.
What has happened is the Patriot Act has became a catch-all for controversial policies from the Bush Administration.
Military tribunals actually come from policies based on the president's war powers in the Constitution and no not apply to U.S. citizens.
Another fact which has become somewhat distorted is Bush didn't create the idea or change anything when it comes to military tribunals or unlawful combatants, the precedent comes from a 60 year old Supreme court case involving Nazi saboteurs.

Or more to the point, Bush signed an Executive Order late 2001 which explicitly prohibits U.S. citizens being tried in a military tribunal.

As much talk as there has been about U.S. citizens being held as unlawful enemy combatants or how the Constitution is under assault. Stories talking about how Bush has declaring the right to lock up anyone, meaning any American, any place, at any time, then hold him indefinitely, well that huge number actually comes down to 3.
Yasar Esam Hamdi who was captured in Afghanistan armed after a firefight with U.S. forces
Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri who was a member of a al-Qaeda sleeper cell, who by the way was under multiple civilian charges when deemed an unlawful enemy combatant.
Jose Padilla who was arrested after his return flight from Pakistan where he meet with members of al-Qaeda who gave him money and bomb making plans. Information about Padilla came from the interrogation of a captured al-Qaeda leader who previously talked to Padilla about him possibly being used to build and set off a dirty bomb.
Of the 3 cases I find Padilla's the most interesting for several reasons.
The groups ( ACLU, some media outlets ) who has taken up his cause refuse to use his real name which is Abdullah al Muhajir. He legally changed it when he converted to Islam.
Why do these groups refuse to use his legal and chosen name?
Or how about the media reports where one newspaper describes him as a "juvenile delinquent" or another one talking about his "prison spell in Florida".
How about calling a convicted murderer, a convicted murderer versus talking about how he converted to Islam during his stay in a Florida prison without bothering to say what he was in prison for. Sorry but I find that very strange.

Feel free to accuse me supporting trampling on these poor guys civil rights, but in all honesty I could care less if they were all shot for treason, which by the way Yasar Esam Hamdi could be seeing as how he was captured while he actively took up arms against the United States and it's soldiers.

which is why i posted the link to the actual legislation for u to look at, of course, i bet u didnt even bother to open the ACTUAL LEGISLATION. go ahead, look for urself. it's not like he's giving his analysis of some document we cant read, i posted the link to the document right above it so u can read and check what he's saying.

new york times retard, not washington times.

all i have to say is read section 802 of the first patriot act. and then look at what they do to terrorists... especially in the second patriot act where "terrorists" ("Any action that endagers human life and is a violation of ANY state or federal law") can be put away for life and taken away to camps and shit.

I have said it before.

Bush is a GDP (Good Damn President)

I hate to be the one who points this out but most of you who come in here talking about this and bitching about it are the very ones now who are in college with Liberal Professors with a GD agenda. It was like that when went and hasnt changed since.

i only know what i have seen on cnn and fox and they didnt give it much positive attention... i might be wrong... sure aint the first time

Some off the most conservative people I know are in complete dissagreement with the PA and Bush's stance on Foreign policy. It's not just educated liberals.

i'm not liberal... i bash clinton too. i know shit that u conservatives could use against clinton that would give u a raging hard-on... and i do spread that. but clinton isn't the issue now, he was 5 years ago, but now bush is the issue. so please, refrain from calling me liberal

history will judge long after we are gone

I just think that the police alone have to much power and no one to keep them in check.
the federal gov. need to back off and close our border till better restrictions and checks can be put in. and recheck and tripple check people on visa and arrest anyone that is illegal alien status

Excuse me Mr. RETARD but here is the link you posted
http://www.infowars.com/print/patriot_act/alexs_analysis.htm
And here is the opening line
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.

Did you not bother to read the page you linked to or were you simply unable to??
Please explain to me why you are calling me a retard saying it was the New York Times when it clearly says the Washington Times.

Very intresting... never heard any of that. guess I dnt like all the cameras and stuff they are putting up. I know they are not taping them, but just makes me feel a little less privite and more under the microscope. not the way we should feel

*rubs his eyes*
wow... i coulda freakin sworn it said new york times... holy shit i musta been outta it. im sorry. and news sites DO take things down from their archives believe it or not, i've seen it happen, numerous times.

um...before u report, u should get ur fact s straight. Will cause less embarassment for urself, & not give others a reason to rip ur ass apart....

I normally don't get involved in topics such as this. I agree with Silver about our border situation...CLOSE IT indefinately... Why, because our fed. g'vment will let anyone in, even if illegally, deportation doesn't work 100%. They always seem to find their way back..FUCK "political correctness" where has that gotten us? Got us on the receiving end of major bombings, killing thousands & thousands. There really needs to be more restrictions on entering the US! But, then again, that wouldn't be P.C. IMO our "leaders" are as soft & nutless as a wet dishrag.

Yeah, If this was the 1940's there wouldnt be a bunch of towel heads roaming our streets. They would be in Internment camps. This country is so PC, When i went to pick my wife up at the airport, There was a group of about 8 with towels on there heads & long beards sitting in a circle outside one of the hanger's.......They work there!! That shocked me. I couldnt fathom hiring these people at an airport after what had happened on 9/11. I know thats not very PC of me, But WTF? Does it have to happen again to get the PC people to pull there heads outta there ass?

that mentallity is awful... so ur saying we should throw a million people in internment camps because the actions of 50? not EVERY muslim is a terrorist. most arent. it's just that the media portrays muslims as being ALL terrorists... which couldnt be further from the truth.

Dude, i said im not PC,....Sorry. And your right not every muslim is a terrorist, but do you think the ones that are will tell you they are?

I'm allowed to be skeptical. Arent I?

i agree at this point.. how many muslims are helping us find and turning them in? works do well in the UK dont it

I read that there are as many as 10,000 Muslims in the US Military. Ill bet most of them are doing more to find and turn them in than you are.

yeah.. sure they are seeing as I dont know many muslims. I am christian... ur point?

Didnt one of those muslims in our military chuck a grenede in a tent killing some of our soldiers? .....Maybe im wrong, but i thought that happened.

that definitely happened, but it wasnt a muslim. it was just a regular soldier. i remember the seeing that on the news.

I'm all for it too. Shit I got nothin to hide. Come over to my house and search anytime. Ill even break out a few cold beers.

Actually, he was a Muslim soldier in the US Army...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2005Apr21.html


"An Army sergeant who wanted to stop U.S. troops from killing his fellow Muslims was convicted by a military jury yesterday of murdering two colleagues and wounding 14 other soldiers in a chaotic grenade and rifle attack two days after the United States invaded Iraq.

Hasan Akbar, who turned 34 yesterday, faces the death penalty for the killings at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait, which prosecutors said were carefully planned to achieve "maximum carnage." The jury, which deliberated for 2 1/2 hours at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, N.C., before delivering its guilty verdicts on murder and attempted-murder charges, will reconvene Monday for a death-penalty hearing...."