From: Ryan Gill (rmgill@mindspring.com)
Date: Sun Jun 22 2003 - 12:12:11 PDT
At 11:25 AM -0700 6/22/03, Marc Strangfeld wrote:
>Jack
>
>I respect your opinions and you very well may be
>right, but my opinion did not just pop in my head
>after reading the email posted by Joe Young. My
[snip]
I'm going to have to agree with Marc here as well. Jack, you're off
in left field if you think the patriot act isn't a threat to the
average American and that those resisting it are only liberal
sycophants. Last I heard people like Bob Barr are hardly that. The
fact that he among others has joined forces with the ACLU to help
turn this over should be proof enough to many that the Patriot act
isn't what it seems.
The thing that most people don't understand is that Patriot Act is a
laundry of "Federal Law Enforcement wishes". They have nothing to do
with partisan politics. They have everything to do with increasing
federal powers and reducing barriers to law enforcement doing their
job. If they mean that the LEOs can run rough shod over someone's
rights and not worry about it so be it. Every American should fear
these laws.
When the FISA court banned a specific law enforcement officer from
its' hearings for repeatedly lying for the purposes of obtaining FISA
warrants, court orders and other proceedings, the biggest he could
worry about is the stern warning he received from the court.
Testifying before a court of this importance should elicit the
highest of integrity from Federal agents. If they can't be trusted to
abide by procedures to obtain federal warrants and other writs, we're
supposed to remove that barrier and allow them to just make the
choice themselves? That's basically what much of the patriot act does.
Watching the hearings for the patriot act in progress was scary. Most
of congress was voting for the act with out much knowledge as to what
it really meant. This mirrored the activities of congress when they
were passing the CDA, COPA and COPA II. All three of those were
thrown out of court as being un-constitutional thanks to the ACLU and
the EFF among others.
Aside from 2nd amendment issues, I trust the ACLU to generally do the
right thing. I'd rather rights be protected and reserved than more
laws come on the books that run roughshod over my and other people's
rights with little to stop them.
From everything I've seen, heard, read, and spoken to people about,
the Patriot Act is astoundingly bad law from the standpoint of
individual rights. Its pushes things further down the slippery slope
and makes the job of the Federal agent that much easier (rights be
damned). The founding fathers would be rioting in the streets if they
were here today.
--
Ryan Gill rmgill@SPAMmindspring.com
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