posted on December 30, 2003 06:36:56 AM new
its way too early for me, but I can only comment on one thing
They were NOT delousing Saddam, or checking for fleas, he hit his head coming up out of the spider hole, he started whining he had been hurt, so a dr was checking out his head.
As for the rest, I really need more coffee
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posted on December 30, 2003 09:01:05 AM new
Anyone know which righs we still do have since 9/11?
Twelve how can you support unfettered access to your life without oversight or controls? How does this not more closely resemble the action of a police state. Come on - they can reasearch your banking spending and mailing history without having to show anyone any justification for the search and no one is allowed to tell you it happened. Why are they so afraid of the oversight of a judge? They don't have to report raw numbers and thusly avoid any possibility that abuses would be noted.
One can only hope that this one ends up being overturned. They are going to use evidence garnered from this little gem in an investigation that has nothing to do with a terrorism investigation and a judge is going to call them on it.
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If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 30, 2003 10:21:42 AM new
How can I support this? Because I still believe we live in the GREATEST Democratic country in the world and no law is ever written in stone and cannot be overturned if found to be against the betterment of the US....
Having said that I still stand behind the fact those Americanswho have ties to foreign countries need watched and to avoid issues of discrimination then we all must be "watched".
I see no rights slipping away for Americans... just our country being more vigilant.
posted on December 30, 2003 02:50:41 PM new
Can you say; T.O.T.A.L.I.T.A.R.I.A.N.I.S.M ?
THE THOUGHT POLICE???????
“Nov. 6, 2003 | On Oct. 21, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a bill that could require university international studies departments to show more support for American foreign policy or risk their federal funding.”
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/11/06/middle_east/index_np.html
"Power concedes nothing without a demand… it never did, and it never will. Find out just what the people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.…"
— Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857
excerpt...written before 9/11
…history is replete with examples of ruthless and corrupt politicians who have shamelessly exploited and manipulated tragic events and the criminal acts of a few to advance their own lust for power. In cases too numerous to mention, tyrants and aspiring despots have gone even further, engaging agents provocateurs to carry out assassinations, foment riots and rebellion, precipitate financial panics, attempt palace coups, feign foreign invasion, initiate acts of terrorism, and perform other infamous acts — all for the purpose of establishing a mass psychology of fear, a sense of "crisis," of imminent danger requiring the government to suspend normal liberties and seize vast new powers to deal with the "emergency."
Hitler came to power in precisely this manner, by burning down the German Parliament, the Reichstag, then blaming it on his enemies — in this case, the Communists. He then passed the Enabling Act (a form of anti-terrorism bill) for the "protection of the people and the state."
General Franks' view is chilling. When people so close to President Bush start discussing the death of the Constitution, the unthinkable becomes thinkable. Our Constitution is supposed to be inviolate, a necessity, not a luxury. Democracy is not a mere "experiment," especially one that should be halted by a terrorist attack.
Nevertheless, it's easy to imagine that, after another attack, the Constitution will be impugned by right wing politicians and pundits as a "Bill of Rights for terrorists and traitors." The argument that we can't afford, say, free speech or the right to counsel when cells of apocalyptic terrorists lurk in the shadows, could appeal to a shell-shocked public. People will demand action. Granting the government broader police powers, and the "sacrifice" of freedom that such a grant entails, could seem like an almost pietistic response: we must give something up to get what we want; we have too long had too much wealth, too many freedoms.
It's so easy to imagine such a response because it already happened, after September 11. The Bush Administration's attack on the Constitution, the USA PATRIOT ACT, was rubberstamped by Congress. Many members had not even read it, but all feared appearing, as Attorney General Ashcroft warned, to "aid the terrorists." That Congress could give into such rhetoric shows the power of the fear that gripped the U.S.
posted on January 1, 2004 10:03:19 AM new
So....according to Helen's article link "From Chapter...Politics of Terror" even Clinton and Gore were out to make the US a police state, rather than to prepare our nation for our protection. Boy....looks like they're all out to get us.
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From that article:
One year to the day after the Oklahoma City bombing, President [K]linton signed the Anti-Terrorism Bill, "for the protection of the people and the state." Clinton railroaded Congress into passing the draconian legislation in the same manner that Hitler stampeded the German people into passing the Enabling Act.
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans," Clinton was quoted in USA TODAY in March of 1993.[1236]
"…a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom," Clinton stated on MTV in March of 1994. "When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it."[1237]
Clinton's Anti-Terrorism Bill includes plans to establish a new FBI counterterrorism center with 1,000 new "anti-terrorist" agents. One proposal, harking back to the days of COINTELPRO, would add 25 intelligence analysts, 190 surveillance specialists with 143 support personnel, 31 engineers and mathematicians for intercepting digital communications, and various other experts and analysts. The Bill also includes a $66 million windfall for the ATF for "anti-terrorism" efforts.[1238]
One recent manifestation of America's drift toward a national police force is the final report of the National Performance Review (NPR) headed by Vice President Al Gore. Said to be a blueprint for "reinventing government," this report recommends "the designation of the Attorney General as the Director of Law Enforcement to coordinate federal law enforcement efforts."
This was the same Attorney General who, along with Deputy Attorney General Webster Hubbell and President Bill Clinton, gave the "final solution" order at Waco. The FBI was the agency that carried it out, gassing and incinerating 86 men, women and children.
Now, under H.R. 97 (the "Rapid Deployment Strike Force Act", Clinton, Reno and Freeh are calling for a 2,500-man "Rapid-Deployment" force composed of FBI and other federal agents, all under the supervision of the Attorney General
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The authors see these investigations as laying the foundation for the Antiterrorism and PATRIOT acts.
Congress essentially denounced the scope of the anti-CISPES investigations and in 1994 enacted a law protecting First Amendment activities from FBI investigations. However, that law was repealed in the Antiterrorism Act of 1996--practically inviting history to repeat itself.
The 1996 Antiterrorism Act
The Antiterrorism Act of 1996 was a response to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Cole and Dempsey describe the Act as a massive assault on First Amendment rights of speech, assembly, and petition, and a deeper entrenchment of the "guilt by association" tradition active in the FBI.
As noted above, the Act removed barriers to FBI investigation of activities protected under the First Amendment. It also removed some restrictions on the famous FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court--where federal judges sit in secret to consider, and mostly approve, Justice Department requests for widespread surveillance of "terrorists," including pen registers and "trap-and-trace" surveillance, methods that can capture income and outgoing telephone calls. The law also opened the door for the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport mostly Muslim citizens. The deportations were based on largely secret evidence, and no overt acts needed to be alleged.
The authors tell the stories of several individuals who were targeted under the law, as a result of racial and ethnic profiling. More than two dozen Muslim immigrants were detained and then deported, typically for visa or immigration regulation violations. Most were never charged with any crime. They were, in the government's eyes, "guilty" of being associated with people or organizations labeled as "terrorist."
In 1999, the Supreme Court denied judicial review of the deportations--remember, the 1996 Act also curtailed judicial review--in Reno v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
[ edited by Linda_K on Jan 1, 2004 10:48 AM ]
, Clinton, Reno and Freeh are calling for a 2,500-man "Rapid-Deployment" force composed of FBI and other federal agents, all under the supervision of the Attorney General