Okay FReepers, weigh in: Constitutional? Unconstitutional and should be stopped? Unconstitutional but necessary to fight terror?
Unforuntely necessary unless we want our economy to completely attack from the kind of attacks they stopped today.. The Ohio mall bombing.
Hitlery will love this kind of power when she gets in office.
"It's almost un-American."
No -- It *IS* un-american! < small letter intentional >
400 Billion Dollars in defense budget. Not enough. Carnivore, Echelon, and the removal of habeas corpus weren't enough.
All they need is the law to put people in jail for five years if they told someone their records had been siezed, then none of the attacks, like on the USS Cole or the One World Trade Center will ever be successful again.
Checkpoints on the highways, security gates at malls and office buildings, and maybe an implanted GPS chip for each of us.. Yeah, that's the ticket. Only then will I feel all safe and warm.
Eisenhauer made a remark, that for real security you can go to prison. After all, you get three hots and a cot, and a roof over your head.
There's the answer! Put everyone, everywhere in prison, and interrogate them naked until they tell all about themselves, then let them out one at a time...
Ridiculous.
>>The FBI has admitted using the Patriot Act for nonterrorism investigations, such as cases involving corruption in a Las Vegas strip club, drug trafficking and other criminal activity.
They lied. They said they wouldn't use it for stuff like this.
So, why trust them now with unprecedented powers?
More power to Bob Barr.
It seems to me hard to say the bill is being snuck through if it's been printed up for over a year! That's a good thing, unlike the rush in which the Patriot Act was passed.
A firm definition of "international terrorism" is needed for the "lone wolf" provision.
I don't see how you can have a law against revealing NSLs without having a penalty for doing so.
As it is, nothing surprises me. Much of this legislation was created before 9/11 (somebody even had the information posted recently about a Department of Internal Security or whatever, that Al Gore had proposed at one point during the 90s).
According to the GAO, the feds are doing a lot of data mining of commercial databases, from which it sounds like TIA is still going strong. They call it "factual data analysis" but it doesn't change the smell.
I bet most who support these kinds of things would be having fits if the democrats were in the White House and running Congress.
I say unconstitutional and excessive, and I would add that the FBI (Fumbling Bureaucratic Idiots) would prove how unwise it is by delivering an additional 1,000,000 files to Hitlery and Toon so they can assist in cracking down on their terrorist opposition.
For example, an agency (pre-Patriot) could obtain billing records for a customer of a dialup internet provider, but could not for the customer of a cable modem because "cable" as written in the old laws only considered cable to be cable TV. There are a number of these examples. Patriot also was essential for tearing down the Gorelick wall.
The Patriot Act has been savaged beyond all sense of proportion and any tweaks that might need to be made will be overshadowed by the bloviating of the hysterical opposition.
Such legistaltion will not prevent terrorism, but it will certainly help to eradicate the freedom.
Might there be questions beyond the constitutionality of these laws? These laws, the original Patriot Act, and Patriot II laws do extend into the lives of natural born US citizens. I've yet to meet a single person that thinks these laws are not in response to the attacks of 9-11. I've yet to meet a single person that thinks anyone other then Islamic terrorists from Muslim nations perpetuated the attacks. There was not a single Christian, Buddhist, or Hindu in the batch. There was not a single European, Asian, or Hispanic present in the group. Most of all, there was not a single American citizen among the participants. Not a single Anglo-American, French-American, Irish-American, German-American, Italian-American, African-American, Mexican-American, Japanese-American, American Indian, nor any other native born American was involved in these murderous attacks.
Frankly, I have nothing to hide, and would cheerfully divulge any information about myself the government might hold suspect. But, this isn't about me. It's about us, the citizens of the United States of America.
Would anyone like to step-up and tell me why I should hold the government view that YOU personally pose an equal threat to the country as those known to have perpetuated the attacks? Do you harbor desires to murder my fellow citizens, destroy my country, inflict great harm upon innocent lives? Do you intend to frustrate government efforts to find and capture foreign national terrorists within our borders? When a government, any government begins to view its own citizenship with an eye of suspicion, what does it say of the government? I wish our forefathers were present to answer that last question?
Personally, I will do everything possible, and have done all possible to assist my country in efforts to protect our great nation. But, if ever I feel the government is looking at me with a contemptuous eye, I will view the government with an equal contempt.
Attorney General Clinton will find this very useful. I'm sure President Kerry will finally endorse Homeland Security Secretary Gary Hart's work at last.
If Bill Klinton was proposing this crap(and he did in 2000), this site would be howling in anger.