Posted on 03/02/2006 12:41:10 PM PST by SmithL
Yes.
Did you think that the government was ever going to give up its power to ration goods (World War 2 had U.S. ration coupons and tickets)?
Or the draft?
Or alcohol prohibition?
Or gold prohibition?
Or its power to segregate schools?
Or its estate tax?
Or its monopoly on space flight (civilians were banned from civilian space flights until December of 2004)?
Nonsense. Clinton got his anti-terror package in 1995 after the Murrah bombing.
Moreover, the Patriot Act tears down the Gorelick Wall.
So you know not of what you speak about us being smart then versus now. You've got it precisely backwards.
It's a lost cause trying to convince you kool-aid drinkers that removing probable cause is a bad thing. Good night.
Actually, it speaks poorly of *you* that you would resort to personal attacks (see above quote) when facts destroy your argument.
As noted above, you got it backwards. You claimed that we were smart for giving President Clinton his 1995 extra powers, but dumb for tearing down the Gorelick Wall with the modern Patriot Act.
The facts, therefore, show you to be on the losing side of any reasoned debate. That's something that you'll have to live with.
"Like the last elections?'
Like the 2000 election.
By BOB KERR
The Providence Journal
28-FEB-06
PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Walter Soehnge is a retired Texas schoolteacher who traveled north with his wife, Deana, saw summer change to fall in Rhode Island and decided this was a place to stay for a while.
So the Soehnges live in Scituate now and Walter sometimes has breakfast at the Gentleman Farmer in Scituate Village, where he has passed the test and become a regular despite an accent that is definitely not local.
And it was there, at his usual table last week, that he told me that he was "madder than a panther with kerosene on his tail."
He says things like that. Texas does leave its mark on a man.
What got him so upset might seem trivial to some people who have learned to accept small infringements on their freedom as just part of the way things are in this age of terror-fed paranoia. It's that "everything changed after 9/11" thing.
But not Walter.
"We're a product of the '60s," he said. "We believe government should be way away from us in that regard."
He was referring to the recent decision by him and his wife to be responsible, to do the kind of thing that just about anyone would say makes good, solid financial sense.
They paid down some debt. The balance on their JCPenney Platinum MasterCard had gotten to an unhealthy level. So they sent in a large payment, a check for $6,522.
And an alarm went off. A red flag went up. The Soehnges' behavior was found questionable.
And all they did was pay down their debt. They didn't call a suspected terrorist on their cell phone. They didn't try to sneak a machine gun through customs.
They just paid a hefty chunk of their credit card balance. And they learned how frighteningly wide the net of suspicion has been cast.
After sending in the check, they checked online to see if their account had been duly credited. They learned that the check had arrived, but the amount available for credit on their account hadn't changed.
So Deana Soehnge called the credit-card company. Then Walter called.
"When you mess with my money, I want to know why," he said.
They both learned the same astounding piece of information about the little things that can set the threat sensors to beeping and blinking.
They were told, as they moved up the managerial ladder at the call center, that the amount they had sent in was much larger than their normal monthly payment. And if the increase hits a certain percentage higher than that normal payment, Homeland Security has to be notified. And the money doesn't move until the threat alert is lifted.
Walter called television stations, the American Civil Liberties Union and me. And he went on the Internet to see what he could learn. He learned about changes in something called the Bank Privacy Act.
"The more I'm on, the scarier it gets," he said. "It's scary how easily someone in Homeland Security can get permission to spy."
Eventually, his and his wife's money was freed up. The Soehnges were apparently found not to be promoting global terrorism under the guise of paying a credit-card bill. They never did learn how a large credit card payment can pose a security threat.
But the experience has been a reminder that a small piece of privacy has been surrendered. Walter Soehnge, who says he holds solid, middle-of-the-road American beliefs, worries about rights being lost.
"If it can happen to me, it can happen to others," he said.
And got them, in the Antiterrorism Act of '95. This was the basis for PATRIOT and has in it most of the things people complain about when they complain about PATRIOT. Although the acts are quite similar, it is easier for the MSM to go after Bush's act than Clinton's, and convenient to direct public suspicion to laws passed by Clinton but attributed to Bush.
As for prohibition, I have been unable to find the pseudoephedrine portions of the new bill that Dianne Fienstein allegedly put in. Do you (or anyone reading this) know where or if they are?
I know someone currently working in money transfers for a bank. This is not new; there has been a "trigger point" for money transfers for a long time, and it varies according to circumstance.
I think it was 1996 that banks were asked to start "pattern recognition" activities on customer accounts, and the result is as described in the post.
If I suddenly doubled my mortgage payment or transferred all of my savings to an account in Bangkok, flags would be raised.
Point is, this is old stuff being reported as new, when FBI and whoever watches banks (FDC? FTC?) have been doing it for decades.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:s2118is.txt.pdf
This is a link to DiFi's bill, which was "referred to committee". AFAIK it has not become law, nor is it currently part of PATRIOT.
The banning of phenylpropanolamine was done years ago by FDA, so I'm not sure why it comes up again here.
I looked for meth, and 2118, and I also saw no references.
Maybe we luck out, and such a stupid law will not be?
Next up, of course, is to ban lithium batteries and anhydrous ammonia.
Oh, it will be, certainly. Anything will be sacrificed for the WOD farce. They'd probably ban toilet paper if they could find a connection.
Ah, but there is! When your connection deals you an unencapsulated, unpilled bunch of powder, like you'd get from a domestic clandesine lab, you weigh it out, wrap it in a bit of toilet paper, and head out to your rave.
Once you get there you down the tissue wrapped powder with a slug of water or Red Bull. It's called parachuting, or parachuting your dose.
I'll bet you have toilet paper AND aluminum foil in your dwelling, you criminal, you!
Yeah. Also, I didn't stop all the way at a stop sign earlier today. Hang on, my phone just started clicking, and I hear someone knocking on the front door.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.