Posted on 02/16/2008 7:49:09 AM PST by no nau
Presidential hopeful Ron Paul opposes the extension of the Protect America Act of 2007 as the legislation violates the US Constitution.
"The misnamed Protect America Act allows the US government to monitor telephone calls and other electronic communications of American citizens without a warrant, which violates the Fourth Amendment," Paul said.
Speaking before the US House of Representatives on Wednesday, he said the Protect America Act sidelines the FISA Court system and places authority over foreign surveillance in the director of national intelligence and the attorney general with little if any oversight.
The 10-term congressman added that it does not provide for the Fourth Amendment protection of American citizens if they happen to be on the other end of an electronic communication where the subject of surveillance is a non-citizen overseas.
"We must remember that the original Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was passed in 1978 as a result of the US Senate investigations into the federal government's illegal spying on American citizens," said Paul.
The libertarian-leaning Texan noted that the only legitimate 'upgrade' to the original FISA legislation would be to allow surveillance of conversations that begin and end outside the United States between non-US citizens where the telephone call is routed through the United States.
"Congress should not use this opportunity to chip away at even more of our constitutional protections and civil liberties. I urge my colleagues to oppose this and any legislation that violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution," Paul concluded.
Constitutionalist Ron Paul is an outspoken critic of current US fiscal and monetary policies. He advocates a full troop withdrawal from Iraq and the abolishment of income taxes.
I'm keeping all of these RP threads in pdf format for when a rat president gets some more of these swell "if you ain't done nothing wrong, you got nothing to hide" ideas. Those "abortion clinic terrorists", "right-wing gun nut militia groups", and those guilty of "hate crimes" (or even better, "hate terrorism") are going to come in real handy.
For ease of access wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
US Citizens have been tapped for years and are continuing to be tapped. Since 9/11 it has skyrocketed. your statement that US Citizens are not being taped is a bold faced lie and stupid to boot.
Do you want Hillary or Obama to have these “patriot” act powers?
You’re not serious, and if so, you’re not rational. Bye tinfoil, be sure to post exactly how you can use sheep’s bladders to predict earthquakes.
It disturbs be a great deal when even Rush talks about not having rights unless they are written in the Constitution.
The Declaration of Independence and Constitution were written in times of National Crisis, yet they still installed protections against heavy handed government actions.
And I do think that one’s position on McCain is the Conservative litmus test.
And the number of freepers who are STILL big wussies afraid of "the terrorists".
Don’t worry about ol’ Rush, he’ll change his tune when Hillary’s in office. He knows how to serve up the Kool-Aid, all flavors.
Anyone with two functional brain cells can see the end our nation is headed toward and that both parties intend to take us there. If you want to be enablers to those wishing to destroy this nation from within by suspending the Constitution through fearmongering so be it. As for me I'd rather take my chances in a society the founders intended. I hope you enjoy your government issued security. Think nothing about it when you find yourself on their bad side. It fer der good of der nation dat you sumbmit. Heil whatever. I'm certain the Germans who bought into Hitlers security and WOT thought they were right also.
When you consider that the people who will be likely wielding these powers are the same group who refer to suicide bombers as "militants", and yet have the penchant for calling any group to the right of Hillary (especially if they advocate the ownership of fireatms--like the NRA) "terrorists", I think concern is warranted.
Source:
http://www.telecom-gear.com/Justice-Department-Calls-FBI-Wiretap-Abuses-Outrageous-article11688--1.htm
By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer The FBI engaged in widespread and serious misuse of its authority in illegally gathering telephone, e-mail and financial records of Americans and foreigners while hunting terrorists, the Justice Department's chief inspector said Tuesday. The FBI's failure to establish sufficient controls or oversight for collecting the information through so-called national security letters constituted "serious and unacceptable" failures, said Glenn A. Fine, the internal watchdog who revealed the data-gathering abuses in a 130-page report last week. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Fine said he did not believe the problems were intentional, but were generally the result of confusion and carelessness.
Well said.
Look, I’m not saying you’re all crazy, nor am I saying that you aren’t conversant with possible violations of the Constitution - I’m saying you guys are factually incorrect.
I’ll make a compromise. I’ll leave off my critique of your “FBI Over-reach” rants if you agree that the Contitution does not apply to a Turkish national in Turkey calling a Jordanian national in Phillipine National waters. If you can see that as reasonable (That the Constitution covers US territory and US nationals and not other citizens in other nations), then you should re-read the PAA and FISA legislation - and you’ll see that having FISA extend to Foreign-to-foreign calls simply because the comms go THROUGH the US is an unwarranted attack on the Constitution.
I’m not talking about your supposed FBI overstep and other frantic concerns - if you can’t agree on the above, then we cannot possibly understand each other’s points.
One, I lost friends on 9/11 so your point is quite moot.
Two, I never fly commercial airliners anymore. Stale nuts, horrific scheduling, and seats made for midgets.
I prefer the train....even if Amtrak’s government run, hehehe.
Not become victims? As heroic as the passengers on Flight #93 were, they still died.
Their heroism is small consolation to their families and loved ones.
Again, bad reasoning and the sort of bad reasoning that gave us terrible law like “Roe”.
Funny that our national patron saint Abraham Lincoln did far worse during the Civil War and FDR suspended much of the Constitutional guarantees during WWII.
Or has that little elementary school history lesson been forgotten in your dotage?
Oh boy...Wikipedia is sure a credible source......
We’ve had RICO for thirty plus years. The same dire predictions were made about that law, too.
Funny, I don’t worry about RICO because I’m not a made man. I don’t fear this law either because I’m not a terrorist or sympathizer.
Use some common sense, people! How bad do you think the rights suspensions will happen if another major attack on a scale or larger than 9/11 happens?????
I wish to prevent such a thing.
And some of you claim to be for national security. Yeah, right!
http://www.gonzalez.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=54&Itemid=37
Despite this positive sign, however, a number of disturbing statistics in the same report reveal that we have a long way to go in preventing death and injury on the rails. While accidents, as the FRA defines them, have declined for two years in a row, they are the cause of only a tiny fraction of total train-related fatalities. Last year a total of 12,833 train-related accidents or incidents are reported to have occurred in the United States. 2,834 of these were actual train accidents, primarily involving train collisions or train derailments. This is the category of train wrecks traditionally used by the FRA in press releases claiming progress on rail safety. The number in 2005 was 3,225, demonstrating a decline of 391 "accidents" from 2005 to 2006. Another 2,897 wrecks involved highway-rail collisions. Highway-rail accidents are considered separately from train accidents and are statistically far more deadly. While 6 people were killed in train accidents in 2006, 362 people were killed in highway-rail accidents. As the FRA admits, fatalities in the highway-rail accident category actually increased 1.4% from 2005 to 2006. Finally, an additional 7,102 "other incidents" occurred in 2006. The vast majority of fatalities in 2006 resulted from highway-rail collisions, or from other incidents, often involving trespassers on the rails. To reiterate, the number of fatalities due to train accidents, that is, involving individuals riding trains and killed as a result of impact in a crash, was just 6 last year, down from 33 the previous year. Sadly, the combined number of fatal train accidents, highway-rail accidents, and other train-related incidents increased from 808 in 2005 to 850 in 2006, resulting in a total of 915 deaths, up from 888 in 2005.
Source:
http://www.mattbarr.com/archives/2006/09/your_chance_of.html
Your chance of dying in a terrorist attack According to one estimate, your chance as an American of dying by accidental drowning is 66 times greater than your chance of dying in a terrorist attack. (Or it might be seven times greater; see the post.) As many Americans have been killed by lightning, accident-causing deer and allergic reactions to peanuts as terrorism, since they started keeping track, they say. You're twice as likely to die crushed under a vending machine as you are to die in a terrorist attack, according to this source. You are 225,409 times more likely to die in an auto accident, another source says. More people accidentally shoot themselves to death than die in terror attacks, it says here.
I am sorry about your friend.
However, if we stop living our way the terrorist win.
I won’t fly for two reasons. One is I refuse to surrender myself to search without warrant. The other is security now has everything so screwed up you stand a far better chance arriving on time by driving. Terrorism is nothing new. It’s just that people are now gullible as hell and buying into government generated fears.
It was a loser argument then and it was the loser argument again in a Supreme Court decision regarding the rights of American citizens.
The dissenting opinion claimed that ‘...the Constitution is not a suicide pact...” but the overwhelming opinion was that when it comes to our rights, it was the government’s duty to protect them despite the risk.
I’m sorry that I can’t recall the case but IIRC, it was in the late 1940s and the dissenting justice was Feinberg or Feinstein.
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