SO, there are PARTS or all of the Patriot Act which are dumped? The article says the Obama people were for extending the Homeland Security measure for another 2 years...SO, is THAT a part of the Bill that got shot down or is that a separate part that stays or is everything in the Patriot Act gone? Where's wiretapping fit into this? Now we can't wiretap on suspicious calls without calling some Judge in the middle of the night for his approval, thereby taking so long we lost a lead on information that could keep Cleveland standing?
Help me here.. Which parts are IN and which are OUT, or is it ALL GONE...and what's that include? AND DO YOU CARE?
If I get only a few comments, I'll know we all know ZILCH about things that are so important to us, and I'm on the top of that "I don't know list" and that doesn't make me feel too good. Educate me, please.
I'm furious, as I said in my opening sentence, because THE MEDIA OUGHT TO FILL US IN... and I'm FURIOUS that the Republicans who voted for extension of the bill are saying the people who voted against it don't really know the bill. THEY DON'T KNOW, and I'm hard on MYSELF and YOU DEAR PEOPLE?
Let's have a free for all........yell at me for inferring we're all uninformed, set me on the right track as far as what IS now being revoked by the end of this month, tell me how YOU feel about the Patriot Act ...and the worst part is this: Are we safer, or did OUR civil liberties being safeguarded just give the keys to the city to terrorists?
I'm just throwing it ALL out there.......... PLEASE help.
Update: Now we hear THIS..what is it the left just can't understand? Or does Napolitano mean Rightwingers?
z
40 comments:
Not clear yet but it sounds good. I have to man up and thank the Tea Party for standing up for privacy rights.
Wouldn't have happened without them.
Z, it was all on my blog yesterday and just now I updated.
There were 3 provisions that were up for renewal or would have been canceled by Feb 28th with no vote at all:
1. Roving surveillance of suspects who try to evade court-authorized wiretaps under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
2. Access to business records related to intelligence and terrorism investigations.
3. Surveillance of a "lone wolf" or suspect who isn't affiliated with a known group or foreign power.
These 3 provisions were expected to pass with no comment. It didn't.
Dems are saying Republicans are in disarray. I say that the new Republican Tea Party candidates must have read the Constitution at some point and remembered their oath.
HALLELUYA!!!!!!
Interesting, huh?
Meanwhile, we have THIS. How credible is it? I don't know, but I'm just tossing it into this comments thread.
Interesting timing for the Homeland Security announcement.
Keep the proles frightened. They're much more pliable that way.
Since Obama doesn't think we're at war, why should Congress grant him extra-Constitutional "War Powers"?
That's true, Ducky...let's hope we aren't all killed now because someone couldn't listen in or turn someone in.
Privacy Rights are always important....it's how we straddle the line now that's important and I hope that's happening.
So glad you admire the TP finally.
Opus, SO those provisions did NOT pass? I'm sorry but I think they're important and, if I'm getting your comment right, you don't? These are very different times...we need to figure them out before the jihadists do.
Ducky, no worries, Napolitano is so stupid she probably means Tea Party members' threats are high....it's hard for her to see people actually adhere to the Constitution, that is TERROR to her and her bunch.
Stop the insults or you're out.
Speedy, that's just part of the left's hypocrisy and ridiculous thinking. You're so right.
Always...I think that having those items revoked (see Opus's comment) and knowing we're facing higher threats than ever, is a perfect metaphor for AMerica today: UNTHINKING..I could write more adjectives but I think I'd better not.
Oh, Ducky! Hey, you think we face NO threats ever, right? That's what you're always implying? Tell us why, we'd all love to know. (See you next week, of course, when you dare come back)
The surveillance was electronic tracking of foreign calls. Warrants were not possible because the tracking was constant and to pick up certain words or chatter, and follow where their destination was. If the info was credible it could be acted on in real time.
How would we get warrants to track foreign calls in the first place? Do our courts have jurisdiction over calls made in foreign countries?
This was an intelligence endeavor to find and follow possible terrorist activity, it was not a domestic wiretapping program.
I think there is a misunderstanding of this. It strengthened the possibility of discovery of a terrorist plot.
As far as I'm concerned, we're less safe than we were.
Pris
Pris, I believe it was purposefully mischaracterized...I heard SO OFTEN from the media and Donohue, Brokaw, etc., that this was all about LISTENING TO OUR PHONE CALLS..which was rubbish. It's like an Old Wives Tale by now!!
They don't even UNDERSTAND how dangerous their lies are...funny, they suddenly want FREEDOM and this act was OPPRESSIVE...
but let us eat salt and they'll make a law banning it from restaurants?
MAN
Funny, I never thought I"d repeat this but I saw a bumper sticker today that said "Food, not Bombs" ...I walked by the car talking to myself (yes, and worrying a bit about that :-)...I said "Look you liberal FOOL, you think snybody WANT BOMBS more than FOOD? We need bombs so we can bomb people who want us dead so we can GET YOUR FOOD TO YOU!"
:-)
Ducky, come to think of it..you're so big on privacy rights...
Do you think telling us what to eat and banning foods or any of the other Michelle Obama nonsense is protecting our rights to do what WE want to do and eat what WE want to eat?
Your ilk has freedom really strangely defined, doesn't it? really
In my opinion the Patriot Act -- well-intentioned as it was at the time of its enactment -- is a serious violation of the Bill of Rights. This is not so much because of what it has DONE , but because of what it COULD do.
The Patriot Act put too much power into the hands of government, and really is potentially a dire threat to liberty and privacy -- although privacy hardly exists anymore anyway thanks to the internet, TV cameras everywhere, smart phones and other two-edged swords of technology.
Thanks to technology the government already has the capability to listen in on any phone call it chooses and to monitor every key stroke we make -- at least in theory. Since the technology is in place, sooner or later it's BOUND to be abused.
Spy planes with infra red cameras that can take pictures of the inside of your home and mine from thousands of feet in the air have been in existence for a long time already.
Franklin said something to the effect that "He who would give up a measure of liberty for a measure of temporary safety deserves neither liberty or safety."
Jefferson advised us to be very jealous -- and very wary -- of government power.
Still, the US Constitution is not a suicide pact, as someone famously said, and there have been many flagrant violations of the Bill of Rights all along. Jackson, Lincoln, Wilson and FDR -- all "war" presidents -- were the most egregious in this regard.
Personally, I believe we should never have hesitated to DISCRIMINATE OPENLY and FORCEFULLY against the most likely suspects.
The First Amendment should not be used to give protection to subversive, anarchistic terrorist organizations or any individuals even loosely affiliated with them.
Saying unpopular things out loud is one thing, but when it translates into action it's quite another.
Do you REALLY believe violent creeps like Adam Gedahn, "Taliban Johnny" and their ilk deserve protection from the Bill of Rights? Once a US citizen -- even a "natural born" one -- takes up arms against our country he is guilty of treason -- a capital offense. His citizenship should be REVOKED and his rights denied.
FreeThinke
PS: Thanks for posting this, Z. It's an important subject. I think we all need to lean more about about the wicked ways and potential threats of our government. Sadly, the government is NOT our friend. It appears, instead, to be our adversary.
~ FT
Z, I was poised to start in on the Duck showing his tail feathers once again, but dayam!
Scorch-POW, my friend!
"Keep the proles frightened.."
Idiot. The idea is to keep the Muslim terrorist wannabes, of which there are many ( homegrown now ) off balance.
If I had it my way...every mosque...every madrassa and many muslims would and should be under surveillance.
How many times have we seen "cvonverts" so called "America citizens" involved in either terrorist training or espionage against Americans?
You're a dope duck...a silly immature kumbaya dope. Asinine ideas of political correctness does not keep us safe.
Even if the wiretaps were of you talking to your gay ducktress....you'd have nothing to fear. But if you're talking to your gay ductress about "laying" a bomb into a local mall....you deserve to go to Gitmo.
If Hitler were alive today...it would be because he had announced to the world that Nazism was a "religion". He'd have been safe in enslaving all of Europe ( rather than the ME ) as well as justified in murdering 6 million Jews....cause ( like the mudslimes ) a different "allah" told him to do it.
Th air you breath duckfart...is because dedicated, patriots want to make sure that allah-farts don't get a chance to do what they want to do.
So...STFU. Finally...you libbie loons can't be trusted by anyone to do what's good or right for our survival.
You're consumed and have become completely and utterly fooking deranged. Mentally ill and deserving of being locked up in any mental institution that would have your ilk.
You're disgusting freeloaders, parasites and leeches. Sucking America dry with your psychotic need to hyphenate, separate, categorize and divide Americans into tribal, balkanized ententies.
You duck...are the pukes. The reason that America may not be an America in 20 years. I hope you live to see what destruction you are responsible for.
So now...get the fook out of here and go give your usual verbal BJ's to somebody over at Mother Jones. You'll be in the company of your lovely loons, commies,
socialists, revolutionaries, Obamites....ask "Roogie the Liberal" if you make make a comment.
He's the fooking General / Commander of the MJ assholes and you'll have to pass a "purity" test of your worthiness through him....he is in his cellar in SW Florida and the de facto commander of all assholes the world over. Join him now and his cheetos stained fingers if you dare.
He/ she / it claims to be an "engineer" and has a girlfriend. However he posts 24/7 so I think his "girlfriend" is a blowup doll and his right hand. You'll be welcomed duckshit.
He claims his father was a combat Marine
serving in Nam amd Korea....of...go find out for yourself. I needed to take a shower after going there as well as good dump.
z, as the law stands now agencies can do as they please without warrants or even probable cause.
Now, please tell me what kind of intelligence operations just randomly mine phone calls. Effective operations? No.
If the agency has hard facts that there is a probable threat they could get a warrant in short order under the old law.
But when a right winger gets scared even ineffective measures are appropriate if it gives them a false sense of security.
I remember when The Dauphin appropriated call logs for most of the country. Can you give me an overview of the search algorithm you would use to locate a sinister call in that pile? Of course you can't. No operation would attempt it.
Can you give me an algorithm that allows you to get some info on political opponents. Pretty easy, huh.
I'll ask you again "Hey, you think we face NO threats ever, right? That's what you're always implying? Tell us why, we'd all love to know. (See you next week, of course, when you dare come back)"
thanks.
"Right wingers get scared"? are you thoughtless?
Straw man, z. Of course we face threats. However, as i stated the measures in the Patriot Act (disgraceful name) often do absolutely nothing to advance security but do manage to give agencies intrusive power.
Your unease is not an excuse for abandoning reason so easily.
which "reason" is that, DUcky, and do you think that's not insulting?
I'm REALLY tired of it and hope to never have to start deleting you again.
Yes, I come back at you pretty hard, but we could actually have a conversation without insults if you'd stop. You will note you rarely write a comment without an insult.
I think it is patriotic to protect your country and I don't think that the safeguards are negligible.
And I wonder how we can straddle safety with political correctness for terrorists, which seems to be so important to liberals, and the freedom we all have enjoyed the last 250 years. Very tough times but, if you honestly think we have no worries ("straw man?" A simple question with astonishing relevance to the topic is a straw man?), then good for you. Sleep well in your bubble of hopefulness.
I think we should suspend its provisions during Democrat administrations so people wanting to download pirated digital movies, music, software, and video for personal use can be left alone and more attention be paid to actual terrorist communications and Wikileaks hacker attacks.
Cassette recording killed the music industry. Get over it.
Ducky,
Tell us what it is to be in fear.
Why are you leftists pissing yourselves afraid of putting Khalid Sheikh Muhammad on trial in a federal court?
"However, as i stated the measures in the Patriot Act (disgraceful name) often do absolutely nothing to advance security but do manage to give agencies intrusive power."
Ducky you say this as if you have personal knowledge as to how effective this act has been regarding national security.
Unless you're privy to classified info, you know very little if anything, as do the rest of us.
We do know terrorist plots have been foiled though, don't we. Those we've been told about. What about those we haven't been told about?
Details aren't released for public consumption because to release them to the public is to release them to the enemy.
To hear a leftist like you refer to intrusive power, is such a joke. What do you think this administration is up to, except intrusive power over every aspect of our lives.
You have no credibility whatsoever.
Pris
Pris,
Generally I agree with you, but have you considered what these extraordinary extra-legal powers could -- and would -- do if they fell into the hands of a would-be despot?
When one of "our" people is in power, it might be all right, but when one of "their" people takes the driver's seat it would not be all right.
Safety is important, but liberty trumps safety every time -- IF you believe in our Constitution that is.
Keeping all aspects of government power in acceptable balance is a continual tightrope walk over the Abyss.
As I said in my earlier post, I think outright, up front, unapologetic discrimination against known troublemakers -- and those who want to coddle them -- would be a better solution than making all of us vulnerable to any old tyrant who happens to spring up during one of these manufactured "crises."
FreeThinke
I don't like the Patriot Act. Some of it is too dangerous. Martial law, all that stuff. Privacy issues.
I'd take freedom over too much safety.
FT is right. What if one day we have a despot? What if one day we're so sick and tired of our government and we can't rise up?
If America wants to remain exceptional, it will have to do away with those measures.
And Conservatives or GOP people who are for small and limited gov, yet have no problem with the Patriot Act, need to look into their contradictions.
Patriot Act inspires some local laws that are scary. In CA for example, cops can now seize your cell phone without any warrant to look into its data or the call logs. And a judge ruled that constitutional. To me it's fascism at work. Sorry.
I wrote about the same thing today and posed the question as to was it all bad to eliminate some of the language. I offered a reason perhaps along with the idea that perhaps someone in Congress finally actually read a bill before they voted.
Frankly the Patriot Act was a "knee-jerk" bill passed in a moment of panic , seriously flawed and now stands in need of revision.
Z as to leaving us vunerable--Hogwash young lady. We have been "listening" for years with and without any such laws. We will continue to do so with or without a Patriot Act and you can be assured that if those listening and those receiving the reports of what is said are on the ball we will continue to be safe. Unfortunately we have an idiot in charge of DHS but hopefully the information will bypass "stupid" or at least be held up until the "bad guys" are grabbed. We know for a fact that DHS delays and delays.
My friend says to tell you that you are safe in your bed tonight. He's listening and watching.
Ft and FB. I agree it's a fine line to walk, and in the wrong hands, it can be abused. Anything can.
However, when we hear on the news that Al Qaeda is close to getting a dirty bomb we have to weigh these things, and consider the consequences of both.
We are dealing with a different sort of enemy, which is scattered the world over. It's not a nation state we're up against, it's a mobile movement of terrorists.
How would you suggest we follow these sources of aggression?
The activities of the intelligence community re the Patriot Act is overseen by the intelligence committee in Congress.
Pris
FB, so how do we justify a cop's yanking a cell phone from someone who's really suspicious or someone he has information about which spurs him to do this? And why the H would he want MINE?, just for fun?
Ticker, if I didn't know your friend was watching, I don't know what I'd do.
And, by the way, I'm not scared at all.
And I still think these are extraordinary times which do call for extraordinary actions, like them or not.
How would you suggest we follow these sources of aggression?
1/ If it's all over the world, then the Patriot Act can't be applied to foreign countries. So now it's a different matter.
2/ Here, they can try to infiltrate networks, be smarter, have spies. Maybe I'm simplistic but I'm sure those techniques are still applied and still work. If you want to prevent attacks, you have to be part of them. It's like the mob.
Again maybe I'm simplistic. My concern is that if one day some internal political movement is declared "terrorist", Tea Party, left wing party, whatever, then it's too easy to apply those rules to them.
Let's be honest, the NSA already intercept communications. Did we really need the Patriot Act to add to it? Do we really need rules as to martial law in this country?
FB, so how do we justify a cop's yanking a cell phone from someone who's really suspicious or someone he has information about which spurs him to do this? And why the H would he want MINE?, just for fun?
Is he suspicious or has he committed a crime?
I guess one could compare the cell phone search to a car search. But then why not allow cops to search in a house without warrant? It still is a privacy and private property issue.
I don't know the legal aspects of all that stuff so maybe I'm talking out of my rear end.
But again, I'm very cautious with investigating people just on suspicion.
FB, as you know, cops can pull anybody in Paris over and look in their car; that's fine with me if it keeps me safe. I have nothing to hide.
And, I remember feeling safer when I'd look at the skyline and see the glint of a gun from sharp shooters on the tops of buildings on the Champs Elysee, too :-)
And yes, I know there's a fine line between my rights and my safety..
there's no good answer, that's the problem; and I believe jihadists are counting on that.
I'm just spitballin' here, but I think anything Obama's people are for, there must be something wrong with it. I stand 100% against anything of which Obama is in favor.
Again maybe I'm simplistic. My concern is that if one day some internal political movement is declared "terrorist", Tea Party, left wing party, whatever, then it's too easy to apply those rules to them.
Brother, you sure got that right. Once the mechanism enabling tyranny is in place anyone in power can decide to pick on ANY group or individual it does not like for ANY reason -- or for NO REASON at ALL -- and engage in systematic PERSECUTION. It won't matter that you've done nothing wring or have nothing to hide if you happen to belong to the WRONG group -- as defined by the tyrant.
Of course MUSLIMS ARE the WRONG GROUP and should be given the choice of either abandoning their so-called religion or being told to get out of the West.
Britain's Oxford is today being treated to the howling whining call of the MUEZZIN. The church bells there have already been DROWNED OUT by this darkly aggressive, subversive, menacing, FOREIGN element.
In tolerating intolerance we have virtually signed our own death warrant as a people, as a culture as a nation.
Anonymous...OXFORD has a minaret? They're having calls to prayer?
what?
Insensitive and Unduly Provocative? A Mosque's Call to Prayer Amid Oxford's Spires
January 2008
One of the joys of being in Marrakesh, or a Muslim city anywhere, is hearing the morning call to prayer. There is unquestionably something moving about this haunting, age-old invocation to worship.
One might admittedly sometimes be irritated by being woken up in the early hours: calls to prayer in Muslim countries are often amplified on a loudspeaker, and can be heard at a great distance.
So what? If the inhabitants have no problems with the noise levels, an outsider is hardly in a position to object.
Why, then, am I queasy about the proposal that the enormous new Oxford Mosque, when it is finally completed in nine months or so, should have a call to prayer amplified by a loudspeaker? ...
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/columnists/article-510059/Insensitive-unduly-provocative-A-mosques-prayer-amid-Oxfords-spires.html#ixzz1Dd0xgdMV
If you're dealing with a tyranny, the rules don't matter anyway. Patriot Act or not.
Pay attention to how this administration has ignored two federal court rulings. Do you think if there was no Patriot Act it would matter to this administration?
Pay attention to how the Constitution doesn't matter to this administration. Obama has dismissed and chided the Supreme Court.
The Congress refused to debate and pass Cap and Trade, and yet, this administration is going ahead with their regulations through the EPA, anyway, and Obama had the audacity to announce they would.
HHS is active in going ahead with healthcare regulations in spite of the court. If we pay attention to all that's being done by this administration, we have to realize that we are witnessing anarchy from the top down.
The law doesn't matter to these people. Does anyone here really believe that the fact these elements in the Patriot Act did not pass, will matter to the Obama administration?
Do not listen to what they say, watch what they do.
Pris
The difference between legitimate police work and a police state is the function of the police. We want legitimate police work where the police, and other such agencies, exist to protect the public both individually and collectively. In a police state they exist to protect the government form the "proles". Obama and his cronies are more threatened by We-The-People than terrorists.
As far as the Patriot Act goes it is a good thing in the hands of the right people who would use it properly. In the hands of people like Obama it could easily be used, not to track terrorism, but to find out if someone is eating too much fried food or smoking somewhere. Any power, even the most legitimate, can be abused and, unfortunately, power by its very nature attracts those most likely to abuse it.
Tyrants invariably USE existing laws to aid the in their quest to dominate and subjugate a given society. One firmly ensconced in power they are sure to adopt the attitude of Louis XIV who said, "L'etat c'est moi" (I.e. "I am the state.")
So, yes, you are right. All I am trying to say is that given any would-be tyrant's propensity to abuse existing laws and distort their intended meaning to suit the the tyrant's ambitions, the last thing we need to do is put laws on that books that make it easier for the despots to achieve the absolute power they seek by cloaking their nefarious activities with any semblance of legitimacy.
Thugs will be thugs. Killers will be killers. I am suggesting we ought to suspend the civil rights and revoke the citizenship of those who are positively KNOWN to belong to Organized Crime and any group or movement that seeks to USURP or OVERTHROW our legitimate form of government.
That's pretty radical, I know, but it's also pragmatic. Why anyone caught with a proverbial "smoking gun" in his hand should be given the privilege of due process I can't imagine.
I think we may safely assume that Islamists, members of the Mafia, the Communist party, and those who play the role of professional agitators and troublemakers are, indeed GUILTY. They must of course be given the opportunity to PROVE THEMSELVES INNOCENT -- if the can.
KNOWN killers, traitors and subversives do not deserve to be protected by the Bill of Rights.
The rest of us most emphatically DO.
~ FreeThinke
"We want legitimate police work where the police, and other such agencies, exist to protect the public both individually and collectively."
Sorry to disagree but self protection is left to the individual:
"“We don’t need Ammunition, we have a Police Force for protection.”
No. In accordance with the SCOTUS decision in Warren VS DC, among other cases, it is not the duty of the police to provide protection. They exist to enforce the laws and have no obligation to protect any individual unless under a particular and specific arrangement to that individual, for example, taken into protective custody"
Buy your protection while you can....extended magazines....auto shotguns...AR15's and civvie M4's.
Do it..before the bastards nullify the 2nd Amendment and we're living in a place like NY with a dictator like the little Hermens like Bloomberg / Nazi disarms all of America.
Take a close look at this little bastard as opposed to Jan Brewer.
Ron Paul believes America is at fault for 9/11. That's all we need to know about him to keep us from voting for him.
Or don't you remember this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuX73Ixqtbg
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