Attn. cc.com girlie men! (You know who you are)

[Fairweather]

WTF are you talking about....

do you really know what the homeland security act of power is??????

have you ever read Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler

 

Ah yes! The NAZI boogieman and The Patriot Act (that passed the senate...lets's see.....99-to-ZERO?). Of course, Mr. Thompson, you must realize that when you start throwin' that nazi shit around, you become just another wack-job nut case.

 

Just so I know, tell me exactly how The Patriot Act has effected YOU as an American citizen. What freedoms have you thus far sacrificed that you possessed prior to the onslaught of this nazi scourge?

[H_S_Thompson]

Have you been to the airport lately?

And yes sure superficial things appear normal...for now.

Fairweather- I have not become another wack-job nut case.

I am a wack-job nut case. My therapist told me the first thing to conquering problems is to admit problems so, thanks for helping beat my problem of being a wack-job nutcase.

Anyone here a scotch fan?

[Fairweather]

You were subject to searches at airports prior to the enactment of The Patriot Act. So I'll ask you again.....

 

Just so I know, tell me exactly how The Patriot Act has effected YOU as an American citizen. What freedoms have you thus far sacrificed that you possessed prior to the onslaught of this nazi scourge?

[Lord_Albert_Winchester]

The shades of grey are so pretty this time of day...

 

My dear boy, the patriot act would affect your life more if you had a certain name or religious background.

 

The level at which TPA is applied is above the common man, above the powers of industry, above the laws themselves.

They may be reading you email.

They can monitor your international calls.

And yes, they listen in... if you fit the profile.

[whirlwind]

and "they" do read this site, i had a talk with a couple of FBI agents in febuary

 

oh and profiling is illegal, and infringes on personal freedoms, there is a sepreame court ruling some where in which forces police officers to have a reason to question you and they arn't allowed to stop you and question you unless some law has been broken.

Edited August 16, 2004 by wirlwind

[Fairweather]

And still, no one has answered my question with any specifics or personal encounters with The Patriot Act.

 

So I must eventually conclude that which individuals like GregW and I are often accused of..... You're all more than just a little paranoid. I suspect if your guy, John F Kerry, finds himself in The White House next year (not likely) you'll all start changing your tune about TPA and return to calling those who oppose it from the right paranoid....just as you all sat silently by while Janet Reno burned a bunch of religious kooks to death in Waco Texas.

 

....I'm still waiting for examples....

[Off_White]

Oh piss off Fairweather, you masquerade as a libertarian, but really you're just another fucked up right wing Republican wanker, so own up to your affiliation and stop pretending you're anything but a jackboot motherfucker who wants to quash the rights and opinions of anyone who doesn't agree with you.

 

As a lefty who appreciates the points at which my concerns overlap those of other's with regards to personal liberties as guaranteed by the constitution of our country, I don't care about the party affilitation of supporters of the Patriot Act. No, I haven't run afoul of the Patriot Act yet, and my wife the librarian hasn't been involved in a secret seizure of private information from the feds yet, but that doesn't mean that crap is okay. Somehow, the establishment of the precedent for secret information seizure, however delayed the deployment, does not sit well with me. If you were a thinker instead of a knee jerk supporter you would not be so complacent about surrendering your personal liberties to whoever held the reins of power. Wake up dickhead, just because Bush II is in power does not guarantee you jack shit. I don't want John Kerry to have that power either. The traditional distrust that the average American citizen feels for their government is not entirely unfounded, regardless of which party sits in the white house.

[Dru]

meanwhile in Canada

 

Please pay us 25 cents a month so we can tap your phone and Internet!

[Fairweather]

It's been a long time coming OW, but fuck off. I've never claimed to be anything other than partisan and about 90% Republican. And frankly, you're the one who lives in a state of denial regarding your beliefs and affiliations. Given the tenor of your reply, I would suggest that you're simply frustrated you can't defend your position with facts/examples rather than simple raw emotion.

 

Geeez, they sure gave your brain a good scrubbin' down there at TESC!

[Fairweather]

 

If you were a thinker instead of a knee jerk supporter you would not be so complacent about surrendering your personal liberties to whoever held the reins of power. Wake up dickhead....

 

And yet lefties like you are ready to stand in line like sheep for big government, single-payer, universal health care. I'm sure the information gleaned by the feds' about you on cc.com is much more personal than your entire life's health history. And I'm sure they wouldn't dare use such information to deny you government employment or entitlements...

[SnowByrd]

programmer-geek.

just kidding.

 

Tis true....

[Stonehead]

As a lefty who appreciates the points at which my concerns overlap those of other's with regards to personal liberties as guaranteed by the constitution of our country, I don't care about the party affilitation of supporters of the Patriot Act. No, I haven't run afoul of the Patriot Act yet, and my wife the librarian hasn't been involved in a secret seizure of private information from the feds yet, but that doesn't mean that crap is okay. Somehow, the establishment of the precedent for secret information seizure, however delayed the deployment, does not sit well with me. If you were a thinker instead of a knee jerk supporter you would not be so complacent about surrendering your personal liberties to whoever held the reins of power. Wake up dickhead, just because Bush II is in power does not guarantee you jack shit. I don't want John Kerry to have that power either. The traditional distrust that the average American citizen feels for their government is not entirely unfounded, regardless of which party sits in the white house.

 

True dat. Grass roots opposition to TPA runs high ( grass roots--scroll up to see list ).

 

Several links:

Patriot Act Author Has Concerns

No pause in Patriot Act pounding

Why Americans should celebrate Ashcroft's tour to defend Patriot Act

Prevarications About the Patriot Act

Patriot Act allows surge of secret searches in United States

 

TPA seems to get dangerously close to eroding the right expressed in Fourth Amendment to US Constitution concerning search and seizure (called 'sneak and peek' by TPA supporters). I suppose the question is whether you trust all that power residing in an entity with little or no judicial oversight.

 

[Off_White]

Given the tenor of your reply, I would suggest that you're simply frustrated you can't defend your position with facts/examples rather than simple raw emotion.

 

Heh, well you certainly inspired an emotional outburst on my part. The fact is that it's irrelvant whether the overly broad privacy invasion provisions of the act have been abused yet, it's not a tool I want in the hands of anyone's administration. My (strong) feelings on the matter won't change when Kerry wins.

 

My apologies if I put you in the wrong pigeonhole, I'm sure the fault is entirely mine.

[whirlwind]

ok here we go...

the difference between a "lefty" big goverment and a "righty" (suposidly) small goverment;

the leftist:

socal healthcare; would not only reduce inssurance costs, thereby increaseing the stadard of living in each household, it would also improve health standards, healthy people are happier and can work more efficently.

The Right;

the private health care system we curently have doesn't work, cost is too high, medications are over priced, people can't afford to go to the doctor when sick or hurt so problems will not only presist but eventually get worse till the person must go to the doctor and spend even more money to get fixxed and this hole time they are extremely misrible and can't work or can't work as well.

more goverment spending in schools:

well this is a no brainer, schools should be set up on how well a person does and crafted to find and premote an individuals talent, rather than the, my parents have lots of money so i can go to yale, and party for 4 yrs

as far as the patiot act goes;

the left:

don't infringe on our personal freedoms, if you want to fight terror stop supplying other contires with weopons in which they can use against us, put an end to this war as soon as posible.

 

 

To be countinued...

[Stefan]

And still, no one has answered my question with any specifics or personal encounters with The Patriot Act.

 

And most of the time you will not.....for example, the FBI can now come into my house without a search warrant (if I was only suspected of terrorism), look around, and leave....all without telling me.

[assmonkey]

And still, no one has answered my question with any specifics or personal encounters with The Patriot Act.

 

And most of the time you will not.....for example, the FBI can now come into my house without a search warrant (if I was only suspected of terrorism), look around, and leave....all without telling me.

 

THIS TOTALLY FUCKING HAPPENED TO ME!

 

I know because THEY MOVED MY SHOES AND I WAS LATE TO WORK BECAUSE I COULDN'T FIND THEM!

 

Wait, maybe I should post this in the ghost thread....

 

- a s s m n k e y

[bunglehead]

Yeah, put it in the ghost thread!

 

I stymie the FBI by leaving a dog in my house and living like a CRAZY SLOB.

Works pretty good. Not good for picking up ladies, but I'm more concerned about the FBI than girls anyway.

[iain]

ha I leave a black jacket with "FBI" across the back hanging at home which totally fools those suckers. They're like, "Man, we've been spying on ourselves!" and I'm all like "HAHA stick that up your Ashcroft!"

[marylou]

Not good for picking up ladies, but I'm more concerned about the FBI than girls anyway.

 

Hey, you left your tin foil hat over at my place last night!

[mattp]

Fairweather

 

You are full of baloney on this military service thing. Far more than the democrats, it has been the REPUBLICANS who have made an issue out of one's leadership qualifications being based on their military record. Those criticizing Bush for record don't really care if he served or not so much as that he sleazed his way out of it rather than either (a) serving or (b) stating that wars in general or that particular war were bad. As for their attacks on Kerry's record, even McCain said it is a shame that Bush and company have tried to make such a (stupid) issue out of this and they are shooting themselves in the foot. Oh well.

 

Kosovo? You know as well as I do that it just didn't make much press. If they had shown pictures of civilians getting blown up on the 5:00 news, there would certainly have been a big uproar. But you haven't answered my basic question: our guys were not in harm's way, it was undertaken with the support of nearly all (if not all) of our allies, the bad guy is gone, ... etc. What do you think you prove about Bush when you bring it up over and over again? Clinton sucked too? War is hell? Agreed on both counts. Or are you trying to say (on the one hand) that the peacniks should have spoken up then, but (on the other) they hate America if they speak up now?

 

By the way: Do I Hate America?

 

Bush and co:

 

1. Want to unwind 75 years of well-fare and social security.

 

2. Want to void 300 years of the separation of church and state and make the U.S. a Christian nation, also would like to teach creationism in schools rather than evolution.

 

3. Want to erode the last 50 years' progress toward more environmental and sustainable industrial practices.

 

4. Want to roll-back 100 years' progress toward more progressive taxation.

 

5. Want to sacrifice a 100 year tradition of privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures in the name of a war on terror when they have no reason to think the new police powers are going to help at all.

 

6. Want to cut back on the freedom of the press. They've been the most hostile toward the press corps and the most controlling of "news" of any administration ever.

 

7. Want to end our long-standing policy of going to war only when we have to.

 

In other words, these guys want to fundamentally change what this nation stands for and has stood for in nearly every spere of political and social life. They don't like what America is, and they are for radical changes in every single one of these areas I've enumerated.

 

(By the way, lest those of you who hate those of us who you think hate America want to cry foul, I should point out that I encountered this argument in a recent book by Paul Krugman.)

[willstrickland]

 

F.B.I. Goes Knocking for Political Troublemakers

 

By ERIC LICHTBLAU

NEW YORK TIMES

Published: August 16, 2004

 

WASHINGTON, Aug. 15 - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been questioning political demonstrators across the country, and in rare cases even subpoenaing them, in an aggressive effort to forestall what officials say could be violent and disruptive protests at the Republican National Convention in New York.

 

F.B.I. officials are urging agents to canvass their communities for information about planned disruptions aimed at the convention and other coming political events, and they say they have developed a list of people who they think may have information about possible violence. They say the inquiries, which began last month before the Democratic convention in Boston, are focused solely on possible crimes, not on dissent, at major political events.

 

But some people contacted by the F.B.I. say they are mystified by the bureau's interest and felt harassed by questions about their political plans.

 

"The message I took from it," said Sarah Bardwell, 21, an intern at a Denver antiwar group who was visited by six investigators a few weeks ago, "was that they were trying to intimidate us into not going to any protests and to let us know that, 'hey, we're watching you.' ''

 

The unusual initiative comes after the Justice Department, in a previously undisclosed legal opinion, gave its blessing to controversial tactics used last year by the F.B.I in urging local police departments to report suspicious activity at political and antiwar demonstrations to counterterrorism squads. The F.B.I. bulletins that relayed the request for help detailed tactics used by demonstrators - everything from violent resistance to Internet fund-raising and recruitment.

 

In an internal complaint, an F.B.I. employee charged that the bulletins improperly blurred the line between lawfully protected speech and illegal activity. But the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, in a five-page internal analysis obtained by The New York Times, disagreed.

 

The office, which also made headlines in June in an opinion - since disavowed - that authorized the use of torture against terrorism suspects in some circumstances, said any First Amendment impact posed by the F.B.I.'s monitoring of the political protests was negligible and constitutional.

 

The opinion said: "Given the limited nature of such public monitoring, any possible 'chilling' effect caused by the bulletins would be quite minimal and substantially outweighed by the public interest in maintaining safety and order during large-scale demonstrations."

 

Those same concerns are now central to the vigorous efforts by the F.B.I. to identify possible disruptions by anarchists, violent demonstrators and others at the Republican National Convention, which begins Aug. 30 and is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters.

 

In the last few weeks, beginning before the Democratic convention, F.B.I. counterterrorism agents and other federal and local officers have sought to interview dozens of people in at least six states, including past protesters and their friends and family members, about possible violence at the two conventions. In addition, three young men in Missouri said they were trailed by federal agents for several days and subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury last month, forcing them to cancel their trip to Boston to take part in a protest there that same day.

 

Interrogations have generally covered the same three questions, according to some of those questioned and their lawyers: were demonstrators planning violence or other disruptions, did they know anyone who was, and did they realize it was a crime to withhold such information.

 

A handful of protesters at the Boston convention were arrested but there were no major disruptions. Concerns have risen for the Republican convention, however, because of antiwar demonstrations directed at President Bush and because of New York City's global prominence.

 

With the F.B.I. given more authority after the Sept. 11 attacks to monitor public events, the tensions over the convention protests, coupled with the Justice Department's own legal analysis of such monitoring, reflect the fine line between protecting national security in an age of terrorism and discouraging political expression.

 

F.B.I. officials, mindful of the bureau's abuses in the 1960's and 1970's monitoring political dissidents like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., say they are confident their agents have not crossed that line in the lead-up to the conventions.

 

"The F.B.I. isn't in the business of chilling anyone's First Amendment rights," said Joe Parris, a bureau spokesman in Washington. "But criminal behavior isn't covered by the First Amendment. What we're concerned about are injuries to convention participants, injuries to citizens, injuries to police and first responders."

 

F.B.I. officials would not say how many people had been interviewed in recent weeks, how they were identified or what spurred the bureau's interest.

 

They said the initiative was part of a broader, nationwide effort to follow any leads pointing to possible violence or illegal disruptions in connection with the political conventions, presidential debates or the November election, which come at a time of heightened concern about a possible terrorist attack.

 

F.B.I. officials in Washington have urged field offices around the country in recent weeks to redouble their efforts to interview sources and gather information that might help to detect criminal plots. The only lead to emerge publicly resulted in a warning to authorities before the Boston convention that anarchists or other domestic groups might bomb news vans there. It is not clear whether there was an actual plot.

 

The individuals visited in recent weeks "are people that we identified that could reasonably be expected to have knowledge of such plans and plots if they existed," Mr. Parris said.

 

"We vetted down a list and went out and knocked on doors and had a laundry list of questions to ask about possible criminal behavior," he added. "No one was dragged from their homes and put under bright lights. The interviewees were free to talk to us or close the door in our faces."

 

But civil rights advocates argued that the visits amounted to harassment. They said they saw the interrogations as part of a pattern of increasingly aggressive tactics by federal investigators in combating domestic terrorism. In an episode in February in Iowa, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Drake University for records on the sponsor of a campus antiwar forum. The demand was dropped after a community outcry.

 

Protest leaders and civil rights advocates who have monitored the recent interrogations said they believed at least 40 or 50 people, and perhaps many more, had been contacted by federal agents about demonstration plans and possible violence surrounding the conventions and other political events.

 

"This kind of pressure has a real chilling effect on perfectly legitimate political activity," said Mark Silverstein, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, where two groups of political activists in Denver and a third in Fort Collins were visited by the F.B.I. "People are going to be afraid to go to a demonstration or even sign a petition if they justifiably believe that will result in your having an F.B.I. file opened on you."

 

The issue is a particularly sensitive one in Denver, where the police agreed last year to restrictions on local intelligence-gathering operations after it was disclosed that the police had kept files on some 3,000 people and 200 groups involved in protests.

 

But the inquiries have stirred opposition elsewhere as well.

 

In New York, federal agents recently questioned a man whose neighbor reported he had made threatening comments against the president. He and a lawyer, Jeffrey Fogel, agreed to talk to the Secret Service, denying the accusation and blaming it on a feud with the neighbor. But when agents started to question the man about his political affiliations and whether he planned to attend convention protests, "that's when I said no, no, no, we're not going to answer those kinds of questions," said Mr. Fogel, who is legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.

 

In the case of the three young men subpoenaed in Missouri, Denise Lieberman, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union in St. Louis, which is representing them, said they scrapped plans to attend both the Boston and the New York conventions after they were questioned about possible violence.

 

The men are all in their early 20's, Ms. Lieberman said, but she would not identify them.

 

All three have taken part in past protests over American foreign policy and in planning meetings for convention demonstrations. She said two of them were arrested before on misdemeanor charges for what she described as minor civil disobedience at protests.

 

Prosecutors have now informed the men that they are targets of a domestic terrorism investigation, Ms. Lieberman said, but have not disclosed the basis for their suspicions. "They won't tell me," she said.

 

Federal officials in St. Louis and Washington declined to comment on the case. Ms. Lieberman insisted that the men "didn't have any plans to participate in the violence, but what's so disturbing about all this is the pre-emptive nature - stopping them from participating in a protest before anything even happened."

 

The three men "were really shaken and frightened by all this," she said, "and they got the message loud and clear that if you make plans to go to a protest, you could be subject to arrest or a visit from the F.B.I."

[rbw1966]

Before Patriot Act, I traveled internationally and was never stopped at the border. After Patriot Act, every time I go through Customs/INS at the airport I get stopped and endure a lengthy wait. Correllation? I dunno.

 

I still think Clinton is Fairweather's red herring. He brought up KERRY's military record and when people criticized Bush and Cheney's he injects clinton into the argument. Weak.

 

I'm a veteran, I am against Bush, I am a libertarian and I don't much care for Kerry either. I don't ascribe to either party line. However, the thought of another 4 years with the current administration makes me ill.

[Szyjakowski]

i bet there will be a lot of puking goin on come november 2 when the shrub cheats again.

[H_S_Thompson]

You see Fairweather, I used to be able to take my nailclippers on the plane with me. Now I can't.

And furthermore, Big Bush Brother is watching more than you think....

I really do love glen livet neat at five with a few drops of LSD. Wow, what a NIGHT it will be!

[Fairweather]

Fairweather

 

Far more than the democrats, it has been the REPUBLICANS who have made an issue out of one's leadership qualifications being based on their military record.

Actually, I think it was KerryCo that started the whole Bush/National Guard thing...remember?

Those criticizing Bush for record don't really care if he served or not so much as that he sleazed his way out of it...

Again, where were they when Clinton was running? His actions/lack thereof,re Vietnam were certainly sleazier than your perception of Bush's.

As for their attacks on Kerry's record, even McCain said it is a shame that Bush and company have tried to make such a (stupid) issue out of this and they are shooting themselves in the foot. Oh well.

Actually, The "Swift Boat Veterans" are one of those pesky 527C's that Democrats have used for so long to handle their dirty work, like Moveon.org, NARAL, etc

 

Kosovo? You know as well as I do that it just didn't make much press. If they had shown pictures of civilians getting blown up on the 5:00 news, there would certainly have been a big uproar.

Great! Sounds like you just made my case for the liberal media! Guess they just weren't interested in covering the Bill Clinton horror show.

But you haven't answered my basic question: our guys were not in harm's way, it was undertaken with the support of nearly all (if not all) of our allies, the bad guy is gone, ... etc.

Really? Tell that to Captain Steve Grady! All of our allies? Frankly, all we did was ruin the goodwill we had established with new allies in The Russian Federation by attacking their traditional Serb allies. And don't forget; your precious UN did not approve of our actions there.

 

By the way: Do I Hate America?

Only you can answer this. There are many of your political persuasion that do, however.

 

Bush and co:

 

1. Want to unwind 75 years of well-fare and social security.

I don't believe GWB has taken much action on welfare beyond the reform act that Clinton signed into law. As for Social Security, I generally do not support his privatization scheme, and I don't think it will ever see the light of day.

 

2. Want to void the separation of church and state and make the U.S. a Christian nation, also would like to teach creationism in schools rather than evolution.

Oh, please! this is just pure paranoia. Please provide examples....and spare me his Church-Charity initiative. This doesn't even come close to government sponsorsip of one specific religion over another.

 

3. Want to erode the last 50 years' progress toward more environmental and sustainable industrial practices.

So you don't agree with his new diesel-sulphur emmission standards or his arsenic standards that sre even stricter than those proposed by Clinton?

 

4. Want to roll-back a hundred years' progress toward more progressive taxation.

I though it was Reagan that started this "progressive" rollback!...and John F Kennedy before that! If, by progressive, you mean a 70% top marginal rate that crushes innovation and venture catital, I guess you're right.

 

5. Want to sacrifice privacy and freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures in the name of a war on terror when they have no reason to think the new police powers are going to help at all.

Other than the Joseph Pedilla case, which the supreme court rightly threw out, I just don't see it!

 

6. Want to cut back on the freedom of the press. They've been the most hostile toward the press corps and the most controlling of "news" of any administration ever.

This is utter bullshit. The only talk I ever hear about limiting press freedom comes from the left ala trying to restrict FOX, Talk Radio, Speech Codes on university campuses, etc.

 

7. Want to end our long-standing policy of going to war only when we have to.

so we had to go to war in Kosovo, Panama, Grenada, WWI, ? For that matter, why did we go to war with Germany in 1941?! By your logic, they didn't attack us so we should have just left them alone?? Wasn't it you that told me we had no right to go into Afghanistan? If this wasn't a case of justifiable use of force, I don't know what travesty would shake you out of your world.

 

In other words, these guys want to fundamentally change what this nation stands for and has stood for in nearly every spere of political and social life.

No, Matt, they just stand in the way of your socially 'progressive' adgenda....so you hate them. Believe it or not, a large portion of our nation doesn't want the world you envision.

 

Just who is it that hates America?

 

(By the way, lest those of you who hate those of us who you think hate America want to cry foul, I should point out that I encountered this argument in a recent book by Paul Krugman.)

Wooo! We'd better watch out! You're now armed with more liberal biased shitpages! Paul Krugman is a girlie man who wears eye-liner. A male version of Maureen Dowd...a real lightweight when compared to guys like Thomas Friedman, William Saphire, etc.

 

 

Matt,

 

I've done you the courtesy of a detailed reply. If only you could one day reciprocate, and not ignore the major points of those who argue against you.