[aldo_14]

The goal of al Queda is the destruction of all non-Muslim civillisation.  Whether it's self destruction or not, doesn't matter.....

[Stryke 9]

I'm sure they'd like that very much, but it's a terribly inefficient way to get about that goal. And there'd be no reason to concentrate their attacks in the Middle East if such was the case, rather than more American-populated areas such as, say, America. Their job is to make the middle east too hot to handle- just keep us the **** away. Whatever we do to ourselves, or incidential damage to a few thousand US civilians, is of secondary interest, if even that.

We're ****ing ourselves just fine, and quite a lot of it is us personally- you and I. Don't need to find anyone else to do the work for us, and it's terribly irresponsible to place the blame on a couple of bombers off doing their own thing who don't give a flying monkey **** what happens to you either way.

[Shiva Archon]

Originally posted by mikhael

They did that. The American people are reacting to things out of fear, irrationally and foolishly. The American Government is doing the same. Look at the USA-PATRIOT act. A bigger abrogation of civil liberties has not been seen in this country since BEFORE THE REVOLUTION. We have "terror alerts" now, and we've got every civilian jumping at shadows wondering which one of their fellow passengers migh have a weapon in his underwear. We're introducing "security" measures that don't provide actual security, just the illusion of security. This is a terrified populace.

You forgot, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus during the Civil War.  Nothing even remotely close to that action is set into the PATRIOT act.  Don't forget the Alien and Sedition acts put in place under John Adams, either, though that was a long time ago.  Regardless, all it does is extend the same powers the government uses against the mafia to potential terrorists.

At worst, it's a nervous populace.  If it were terrified, air travel would not be back up to pre-9/11 levels and business would still be awful.  It seems more to me that most people have terrorism in the back of their minds, but are not terrified by any means.  They sure didn't look terrified in Times Square at New Years.

[mikhael]

Actually, no. I didn't forget that Lincoln suspended habeus corpus nor the Alien and Sedition Acts. I also haven't forgotten that Bush and his puppet Congress have essentially done the same thing as all three of those actions in the three years that he's been in office.

Holding people without charges? Rounding up foreigners? Okay, maybe they haven't jailed people for disagreeing with their policies, but they've illegally jailed people for being of arab descent.

People may not look terrified, no. But I'm not talking about individuals. I'm talking about the populace as a whole. Who but a cowed populace would allow things like the USA-PATRIOT act to stand? Who but a cowed populace would put up with the bull**** "terror alert level"? Its a culture of fear and we've let ourselves be trapped by it.

[Rictor]

As long as the American people fear "da terrorists", which is in and of itself such a broad and misused term, they won't care about how some guy is going to spend the rest of his live living in what amounts to an internment camp even though he's innocent. They won't care that the system of checks and balances have all but been taken away, with supreme power flowing from the neocons in general and John Ashcroft in specific (pertaining to the judicial system). They will gladly stomach the terror alerts, thw almost daily warnings about impending doom, which never actually happen, and so forth. While they live in fear of another 9/11, anything and everything that offers them comfort and assurance (however false it may be) will go unopposed, and any voice of dissent will immediatlly be dismissed as treasonous and yes, even dangerous.

[mikhael]

Excactly, Rictor. That's precisely what I'm talking about.

[Shiva Archon]

Rounding up foreigners and jailing Arabs for no reason?  Where?  When?  I hear this a lot from liberal columnists and such, but they never give any proof or any specific examples.

What is the big beef with USA-PATRIOT?  I read Title II of the bill, which is the only part of it that seems relevant to people's complaints about it.  Besides the stupid name, I don't see anything about it that bothers me.  What are the specific parts of the bill that are so bad as to be worse than automatic jailing for speaking out against the government, or worse than the internment camps for Japanese Americans during WWII?

I hate to keep asking for clarification on everything, but how are checks and balances taken away?  What supreme power does Ashcroft wield?

Voices of dissent in America are everywhere.  Whether they are right or not, you cannot honestly say that the American populace as a whole is just sitting back when a significant portion of it hate Bush passionately and are not afraid to voice that opinion.  The majority disagree with the dissenters, yet this does not eliminate their existence nor their influence.

BTW - Is this the same puppet Congress that, to this day, refuses to confirm any of Bush's federal court nominees?  Republican control of the Senate hangs by a thread, and the Democrats have shown they have the power to block Bush's initiatives if they want to.

EDIT - I kant spel good.

[Stryke 9]

Mindless *****ing ain't worth ****. Who cares if people are "speaking out" by whining on their blogs or whatever, it's the sort of talk that people use as a surrogate for action, rather than an inspiration to it.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Shiva Archon
Rounding up foreigners and jailing Arabs for no reason?  Where?  When?  I hear this a lot from liberal columnists and such, but they never give any proof or any specific examples.

Not a single person in camp X-ray has had a trial. It's also probable that they've been tortured too (I seem to remember there being something about cruel and unusual punishments in the constituition)

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Shiva Archon
Rounding up foreigners and jailing Arabs for no reason?  Where?  When?  I hear this a lot from liberal columnists and such, but they never give any proof or any specific examples.

So did you miss the whole part of recent history where everyone in the US of arabic descent had to go to their local INS offices to have a little chat? Did you miss the part where people were carted off for longer chats with nebulous authorities? Or the part where people were moved from place to place, given nothing to eat or drink for days while it was decided what was to be done with them? For reference, that was between February and April of 2003. Most were eventually let go, deported or moved to Camp X-ray (yeah, that place in Cuba where people are still being held without trial, without charges, without counsel. W00t! Go Constitution!

I hate to keep asking for clarification on everything, but how are checks and balances taken away?  What supreme power does Ashcroft wield?

How about the part where, without judicial oversight, the FBI can do snatch and grab seizures without informing anyone (least of the victim) of the fact that they were there, why they were there, or when? Explain to me where the oversight is when NO ONE except the FBI itself and a rent-a-judge know what went on. Oh, and the part where the Rent-A-Judge doesn't even have to be told WHY the warrant is being issued. Maybe you missed that bit.

How about the wiretaps that fall under "intelligence needs" now, instead of judicial investigations? The same wiretaps that never have to be revealed to anyone, due to "intelligence" concerns. But hey, Big Brother would only listen in if there was a reason right? You'll never know because he doesn't even have to tell you--even at trial--that you were listened to. Tell me where the oversight is? Tell me where the checks and balances are.

BTW - Is this the same puppet Congress that, to this day, refuses to confirm any of Bush's federal court nominees?  Republican control of the Senate hangs by a thread, and the Democrats have shown they have the power to block Bush's initiatives if they want to.

Maybe you should pay more attention to the facts and less to what FoxNews spits out. To listen to Murdoch's mouthpieces speak, you'd think that ALL of Bush's appointees were knocked down.
Time to go check the Congressional record. Only a handful of Bush's appointees were stopped, through marathon filibustering. The vast majority (this is the dictionary defintions of 'vast' and 'majority' not the Bush definitions of 'vast' and 'majority') were passed and approved. The simple fact of the matter is that the BLOCKED appointees are the most newsworthy. No one, least of all Murdoch's cronies, is going to tell you that MOST of his appointees passed quietly.

[mikhael]

I'm breaking this out seperately. Shiva Archon asked what was so BAD about the USA-PATRIOT act. Obviously, he didn't read enough of it.

Section 215: Access to Records Under Foreign Intelligence Security Act (FISA)

• Allows an FBI agent to obtain a search warrant for “any tangible thing,” which can include books, records, papers, floppy disks, data tapes, and computers with hard drives.
• Permits the FBI to compel production of library circulation records, Internet use records, and registration information stored in any medium.
• Does not require the agent to demonstrate “probable cause,” the existence of specific facts to support the belief that a crime has been committed or that the items sought are evidence of a crime. Instead, the agent only needs to claim that he believes that the records he wants may be related to an ongoing investigation related to terrorism or intelligence activities, a very low legal standard.
  
• Libraries or librarians served with a search warrant issued under FISA rules may not disclose, under of penalty of law, the existence of the warrant or the fact that records were produced as a result of the warrant. A patron cannot be told that his or her records were given to the FBI or that he or she is the subject of an FBI investigation.
  
• Overrides state library confidentiality laws protecting library records.
  

Wow. Not only can the FBI act without probable cause, you aren't allowed to know that he did. And you're not protected by your states confidentiality laws. So much for the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments and the protections against unreasonable search and siezure. How are you supposed to credibly defend yourself when you're not allowed to know what they were looking for or why they're investigating you, or even when you were investigated?

I'll add more as I think of them.

In fact, here: The Electronic Frontier Foundations Analysis of USA-PATRIOT. IF that doesn't turn your stomach, you're probably the sort that likes the idea of yanking people from their beds in the middle of the night never to be seen again.