In the on going struggle with terriorism are we giving up to much freedom? If the terriorist change our way of life have they won the war? Is America still America if we don't have autonomy to go about our lives without intrusion from the government? "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9274004/ Echelon is a spy network that is monitoring you. http://www.bostoncoop.net/~tpryor/wiki/index.php?title=ECHELON If someone is always monitoring you are you ever really free?
1 - Dunno. 2 - Change is the only constant. Depends on the changes. 3 - No. I think the scariest proposal was that of Operation TIPS. The last thing we need is everyone spying on everyone else. And anyone who thinks the spying would be limited to, or primarily about, terrorism is naive.
No Right For Appeal Even if you know you are being monitored by the government you have no right to appeal. There is no provision or mechanism in the Patriot Act that allows you an avenue to negotiate. You simply must grin and bear it. The Matrix http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multistate_Anti-Terrorism_Information_Exchange
Re: Re: Re: Re: Patriot Act Well, I'm not sure where you rate in the food chain of command here, but little people who now may be spied upon are the divided and conquered (especially if they're stupid enough to start spying upon each other). The people who are running Operation TIPS and their betters in the government are doing the dividing and conquering.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Patriot Act It should be said that Operation TIPS was shot down and hopefully for good.
Yes... I agree: Yes. Yes. No. At this writing, the ACLU has a link to its Patriot Act take-action thingy right on its front page at http://www.aclu.org/ Everyone here should sign it!
I'm not sure why I'm supposed to oppose the Patriot Act. It's a very complex law, but when I skimmed through it, I basically agreed with everything I read. Perhaps I missed all the fascist stuff that I'm told is in there. HR 3162, better known as the 'USA Patriot Act', is here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162: To access the actual text, click on the 'text of legislation' box towards the bottom of this page, then on the fourth text option (the HR3162ENR enrolled bill as passed by both houses). Perhaps surprisingly, the Patriot Act is directly relevant to combatting degree-mills. It's partly responsible for the speed with which the feds went after SRU. HR 3162 includes this provision: SEC. 105. EXPANSION OF NATIONAL ELECTRONIC CRIME TASK FORCE INITIATIVE. The Director of the United States Secret Service shall take appropriate actions to develop a national network of electronic crime task forces, based on the New York Electronic Crimes Task Force model, throughout the United States, for the purpose of preventing, detecting, and investigating various forms of electronic crimes, including potential terrorist attacks against critical infrastructure and financial payment systems. So the Secret Service apparently has been assigned a tremendous new task, besides VIP protection and combating currency counterfeiting. Recall that it was the Secret Service that took an active lead role in investigating SRU and its many offshoots.
Dangerous Its what it doesn't say that makes it dangerous. Who is a terrorist by definition? Is it your grandma's knitting group?
Operation TIPS And for that don't forget to thank the men and women of the U.S. Postal Service, who said immediately that they would not participate in such an un-American program. -=Steve=-
