Let's examine Patriot Act closely before renewing it (Oakland)

[struggle4progress]

<snip> The ACLU is bedded down here with, among still more, the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum, the Free Congress Foundation and Citizens for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr, a Republican, heads the unlikely affair.

Unlikely, but welcome. Slammed through Congress in panic and without serious hearings or debate in just six weeks after 9/11, the act mowed down traditional civil liberties, wholesale, and concentrated new, dangerous powers in the executive branch. <snip>

But many provisions are way over the top. Section 802 defines terrorism so broadly it could be used to criminalize ordinary political activity and subject citizens who are exercising protected political rights to secret surveillance and their political organizations to police infiltration.

Section 215 allows the government to rummage through citizens' medical, library and gun-purchase records without probable cause and without informing the subject of the snooping. Section 213 allows secret searches of homes and businesses - "creep and peep," in opponents' shorthand. Gag orders keep even legal challenges to parts of the act secret, a truly Orwellian scenario. <snip>

http://www.theoaklandpress.com/stories/040305/opi_20050403013.shtml

Some serious issues in a bland and pasty "on the one hand, on the other hand" sauce ...

[ixion]

1. the unPATRIOTic Act is unconstitutional

and should be repealed in whole.

[dbeach]

2. Patsy Act was planned in "96....

It was ready to go...
lets put the blame where it belongs ..on all pols who violated the US Constitution and turned the trick for their corporat masters.. Patriot Act ... such whores..unreal TREASON!!!


http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/USAPA.asp
Whether the Administration could have anticipated 9/11 or not, the proponents of the USAPA were waiting to go long before that day. Similar antiterrorism legislation was enacted in the 1996 Antiterrorism Act, which however did little to prevent the events of 9/11, and many provisions had either been declared unconstitutional or were about to be repealed when 9/11 occurred.

James X. Dempsey and David Cole state in their book, "Terrorism & the Constitution: Sacrificing Civil Liberties in the Name of National Security," that the most troubling provisions of the pre-USAPA anti-terrorism laws, enacted in 1996 and expanded now by the USAPA, "were developed long before the bombings that triggered their final enactment."


Zappa had it correct..:" We're only in it for the money"..{I was NEVER his fan but I do get the message}

[dbeach]

3. Natl ID followed by chips..No one signed and I posted it on 2 blogs..

Petition against RFID chips.Please sign asap!


http://www.rfidkills.com/action.html

Never liked fishy and chips.
{Who makin $$ on these fishy chips?}

dbeach