Patriot Act used to go against american strip club owners and city councilmen. :q:

[Berzerker]

Dino, it isn't corruption, it's "legal", Once government has the power to do one thing, like force people into having Social Security numbers, then the assurances given by politicians this information will be kept "secret" doesn't last long. They'll be sharing that information with other bureaucracies and, with the case of SS #'s, even banks and other institutions will be demanding it from us. Of course, when our personal information gets leaked or misplaced (hackers, etc) and criminals use it for identity theft, the pols won't take responsibility. That's just our tough luck...

Don't hold your breath waiting for the AG's office to refrain from using the Patriot Act to go after their social agenda, we'll see what becomes of the leaking of the CIA op's name to Bob Novak and other reporters.

[Mr. Harley]

Three different issues in the same thread.

Patriot act. In my opinion deadly dangerous. Ben Franklin said it better than I can (from memory) "Those who surrender liberty for safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Of course it will be abused. Inevitably. Having John Ashcroft as Attorney General just makes it worse.

War on Drugs. Read some history. Can you say "Prohibition". It was a disaster. So is the war on drugs. Look at the effects in Central and Latin America, in our own cities, in our higher incarceration rate than any other industrial country. Plus, it funds organized crime. Prohibition FAILED. Nobody seems to learn the lessons of history.

Law creep - i.e. Social Security Numbers. Really bad problem in the US. The EU has some interesting laws on privacy and human rights. If they are still working the way they currently do in 30 years (I hope I'll still be around then) then it's not inevitable that Governmental Power tends to increase, abusively. History though tend to support the abuse and the increasing power models of governament, in fact rather strontly. Of course the EU has some other issues on centralization and beauracracies, it will be interesting to watch.

[Q Classic]

the patriot act is about as well written as the digital millenium copyright act.

that is to say, the law really really really really sucks and should be extensively rewritten.

[The Templar]

Hmm, terrorists use drug money to raise funds. Of course, this only works because drugs have been relegated to the grey and black markets.

Therefore, we should end the war on drugs to deprive the terrorists of a lucrative source of funds.

Easy as pie, really. And will probably prove far more effective than the Patriot Act.

[Cruddy]

This thing is self evident; you cannot legislate patriotism.

Still, I'm sure the next time the D'rats are in power, they'll have their kicking boots on.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Dino, it isn't corruption, it's "legal",

We seem to be talking about two different things but I'll bite anyway. What does that whole discussion of the over use of SS numbers have to do with the current investigation of the bribery of public officials?

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Cruddy
Still, I'm sure the next time the D'rats are in power,

Is this a subtle way of blaming the democrats for this?

[Gatekeeper]

Those jaywalkers had better watch out. They're next ...

[oedo]

anyone heard or read the speech of Al Gore two days ago? I know, many of you don´t like him for reasons I can understand. but in his speech he spoke out of my heart.

Starting two years ago, federal agents were given broad new statutory authority by the Patriot Act to “sneak and peak” in non-terrorism cases. They can secretly enter your home with no warning – whether you are there or not – and they can wait for months before telling you they were there. And it doesn’t have to have any relationship to terrorism whatsoever. It applies to any garden-variety crime. And the new law makes it very easy to get around the need for a traditional warrant -- simply by saying that searching your house might have some connection (even a remote one) to the investigation of some agent of a foreign power. Then they can go to another court, a secret court, that more or less has to give them a warrant whenever they ask.

(...)

Indeed, this Administration has turned the fundamental presumption of our democracy on its head. A government of and for the people is supposed to be generally open to public scrutiny by the people -- while the private information of the people themselves should be routinely protected from government intrusion. But instead, this Administration is seeking to conduct its work in secret even as it demands broad unfettered access to personal information about American citizens. Under the rubric of protecting national security, they have obtained new powers to gather information from citizens and to keep it secret. Yet at the same time they themselves refuse to disclose information that is highly relevant to the war against terrorism. They are even arrogantly refusing to provide information about 9/11 that is in their possession to the 9/11 Commission – the lawful investigative body charged with examining not only the performance of the Bush Administration, but also the actions of the prior Administration in which I served. The whole point is to learn all we can about preventing future terrorist attacks, Two days ago, the Commission was forced to issue a subpoena to the Pentagon, which has – disgracefully – put Secretary Rumsfeld’s desire to avoid embarrassment ahead of the nation’s need to learn how we can best avoid future terrorist attacks. The Commission also served notice that it will issue a subpoena to the White House if the President continues to withhold information essential to the investigation. And the White House is also refusing to respond to repeated bipartisan Congressional requests for information about 9/11 – even though the Congress is simply exercising its Constitutional oversight authority.

read the whole speech at

http://www.moveon.org/gore/speech.html

[Berzerker]

Templar -

Hmm, terrorists use drug money to raise funds. Of course, this only works because drugs have been relegated to the grey and black markets.

Therefore, we should end the war on drugs to deprive the terrorists of a lucrative source of funds.

Easy as pie, really. And will probably prove far more effective than the Patriot Act.

OBL was funded by oil revenues via wealthy Arabs/Saudis and family money from the construction industry, that's what I've heard anyway. Drugs was the lame attempt by politicians to blame drug users when they share blame for their interventionist foreign policies. But the politicians weren't about to tell us we got attacked because they can't mind their own business in the Middle East. Yes, much of this is tied into US support of Israel, but it goes beyond that too. US support for Mubarrak in Egypt, the Saudi Royal family, etc... But it basicly comes down to oil and Israel (I suspect oil is our main motive).

Okay, level with us. Tell us we need oil and we aren't about to let unfriendly people have control over the ME oil even if these people live there. We heard many politicians claiming we were attacked because we are free. These people are so desperate to avoid the truth they come up with some ridiculous explanations. Yes, some Muslims don't like our culture, but these attacks didn't start happening until after the Gulf War.

Even OBL has offered his rationale for the attacks and it wasn't because of Playboy or Fox TV, but if the media plays those tapes for Americans, we hear how the media is being irresponsible for giving the enemy a voice. And people like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly tell us in angry tones how they don't care why they attacked us. Excuse me, but I want to know Mr TV News Station. Then we heard that people who want to know "hate America" or that these people were "blame America first" - unAmericans! Anything to avoid reality, anything to lead Americans away from the realisation that the Dems and Repubs are why we got attacked...

Drug war pushers jumped at the chance to blame drug users but when Arianna Huffington ran ads blaming SUV owners in a tongue in cheek play on the government's anti-drug ads blaming drug users, she was ridiculed for being nuts even though she was much closer to the truth. However, the US was funding the Taliban's war on opium prior to 9/11 so it's entirely possible our taxes funded Al Qaida too, not that the politicians responsible would admit that.

But the fact remains, when we divert roughly half of law enforcement resources to "vice", less money gets devoted to real crime. Who knows if 9/11 would have happened if the money we spend on law enforcement was being used rationally, but it's certainly possible the impending attack could have been uncovered beforehand. Many Republicans have been attacking Clinton blaming him for 9/11 because not enough money was spent on the CIA and the intelligence community. Aside from the fact the Congress appropriates money, not the President, that thinking applies to the drug war as well... If Congress hadn't been throwing 100's of billions at chasing drug users, more could have been spent preventing terrorism.

Dino -

We seem to be talking about two different things but I'll bite anyway. What does that whole discussion of the over use of SS numbers have to do with the current investigation of the bribery of public officials?

The "over use" of SS #'s resulted from the creation of SS #'s and bogus assurances these numbers would not be used by anyone other than the SS administration. It's just an example of how government creates a power based on reasons given to the voters, then use that power for unstated reasons going beyond the scope of the rationale for the power's existence. Another example are RICO laws, we were told they were to go after the Mafia but they were then used for all sorts of stuff.

So, how does this tie in to the Patriot Act? We were told these new powers were for going after terrorism. But now we see these powers being used in non-terrorism cases. It's RICO all over again... It's SS #'s all over again... Why does it happen? Well, either the bureaucrats have the implicit approval of Congress to use broadly vague laws to create new bureaucratic powers beyond the law's purpose or Congress can't do anything about the problem which means we are not a republic but in reality, a system of bureaucratism where the bureaucrats run wild because congressional leashes are no longer held.

If you're a member of Congress and you see bureaucrats like Ashcroft abusing powers, what do you do? The bureaucrats are under the Executive branch, not the legislative branch. So there's a separation of powers problem. You'd have to convince a majority, even a filibuster proof majority, to change the law. The Framers understood the virtue of limited powers, not just because of Kings etc, but because centralised bureaucracies with ever expanding powers are also dangerous.