Domestic spying poll

[2ndsight]

the patriot act is in direct violation of the constitution and bill of rights

section 602 congress shall not pass any law that abridges the right to free speech

it also restricts the 4th 5th and 10th

and if it is found wire tapping opposition is the norm this also is against the law misuse of power is not the norm and should never be accepted from any level of gov. period never

and when you strip the people who oppose any rights, tyranny rains

honest dissent should not be a crime nor should the dissenters be persecuted

we are not a democracy we are a republic where rights shall not be abriged the rights are the corner stones of a republic

[galahad]

[The Supreme Court has held the Fourth Amendment does not require law enforcement to give immediate notice of the execution of a search warrant. The Supreme Court emphasized "that covert entries are constitutional in some circumstances, at least if they are made pursuant to a warrant." In fact, the Court stated that an argument to the contrary was "frivolous." Dalia v. U.S., 441 U.S. 238 (1979)

Unfortunately the SCOTUS is wrong almost as often as Congress.  If you think they REALLY represent you go back and check out "separate but equal", starting with thee 1896 case of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537.   That decision was valid for something like 60 years, then, oh my, the SCOTUS changed their minds and decided that those poor idiots way back then were WRONG about the Constitution.

The current SCOTUS seems bent on allowing the Federal Government to trample all over the second and fourth amendments and isn't inclined to do a thing about it.   The Constitution is NOT ambiguous, it's NOT hard to understand words like "infringe", "secure", and "warrant".  It's the SCOTUS that makes it so complicated that normal citizens cannot understand either the rationale for their decisions.  

So don't believe for even a second that I, or anyone else who can read the Constitution, will agree with the SCOTUS.  It's FAR more likely that we will agree with the minority opinion of the court as more often than not THAT is the position that requires that "the people" be recognized and respected.

[Throb]

Las Vegas Review-Journal just presents two sides of a story. If the feds sought financial records of those suspected of laundering money, they are well within the realm of duty. Your link is over two years old though.

You didn't address the point!

You claimed that only non-citizens and terrorists needed to worry about the Patriot Act.  You claimed that it wouldn't be used against American citizens to deny us our Constitutional rights.  And you were dead wrong.  

So what if the link is two years old?  If anything, the problem has gotten worse.  The Feds are using this "terrorism" excuse to foment fear in the population so they can roll right over us and trample our rights.  That is the reality of the situation, my friend.  You can squeeze your eyes shut and put your fingers in your ears if you want, but it won't change reality.  Meanwhile, your support of unconstitutional measures is helping to destroy our republic.

I'd rather risk terror attacks on our nation than have it destroyed from within by those who were supposed to defend our liberty and our rights.  Terrorists can only kill people and destroy property.  Our politicians are destroying our way of life.

Whats the point? I forgot to add Money Laundering to the list?

The link is old, another ACLU running down the street "my rights...my rights"

You cant be further from DEAD WRONG

Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA Patriot Act civil liberties violations. Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent inspector general, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations. Intense public scrutiny has yet to find a single civil liberty abuse. Despite many challenges, no federal court has declared unconstitutional any of the Patriot Act provisions Congress is renewing.


You offered up the newspaper article as proof, it does not prove a thing, it had assumptions that are unfounded today. Hype with a little Hot Air makes great controversy.

There are parts of the PA that are also in line with practices that, pointed out several times earlier, are SOP of criminal investigations.

The dirtbag laundered money, became suspect, was tapped, now is in deep doodoo.

The government would have had to subpoena 10,000 financial institutions nationwide had it not relied on a Patriot Act provision directing the U.S. Treasury Department to give law enforcement greater access to financial records.  And thats a bad thing? Sheesh......

Whatever terrorist attacks are on the way, if want them you got them. Be careful for what you wish for.

Your beef is not with the PA but with the system of  search and wiretap warrants, granted in a hearing by a group of federal judges, without notice to the target, was established 25 years ago by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

No court has ever found FISA to be unconstitutional, and just last year a special panel of federal appeals court judges reviewed the Patriot Act's central modification of FISA and unanimously found it constitutional.

[1952Sniper]

Zero. That's the number of substantiated USA Patriot Act civil liberties violations. Extensive congressional oversight found no violations. Six reports by the Justice Department's independent inspector general, who is required to solicit and investigate any allegations of abuse, found no violations.

Fox guarding the hen house.  

Intense public scrutiny has yet to find a single civil liberty abuse.

If that were the case, we wouldn't be having this conversation!

Despite many challenges, no federal court has declared unconstitutional any of the Patriot Act provisions Congress is renewing.

You need to look at the history of the Jose Padilla case, which is still pending.  It has been appealed to the Supreme Court a couple of times, and each time the SCOTUS is about to accept the case, the feds/military cave in to the demands of the defendant's lawyer in a blatant attempt to keep the SCOTUS from having to rule on it.  Every time they do this, they say they're just doing it as a matter of discretion and that they don't really have to.

Secondly, we should consider the history of the Padilla case. Jose Padilla was long denied the opportunity to meet with his lawyers. Roughly a week before the Supreme Court first agreed to hear his case in 2004, the government allowed him to meet with his lawyers. At the time it said it was "allowing Padilla access to counsel as a matter of discretion and military authority. Such access is not required by domestic or international law and should not be treated as a precedent." This was a carefully determined tactic. By granting Padilla access to a lawyer, the government was trying to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling on whether they had to  provide Padilla with a lawyer.

The Supreme Court decided not to rule on Padilla's case in 2004, sending it back to lower courts to spend over a year working its way back to the top. Now his case has made it back to the Supreme Court. Again, the Supreme Court is about to decide whether to hear his case. And, again, the government has decided that, at its discretion, it will grant Jose Padilla his constitutionally guaranteed rights.

The strategy is clear. The government will now try to convince the Supreme Court and that Padilla's claims are irrelevant because he's been charged with a crime. By doing so, the government will retain its self-appointed power to lock you up without a lawyer or criminal charges until the Supreme Court rules on your case, which we've seen can take years.

This should tell you something.  The feds are scared that the Supreme Court is going to rule on the Constitutionality of the Patriot Act and smash it to smithereens.  So they're being very careful to do what it takes to keep it so that the SCOTUS doesn't have to make a ruling.  

In other words, they know what they're doing is unconstitutional.  You know it too.  But you agree with the intent behind it, so you're willing to defend it.

You offered up the newspaper article as proof, it does not prove a thing, it had assumptions that are unfounded today.

The FBI freely admitted they used the Patriot Act in a non-terrorism related case.  Which exact "assumption" are you referring to?

The government would have had to subpoena 10,000 financial institutions nationwide had it not relied on a Patriot Act provision directing the U.S. Treasury Department to give law enforcement greater access to financial records. And thats a bad thing? Sheesh......

Yes, that's a bad thing.  Our justice system is SUPPOSED to be difficult.  It favors the accused.  That's what separates us from places like the former Soviet Union.  Our government has to play by a set of rules (the Constitution calls it "due process").  The Constitution requires warrants.  You may think it's great that the government can look at everything you do without any oversight, but the founding fathers knew that was a dangerous thing.

Good Lord, history is repeating itself.  Folks like you are dragging this country backwards toward tyranny.  Everything our founders fought for is slipping away.

[galahad]

[The Supreme Court has held the Fourth Amendment does not require law enforcement to give immediate notice of the execution of a search warrant. The Supreme Court emphasized "that covert entries are constitutional in some circumstances, at least if they are made pursuant to a warrant." In fact, the Court stated that an argument to the contrary was "frivolous." Dalia v. U.S., 441 U.S. 238 (1979)

I just read that again.   It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with searching without a warrant, it has EVERYTHING to do with not presenting the warrant to the person being searched until the search has been conducted.  What it means is that if a suspect flees to Europe the law enforcement agency can OBTAIN A WARRANT and search his property without notifying him.  I don't have a problem with that if the circumstances warrant it and neither did the court.  Indeed, if a suspect flees in order to avoid arrest it would be "frivolous" to require law enforcement to capture/extradite him prior to executing a warrant.

As for unsubstantiated violations of civil liberties, do you TRULY believe that the FBI, CIA, et. al. are getting a warrant for each wiretap?  If they were then they wouldn't have fought so desperately to keep the "warrantless wiretap" provisions in the bill they would have just said, "We don't need that to do our jobs."

[Mo'sin]

Forgive my tone here but some of this commentary just makes me want to puke. People advocating warrantless searches might as well just go piss on the graves at Normandy and wipe their taint with the flag. What does "freedom" mean to you? Is it wearing a flag on your lapel to front like you are a tough-guy patriot? Wasting gas in your bad-ass Hummer and putting a "support the troops" sticker on it, and then selling out the rights Americans have shed their blood for because you are afraid of a terrorist attack? Is being a patriot peeing your pants in fear of Osama and crying for chickenhawks GW and Cheney and Rummy and Wolfy to come save you by spying on you and your fellow Americans?? DISPICABLE.

I have never been more disgusted with my fellow Americans. GROW SOME BALLS and quit cowering. The argument that one shouldn't mind wiretapping unles they are doing something illegal is INANE. Moreover it is UNAMERICAN. Are you so selfish and scared that you are willing to sell out our Freedoms for your personal safety/security? If so, you are not fit to call yourself an American. You are a little Bush groupie... a dispicable FAN of a cult of personality, not a patriot of our nation and its ideals.

"Those who would trade liberty for security  deserve neither" --Ben Franklin

[mindcrash]

Forgive my tone here but some of this commentary just makes me want to puke. People advocating warrantless searches might as well just go piss on the graves at Normandy and wipe their taint with the flag. What does "freedom" mean to you? Is it wearing a flag on your lapel to front like you are a tough-guy patriot? Wasting gas in your bad-ass Hummer and putting a "support the troops" sticker on it, and then selling out the rights Americans have shed their blood for because you are afraid of a terrorist attack? Is being a patriot peeing your pants in fear of Osama and crying for chickenhawks GW and Cheney and Rummy and Wolfy to come save you by spying on you and your fellow Americans?? DISPICABLE.

I have never been more disgusted with my fellow Americans. GROW SOME BALLS and quit cowering. The argument that one shouldn't mind wiretapping unles they are doing something illegal is INANE. Moreover it is UNAMERICAN. Are you so selfish and scared that you are willing to sell out our Freedoms for your personal safety/security? If so, you are not fit to call yourself an American. You are a little Bush groupie... a dispicable FAN of a cult of personality, not a patriot of our nation and its ideals.

"Those who would trade liberty for security  deserve neither" --Ben Franklin

I think you just won the thread.

[1952Sniper]

I'm inclined to agree.

[Mo'sin]

I think you just won the thread.

I'd rather win the souls of my fellow citizens back!  Somehow Americans these days think of sacrifice in time of war as sacrificing our freedoms and adherence to our constition, while driving and shopping a whole lot more. It sincerely pains me.  

[2ndsight]

bravo Mo'sin bravo gives me a warm fuzzy feeling We may have a chance to take this mother back

[galahad]

Mo'sin for President!!

[Foul]

Anyone in government who spies on an American Citizen without first obtaining a legal warrent should be shot in the head and his or her corpse repeatedly sexually violated until it stinks too bad to cover over with air freshener.
If government doesn'tfollow the law with due process, why should the victims be expected to do it?

[VXbinaca]

Mo'sin for King!!!!!!!!! Oh wait I mean President.  :D

[Throb]

Forgive my tone here but some of this commentary just makes me want to puke. People advocating warrantless searches might as well just go piss on the graves at Normandy and wipe their taint with the flag. What does "freedom" mean to you? Is it wearing a flag on your lapel to front like you are a tough-guy patriot? Wasting gas in your bad-ass Hummer and putting a "support the troops" sticker on it, and then selling out the rights Americans have shed their blood for because you are afraid of a terrorist attack? Is being a patriot peeing your pants in fear of Osama and crying for chickenhawks GW and Cheney and Rummy and Wolfy to come save you by spying on you and your fellow Americans?? DISPICABLE.

I have never been more disgusted with my fellow Americans. GROW SOME BALLS and quit cowering. The argument that one shouldn't mind wiretapping unles they are doing something illegal is INANE. Moreover it is UNAMERICAN. Are you so selfish and scared that you are willing to sell out our Freedoms for your personal safety/security? If so, you are not fit to call yourself an American. You are a little Bush groupie... a dispicable FAN of a cult of personality, not a patriot of our nation and its ideals.

"Those who would trade liberty for security  deserve neither" --Ben Franklin

I can forgive your tone, sometimes we hit the submit button too early without really knowing what the debate is about or having all the facts.
It is the typical response to the PA: both misinformed and overblown.

Also I congratulate you on your thread victory and run for president.

However...

You make me out to be come kind of wimp, you know nothing about me beside a policy I agree with, then that gives you the right to throw insults my way, then toss out some "you dont know what freedom is" rhetoric.

Great inspiring war stories, I had many relatives in my own bloodline make sacrifices, in once case because of Pearl Harbor, which shattered the complacency of the American public. Sound familiar?

My opinion is not fear related or have anything to do with my capacity to produce offspring, one which by the way is a Jr. Olympian and the other the second fastest freestyle swimmer in WA state.

What about our boys over there now? Would we like to bring them home? Or would we rather see the insurgence build up because we think somebody wants to tap our phone calls? What kind of patriot posers go along with this? It's great we can recall the past, what about now? Are our boys over there so we can make a private phone call, or do they have something more important to do? Is anyone willing to help? I didnt think so. Cry about some freedom all you want, throw up, whatever, it's just self serving and does squat to help the current conflict.

It is hard to imagine that the erosion of civil liberties is to be determined by known violations of the law that curtails civil liberties. What kind of circular logic is that? Hmmm ....

Like most here, you think that even a small limitation of civil liberties can never be acceptable. You think that, as a blotch of our commitment to freedom, courts should not allow the government to occupy our civil liberties even during emergencies. BS times infinity!

The truth is to the contrary.

Civil liberties during our the past have always expanded in peacetime and tapered during emergencies. During the Civil War, the two world wars, and the Cold War, Congress and the president restricted civil liberties, and courts deferred; during peacetime, civil liberties grew.

Records show that new protection policies usually last only as long as the combat or emergency, relax it's going to be ok.

The president and Congress most likely will give up their emergency powers; if they don’t, courts will step in. Notwithstanding a run of wars and emergencies since the Civil War, civil liberties in our country have extended steadily.

Common-sense changes in surveillance law could have been used against al Qaeda before they murdered 3,000 people.

How soon we forget.

Some would like to believe that the Patriot Act allows CIA and NSA agents to saddle up and roam freely through the country busting anyone they please. Bogus, hollywood fantasy. The Patriot Act represents a modest cutback from an overcautious interpretation of FISA, but nothing like the pre-1978 establishment of warrantless searches.

Law enforcement still must:
(1) apply for and receive a court order;
(2) establish probable cause that criminal activity is afoot; and
(3) first have tried to use "normal investigative procedures."

Now if they dont follow those procedures then thats wrong, and I dont agree with it. Some say its happening now, and I dont dispute that. There will always be two sides to every story. Here is one:

"I have never had a single abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me. My staff e-mailed the ACLU and asked them for instances of actual abuse. They e-mailed back and said they had none."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein

You have some followers here, time run for office and make some sweeping changes. Unfortunately those who disagree with the PA are in the minority.

Senate Total Voting Yea: 98%
House Total Voting Yes: 83%

[galahad]

.....relax it's going to be ok.  ........

The president and Congress most likely will give up their emergency powers; if they don’t, courts will step in. Notwithstanding a run of wars and emergencies since the Civil War, civil liberties in our country have extended steadily.

This is the attitude that scares me.  Trust the government.  And, to paraphrase, "The government will give back the powers it took unconstitutionally when they feel liike it."  And the last statement is patently absurd.  To think that our civil liberties are increasing is naive.

To test that, just compare the number of laws that Congress has passed that identify and assure a freedom that was not covered in the Bill of Rights.  Yes, perhaps there are a few, but compare and contrast that to the HUGE majority of laws that do nothing more than restrict our freedoms.  Of course that would include the "buried" laws, like those that restrict our right to bear arms that is "buried" in the Federal Tax Code.  

And then consider that the Civil Rights Act wouldn't have been required in the first place if GOVERNMENT hadn't passed laws that did restrict the rights and freedoms of some people.  The CRA had to be passed because States were passing unconstitutional laws, and had the States not been infringing on the rights and freedoms of Americans that Federal law would not have been required.  

The government has grown more powerful, more intrusive, and more controlling since the first day after the Constitution was signed.   It amazes me that anyone could believe that the government is sitting there EXPANDING our rights when they have NO POWER to do that.  ALL they can do is restrict our freedoms, at all levels, local, state, and federal.  The Constitution was written to RESTRICT their power do do that, and the result is that Congress and the SCOTUS spend huge portions of their time figuring out how to "get around" such words as "infringe" and "The right of the people to be secure..."  and "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial..."  These things aren't complicated but I'll put them in my own words.

Gun laws are unconstitutional.
Goverment cannot search without a warrent.
Government cannot imprison people without charges and a speedy trial.

THAT is what the Constitution says, and the government that you are defending so adamantly simply doesn't care what it says.  We are no longer a Constitutional Republic, we are a simple Republic without the protections that are supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution.  You, and others, are comfortable with that state of affairs.  I am not, and I never will be.

As for this, "Unfortunately those who disagree with the PA are in the minority. "  You do understand the realities of politics don't you?  MOST of the "aye" votes were cast because of the reality that when there is another terrorist attack each and every one of those politicians HAS to be able to say "I did what I could, I voted for the Patriot Act."  The reality is that those who voted against it will NOT be re-elected if there is another attack because their opponent will throw that single issue in their face and they will be defeated by the sheeple.