March 01, 2004
"They never cite any case law or specific instances..."
Here's a good article on how the lunatic left is demonizing the Patriot Act without giving a damn whether or not anyone's rights are actually infringed
.... A platoon of "civil rights" groups have launched a lobbying offensive for the passage of local resolutions that denounce the Patriot Act and call for its repeal. In hysterical terms, these resolutions scream that civil liberties have been violated. Eager protesters, their beards graying with age, pack city council chambers to tell of the horrors they have read on the Internet.One could go on and on about this. When i think of those stupid librarians getting ready to defy Ashcroft's gestapo, without giving a damn that no library records have been seized, or are even likely to be; that it could only be done with a warrant, and is already legal in ordinary criminal cases...(and at the same time refusing to speak up for librarians imprisoned by Castro)....They never cite any case law or specific instances of lost liberties. But they've duped more than 200 credulous city councils across the country into passing these resolutions. And now it's hit a dangerous extreme - crossing the line from denunciation to non-cooperation...
... Numerous challenges to the Patriot Act have been raised; and virtually all have been squarely rejected. To date, only one court (a federal district court in the Central District of California) has held any provision of the Act unconstitutional - and that in a highly contrived case in which no one was actually arrested for anything....
How I hate those all fraudulent creeps.
Posted by John Weidner at March 1, 2004 09:07 AM | TrackBackThe one that bothers me (I don't think it is part of the USA PATRIOT act) is the one where the President is able to jail US citizens indeffinitly. I honestly don't think that Bush will missuse it. But someone will. Nixon would have...
Posted by: Andrew Cory at March 1, 2004 06:20 PMThing is, Andrew, there is no such law. It's more hysterical made up crap from the left.
Posted by: Gary Utter at March 1, 2004 07:45 PMI think you may be referring to citizens caught fighting for Al Quada. They can (it is believed) be held in the same manner as POWS until the end of the war. (Though they don't deserve the formal status of POW, because they don't subscribe to the rules of war or the Geneva Convention.)
Of course this shadowy new sort of war has so many ambiguities that almost all points can be argued legitimately—Including whether it even is a war, or when it ends. Fighting for an enemy power is grounds for loss of citizenship, but is this an "enemy power?"
Come to think, I expect the ambiguity of the prisoner situation will cause a general discomfort that will make it likely that the "war" will be declared to be "over" as soon as feasable. But I don't expect that to be soon.
Posted by: John Weidner at March 1, 2004 08:21 PMAnd if you ever chance to study Nixon, you will find that he was an extremely complex character, sometimes petty and conniving, sometimes idealistic and visionary and compassionate.
It would not be safe to bet that he would act like the cartoonish demon of Democrat legend.
Posted by: John Weidner at March 1, 2004 08:25 PM
