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Political Vice Squad

By Joel Bleifuss

In October 2001, when Congress passed the Patriot Act — and again when it reauthorized it in 2006 — the Bush administration assured nervous but compliant members of Congress that these expanded domestic surveillance tools were needed to protect the homeland. Bush partisans scoffed at critics who worried these new spy powers might be used for nefarious political purposes. After all,… return to article

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    One thing I’d like to do is to push Hillary and Barack and John into a corner and get straight from their mouths what exactly they plan to do about that horrorshow law, that truncator of constitutional protections, that ocean of fascistic possibilities, known far and wide as the USA PATRIOT Act. A newspeak-named assault on the whole idea of rights, I say. I’ve been in hate with the mf’n thing from the second I heard of it.

    I doubt if any one of them would give me anything but a canned, suck-up answer. I’d love to be proven wrong.

    First it was 9/11 and then that monstrosity, all within about a month. Talk about your 1-2 punch! It about made me cry. I remember REAL clear.

    Damn that f’d-up law for the piece of misdirection that it is, as if the world is any safer from violent extremists by us dropping protections against overweaning government power. As if half-erasing the Bill of Rights is necessary to get FBI and CIA to communicate effectively. It’s a goddamn shame.

    Focus on the police work, drop the primate territoriality among police and intelligence agencies, and leave the constitutional rights in place, unmolested.

    You didn’t buy that bullshit line that “we’re too free” did you?  Like WTC 1, 2 and 7 collapsed because we’re too free?? Tsk tsk. Snap out of it.

    John? Hillary? Barack? Whoever of you takes the Oval Office. Burn that law. Order the agencies to get their acts together, fire the directors who fail to make sure it happens, and burn that stinking law! Your place in history will be golden.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Apr 25, 2008 at 4:05 AM

    Wow Joel, your article was only on the front e-page for a day or so, got archived almost immediately while older articles stayed up front. Almost as if my perfectly correct and entirely legal expression of political opinion DQ’d it.

    Sorry about that.

    Well, sorry the editorial decision went the way it did, especially since your article helps point up the questionability of the law and how it gets used.

    Not sorry at all about my take on the USA PATRIOT Act.

    Here are 3 links to the parts of a documentary you all may find interesting, entitled “Unconstitutional: The War On Civil Liberties.”

    Part 1
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu6ZBY08M38

    Part 2
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqfE0dg7z_s

    Part 3
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcg1W48v0qo

    Every square inch of the United States of America is a free-speech zone! Dont forget that.

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Apr 30, 2008 at 2:24 AM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

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