They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
---Benjamin Franklin
When I first came here I thought some of you were tad touchy and inflexible about individual rights, I apologize to you. I have just been converted. Mr. Franklin has hit the nail right on the head. These rights were paid for in blood from the Revolutionary war thru the wars of today. They are not ours to give away but to preserve for future generations because the price has been paid for them. Like the song says if you dont stand for something you will fall for anything. I have come to beleive that our greatest enemy is not the guy toting the AK-47 and reading the Koran and declaring Jihad. Dont get me wrong, he is a formidable advesary we must defeat. The greatest enemy is here among us taking our rights from us piece by piece under the guise of safety.
If you beleive in the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment as being tantamount to the preservation of liberty, then the other amendments are equally important. The reasoning was that these were rights that government could not take away. If one right falls to government meddling then how far are the other rights from falling to the government?
Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.
The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms.
In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined.
it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.
Amazing..... not only do they not have to destroy this information on innocent Americans but it can be made available to private sector entities......
more bad news
As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an expiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret surrender of private records.
The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html
basically what it boils down to is a violation of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights of citizens.....
There have been some who have had the cajones to stand up and fight this even thought there might be penalties for doing this.
Is Big Brother watching you?
If you are willing to give up those rights because you have nothing to hide what other rights are you willing to give up? Willing to give up the Second Amendment also? If you let them chip away at individual rights the Second will be on the hit list sooner or later.
But then again this administration beleives in the Constitution ..maybe they should take it off the shelf and read it.
---Benjamin Franklin
When I first came here I thought some of you were tad touchy and inflexible about individual rights, I apologize to you. I have just been converted. Mr. Franklin has hit the nail right on the head. These rights were paid for in blood from the Revolutionary war thru the wars of today. They are not ours to give away but to preserve for future generations because the price has been paid for them. Like the song says if you dont stand for something you will fall for anything. I have come to beleive that our greatest enemy is not the guy toting the AK-47 and reading the Koran and declaring Jihad. Dont get me wrong, he is a formidable advesary we must defeat. The greatest enemy is here among us taking our rights from us piece by piece under the guise of safety.
If you beleive in the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment as being tantamount to the preservation of liberty, then the other amendments are equally important. The reasoning was that these were rights that government could not take away. If one right falls to government meddling then how far are the other rights from falling to the government?
Under the shield and stars of the FBI crest, the letter directed Christian to surrender "all subscriber information, billing information and access logs of any person" who used a specific computer at a library branch some distance away. Christian, who manages digital records for three dozen Connecticut libraries, said in an affidavit that he configures his system for privacy. But the vendors of the software he operates said their databases can reveal the Web sites that visitors browse, the e-mail accounts they open and the books they borrow.
The Patriot Act, and Bush administration guidelines for its use, transformed those letters by permitting clandestine scrutiny of U.S. residents and visitors who are not alleged to be terrorists or spies
The FBI now issues more than 30,000 national security letters a year, according to government sources, a hundredfold increase over historic norms.
In late 2003, the Bush administration reversed a long-standing policy requiring agents to destroy their files on innocent American citizens, companies and residents when investigations closed. Late last month, President Bush signed Executive Order 13388, expanding access to those files for "state, local and tribal" governments and for "appropriate private sector entities," which are not defined.
it does permit investigators to trace revealing paths through the private affairs of a modern digital citizen. The records it yields describe where a person makes and spends money, with whom he lives and lived before, how much he gambles, what he buys online, what he pawns and borrows, where he travels, how he invests, what he searches for and reads on the Web, and who telephones or e-mails him at home and at work.
Amazing..... not only do they not have to destroy this information on innocent Americans but it can be made available to private sector entities......
more bad news
As it wrote the Patriot Act four years ago, Congress bought time and leverage for oversight by placing an expiration date on 16 provisions. The changes involving national security letters were not among them. In fact, as the Dec. 31 deadline approaches and Congress prepares to renew or make permanent the expiring provisions, House and Senate conferees are poised again to amplify the FBI's power to compel the secret surrender of private records.
The House and Senate have voted to make noncompliance with a national security letter a criminal offense. The House would also impose a prison term for breach of secrecy.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/05/AR2005110501366.html
basically what it boils down to is a violation of the First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights of citizens.....
There have been some who have had the cajones to stand up and fight this even thought there might be penalties for doing this.
Is Big Brother watching you?
If you are willing to give up those rights because you have nothing to hide what other rights are you willing to give up? Willing to give up the Second Amendment also? If you let them chip away at individual rights the Second will be on the hit list sooner or later.
But then again this administration beleives in the Constitution ..maybe they should take it off the shelf and read it.