How many here agree with the Patriot Act?

Don't support the PA. It'll only take a Hillary presidency to declare members of this forum domestic terrorists.

It'll be a cold day in Hell before I ever participate in a PA action and besides, the State of Alaska forbids Alaska LE from using their resources and participating in PA enforcement actions.

This is what bothers me also. How can legislators vote for an unpopular bill of this magnitude and expect to be reelected. Anyone know where a list can be found of the congressmen who voted for this new atrocity?

Tom.

Click to expand...

Why do you suppose it is so unpopular? Do you really imagine that, outside of the circle of gun-rights supporters, and libertarians of their many stripes, that the American people oppose this? I imagine if you took a poll, the vast, vast majority of Americans would say "Good! After all, I've got nothing to hide ..."

You can find a roll call votes by searching on Thomas:

http://thomas.loc.gov/

Patriot Act - not

Having just read "The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson," I am sure that the spirit of the Sage of Monticello is looking down from somewhere, shaking his head with either incredulity or abject contempt over the Patriot Act.

This is a egregious attack on both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights...


...and I wonder how many of the folks posting opposition to it here are now on "the list." It's the Christmas season, afterall...someone's making a list and checking it twice....

The Patriot Act is an unnnecessary infringment of our rights. It doesn't have to effect me to be bad. It's justification is bogus. From what I've read the FED had more than enough warning that something was coming and who might be involved to take action prior to 911. The roadblocks between LE and Intelligence agencies could be taken care of without this monsterous attack on the BoR.

I was looking at FOX this morning and the call in question was about this issue and whether it infringes. there were four callers. Two responded with I've got nothing to hide so as long as it makes my family safe I'm for it. Two said its bad and infringes on my rights. my father in law says "i've got nothing to hide." I've got nothing to hide but that's not the point. the fact that Federal Le can now look at my personal life without any kind of judical check scares the heck out of me.

Derby FALs said:

Section 802 creates a category of crime called "domestic terrorism," penalizing activities that "involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States," if the actor's intent is to "influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."

Click to expand...

By that bit, the American Revolution would have been classed as domestic terrorism.

So would the first line of the Declaration of Independence.

I've read it. It's an abomination if you expect the government to promote freedom, but it's exactly what I expect to see from the federal government.

Having spent the past ten years off-and-on building timelines
on the Ruby Ridge and Waco diasasters, I can firmly state that
while the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act and the D.S.E.A. give vast and
over reaching powers to federal agencies, those agencies have
a long and illustrious history of never abusing power, always
showing reason and constraint in flexing their muscle and always
always respecting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights....
















hummmh.....

I seem to remember a science fiction story from the 1950s where a
man visits a nuclear scientist and tries to persuade him not to give the
government a new super weapon. He is not successful and leaves.
The scientist then sees his imbecile infant son playing with a loaded
revolver and asks himself, What kind of fool leaves a loaded gun in the
crib of an idiot child?

How Congress Has Assaulted Our Freedoms in the Patriot Act -by Andrew P. Napolitano

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/napolitano2.html

"The compromise version of the Patriot Act to which House and Senate conferees agreed last week and for which the House voted yesterday is an unforgivable assault on basic American values and core constitutional liberties. Unless amended in response to the courageous efforts of a few dozen senators from both parties, the new Patriot Act will continue to give federal agents the power to write their own search warrants – the statute’s newspeak terminology calls them "national security letters" – and serve them on a host of persons and entities that regularly gather and store sensitive, private information on virtually every American.(...)
Is this the society we want? Have we ultimately elected a government to spy on all of us? The Fourth Amendment is the lynchpin of our personal privacy and individual dignity. Without the Fourth Amendment’s protections, we will become another East Germany. The Congress must recognize this before it is too late."

garbage Security through obscurity

It should be called the Pathetic Act, it is an absolute piece of garbage that crackerjack LEagencies endorse to keep their comfort level on invading any citizens privacy.

Patriot Act = Bad JUJU....

While I have frequently praised "Dubya" for the good things his administration has accomplished, the Patriot Act is not within the realm of acceptable.

Shredding the Fourth Amendment will not make us "safer" anymore than shredding the Second will keep guns out of the hands of evil-doers

The Democrats who vote against renewal will do so for partisan politics, but in this case that is to our advantage.

Logistics said:

Anyone realize how many people would likely be out of a job if the Patriot Act wasen't around?

Click to expand...

That arguement hold true for the "War on drugs" as well.

The Patriot Act is the worst thing ever proposed in DC. Anyone that is for it, i'm against.

i'm against it...

I am against it. Then again I was and still am against some of the things that existed pre patriot act.

There is a lot of good information in some of the older threads on this topic.

Those who rail for or against PA: who amoungst you has actually read the questionable portions?

Click to expand...

<raises hand>

I don't like it one bit.

Has anyone actually been impacted by the PatAct on a personal level? I have heard of no one myself.

Click to expand...

Uhm... Jose Padilla is calling on line 1. Three years in lockup without charges. Looks like the 4th circuit put the smack down on that, though.

Like I have said before, The Patriot Act ain't going to be a method to protect us from $hi# and never will. The Govt itself said that its not a matter of "if a nuke will be used in this country" but "when". All is BS!

I'd like to know how many people on this board, who have an opinion, yay or nay, on the Patriot Act, have actually READ the Patriot Act.

I haven't, and I don't have an opinion on it.

enfield said:

I'd like to know how many people on this board, who have an opinion, yay or nay, on the Patriot Act, have actually READ the Patriot Act.

I haven't, and I don't have an opinion on it.

Click to expand...

I've read parts of it and I didn't like it one bit. In any case, I bet that the portions that I read weren't read by the Pols who intitially voted for it a few years back.

Biker

Based on the news I just read, it appears the Senate has grown a pair and won't pass it. Dubya is already crying that it's a "necessary tool" to fight terrorism.

I e-mailed El Presidente ... again ... but I'm sure he doesn't care what I think. I'm only a veteran.

whats to like about a bill that allows no defense for anyone,guilty or not,whats to like about a bill that authorizes searches in ones own literature habits and labled as a suspect as such that it gives further cause and no accountability to check other private matters...all like some super secret double probation or something out of hollywood.


The patriot act is a load of crap...while the illegal alien problem grows.

Watching TV I saw Sen. Ted Kennedy rant against renewal of the Patriot Act.
I thought it we be a cold day in h*ll before he and I would agree on anything. I guess that cold day has arrived.

cold day in hell

A lot of folks who otherwise would not agree may end up
holding an ice skating party in hades over this one. Hell
is in Michigan, ain't it?

I hated it when someone asked me "What do you have to hide?" when
I objected to being fingerprinted for a gun license.

When I heard people on TV say they did not object to the
P.A.T.R.I.O.T. because they had nothing to hide, I threw my
foam rubber brick remote control at the screen. That was not
the point. The government must excuse intrusions on privacy.
We should not have to expose ourselves.

OK, repeat my question: Has anyone actually been impacted by
the PatAct on a personal level? I have heard of no one myself.

I have received back Jose Padilla and Brandon Mayfield. Not many and
probably not known personally to the posters. But also possibly two
too many. Enough to make me called it by its acronym P.A.T.R.I.O.T.
and resfuse to use the word "Patriot".

Senator Feinstein, who had received 21,434 letters opposing the Patriot Act to date,
responding “I have never had a single abuse of the Patriot Act reported to me”).

Yet she voted against the cloture vote. She defended the patsy act yet voted against cloture.

Why?

It wasn't because she seen the light. Rather than do what is right and vote against it for what it is, I think she voted no because the President wanted it so badly.

Feingold was the only Senator that voted against it way back in 2001.

By the way, how can an abuse be reported if it was done secretly and you don't know about?
When the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as you enter your home and you get the feeling someone was there. But you can't quite put the finger on your reasons for the uneasiness, call your Senator, you've been PATSY'ed.

Vick

longhorngunman said:

I support the Patriot Act also. It's not my favorite piece of legislation but I do see the point of it. It IS the Governments responisbility to TRY and protect the citizens from large threats, which definetly includes terrorism. As another poster said most of the things in the Patriot Act, the government has been doing for a long time anyways, they're just letting you know their doing it now. Worried about Uncle Sam, I'd be more worried about what companies, banks, healthcare providers, Insurance Co.s, etc have access to. It's a global world with electronic control of most of your personal information, get used to it. Also what's wrong with Jessica's Law? I kinda like sending child rapists/ killers, to prison for a very long time. Only bad thing about it is why they aren't hung right after their trial.

Click to expand...

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

KriegHund said:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Click to expand...

+1