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Author Topic: Behind the Patriot Act
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 31 October 2002 03:41 AM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
In the year since the Patriot Act was approved, the government has moved quickly to take full advantage of new and existing powers.

More than a thousand noncitizens were detained without being charged last fall, and their identities were kept secret. Hundreds of Muslim men--citizens and noncitizens--were placed under surveillance by federal investigators across the country. Their movements, telephone calls, e-mail, Internet use and credit-card charges are being scrutinized around the clock--a campaign that has resulted in criminal charges against 18 suspected al Qaeda operatives near Seattle, Detroit, Buffalo, N.Y., and Portland, Ore.

"We've neutralized a suspected terrorist cell within our borders," Ashcroft announced earlier this month at press conference about the indictments of six in Portland charged with conspiring to aid al Qaeda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. He called the indictments "a defining day in America's war against terrorism."

And it's clear that the war is just getting underway. The FBI is still building a data-mining system that will draw in huge amounts of commercial and governmen-tal information and parse it for signs of terrorism. The Transportation Security Administration has begun work on a passenger-profiling system that some officials say would be the largest domestic surveillance system in the nation's history.

All of this makes Viet Dinh smile as he eats curry at a restaurant across from the Justice Department. The Patriot Act, he declares proudly, is making Americans safer, just as intended.

He dismisses criticism that Justice is using a heavy hand in its investigations, and that civil liberties are being compromised. While the government can peer into the lives of Americans as never before, he says, the Constitution is always there as a safeguard.


Six Weeks in Autumn


From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Tommy M
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2183

posted 09 April 2003 05:35 PM      Profile for Tommy M     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:

Congressional Republicans, working with the Bush administration, are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping anti-terrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said Tuesday.

quote:

The Kyl-Schumer measure would eliminate the need for federal agents seeking secret surveillance warrants to show that a suspect is affiliated with a foreign power or agent, such as a terrorist group. Advocates say the measure would make it easier for agents to go after "lone wolf" terrorists who are not connected to a foreign group.

GOP wants to keep anti-terror powers


From: Here | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 09 April 2003 05:52 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh say. What a shock.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 09 April 2003 10:02 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 

Elimination of the need for a search warrant?!?

That's unconstitutional. No two ways about it, it violates the unreasonable search and seizure provisions of the constitution that Bush and Company fetishize like the Bible.

Hypocrites.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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