Obama signs Patriot Act extension ! No freedom in democracy! Isn't it ironical !

[Communist]

"A Refuge for Cowards: Senate Extends Patriot Act"

By Jayne Lyn Stahl

Bill Maher recently told Larry King that the Senate is where "legislation goes to die." Well, not this time.

Wednesday night, after all the cameras were gone and the Senate was filled just with senators, a voice vote was taken sans debate and a resolution passed that extends provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which were scheduled to sunset on Sunday, for another year.

The Democrats who are said to have worked hard to neutralize this legislation that had a built-in sunset clause did little more than wring their hands.

Republicans, so adept at lip synching that same old song about national security, were quick to point to Ft. Hood, and the bungled bombing of an airline on Christmas Day as the rationale behind the Patriot Act. But, what these strident proponents of homeland security neglected to mention is that both the Ft. Hood incident and the aborted bombing of a Southwest Airlines jet happened after the Patriot Act had been in full play for nearly a decade. Go figure.

The House Judiciary Committee passed a measure intended to protect against abuse of library records by the FBI, as well as restrict the use of National Security Letters,governmental demand letters for information. The House bill was also meant to challenge carte blanche surveillance of someone designated as a "lone wolf."

But, thanks to Senate Democrats' temporary state of paralysis, there will no doubt be more warrantless police searches of a suspect's home<em> after </em>their arrest as happened in San Diego, U.S. v. Lemus, a case that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit refused to hear last week with another prominent George W. Bush-era figure, Jay Bybee, sitting on the bench. Bybee, you'll recall, was one of the masterminds of the 2002 "torture memos."

Does anyone know why legislation mired in controversy wasn't subject to full debate in the Senate? Why were the Senate Republicans allowed to bully Democrats into submission? Maybe Democrats don't want to look weak on national security right before a major midterm election. But, in the end, are they more interested in facades than facts?

Here are some facts. According to the <em>Associated Press</em>, those parts of the Patriot Act that have received a reprieve for another year: "Authorize court-approved roving wiretaps that permit surveillance on multiple phones, Allow court-apponted seizure of records and property in anti-terrorism operations, and permit surveillance against a so-called 'lone wolf,' a non-U.S. citizen engaged in terrorism who may not be part of a recognized terrorist group."

Boiled down to the lowest common denominator, all three provisions amount to neutering the Fourth Amendment, as well as eradicating the legal presumption of innocence.

But, facts aren't always convenient. Just ask Mr. Cheney. After all, it is he trying to convince us that the U.S. is no safer today, under President Obama, than it was before 9/11, despite the Patriot Act, so why then should the law that was conceived, and launched on Cheney's watch continue to see the light of day?

Yet, after a historic televised debate on the need to overhaul national health care, and in the quiet of the night, a gang of fear-mongerers were allowed to shout down a voice vote which would have provided a modicum of insulation against FBI, and law enforcement excesses making one thing crystal clear: Congress is now a refuge for cowards.

With any luck, the three important parts of the Patriot Act just extended will meet their maker next February, but not unless Democrats draw a line in the sand. There can be no national security where there is erosion of constitutional protections.

"A Refuge for Cowards: Senate Extends Patriot Act" | Atlantic Free Press - Hard Truths for Hard Times

 

[Communist]

PATRIOT Act Backdoor Extension Passes Congress

"Give us all your liberties, and we will keep you safe." - Intentions of the United States Congress under the USA PATRIOT Act, 2001-2010

Monday, March 1, 2010

WASHINGTON, DC Just three days before the USA PATRIOT Act was to expire, Congress used a backdoor method to camouflage the stripping away of civil liberties until after the 2010 election. The bill, HR 3961, was originally passed by the House last fall as the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act. While the Republocrats originally wanted to add the PATRIOT Act reauthorization to the so-called* "jobs" bill, some dissent on the jobs portion by some Republicans and on the PATRIOT portion by some Democrats delayed the bill, so Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) had to resort to the backdoor amendment of HR 3961.

The Senate passed the amendment unanimously, and the House passed the bill 315-97 with 20 not voting. President Barack Obama signed the bill yesterday. For those unaware, here are a few of the liberties we have lost:

[link edited for length]Section 218 gives a secret court the ability to authorize secret searches, wiretaps of private conversations, and examine any financial transaction of Americans if there is a mere suspicion of foreign intelligence. Previously, police forces had to present a warrant and also describe what items they are searching for and why.

Section 213 of the PATRIOT Act not only authorizes the FBI to secretly break into your home, rummage through it, but does not even inform you that the government has committed this until 18 months have passed, and may suspend this notification indefinitely.

Sections 505 and 215 authorizes the government to secretly examine your private information provided it is somehow linked to terrorism. This includes searching the third-party holders of your financial, library, travel, video rental, phone, medical, or places of worship without your consent or even knowledge. Previously, the bare minimum for authorization would be from a grand jury or warrant served with probable cause.

Any financial transaction over $10,000 is reported to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a sub-branch of the Treasury Department, as possible criminal or terrorist activity per Section 365 before being processed.

Section 412 enables the government to hold suspected terrorists indefinitely and to suspend habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is the ability of those held to appear before a court and determine why they are being held and challenge whether their detention is lawful.

The Congress has failed to check the executive branch's assumption of powers to place "enemy combatants" in secret prisons and torture them.

Note that when an individual is suspected of planning a terrorist act or committing any other criminal act for that matter the lawful method of obtaining a warrant, announcing searches, and providing probable cause all - in NO way - defeat the ability of the government to investigate and deter the act from occurring or bring suspects to justice in a court of law.**

Joe Stack's politically-motivated bombing and murder at the IRS offices in Austin still occurred with the PATRIOT Act in place. With or without the PATRIOT Act, Najibullah Zazi's recent plot to bomb the New York subway could have been stopped. [As a matter of fact, Zazi explained his reason for the attack was the murder of civilians in Afghanistan, a form of blowback I warn about in my Afghanistan War plank.]

The Nigerian airline bomber over the past Christmas holiday was allowed to board the plane without a passport or luggage and was tackled by passengers when he lit himself on fire. These are all examples of the failure of the PATRIOT Act to provide security. I have the common sense solutions to vastly improve security that do not require the government's unconstitutional infringements of the Fourth Amendment*** and the creation of a massive $51 billion-a-year bureaucracy called the Department of Homeland Security.

The incumbent Republocrat in my race, Charlie Dent, did not vote on HR 3961. As usual, there is no reason or listing of his actions available on his website, but I remind voters in my district that with "Our Open Office" simple-yet-novel plan for open and transparent government, residents will always be able to track not only my votes but also read WHY I voted which way, plus they will be able to share their opinion publicly online with me, as well as by phone, mail, etc.

However, Dent has voted to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act. In 2008, Dent voted for the "Mother of All Bailouts" bill, HR 3221, which not accelerated the nationalization of the housing industry, but also in Section 6050 authorized the IRS to view every single credit card transaction made by every single individual in the United States without a warrant or informing the individual. [This bill should not be confused with the Wall Street Banker Bailout of 2008, which Dent also voted for.] Dent also voted for HR 6304 in 2008 where Title 8, Section 801 gave private companies legal immunity to commit warrantless wiretapping on any phone or email communication from any American citizen.

America is on a steep course to a totalitarian state. The President recently revealed that his assassination list maintained by the military's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) includes American citizens. While I am sure this list contains some very bad people, the concept of an America executing its own citizens without a criminal trial is a perversion of the rule of law. We have forgotten why the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" is so crucial to a free society. The civil liberty violations by the PATRIOT Act and torture at Guantanamo Bay under Republican Bush moved our nation to "presuming guilt until proven innocent." Now under Democrat Obama, the unlawful policy of assuming Americans are "guilty until executed" continues.

Congress's claim that only through the loss of constitutional liberties can America be made safe is a blatant blasphemy to the very notion of a free and open society. As the future public servant of Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district, I pledge to introduce a bill to revoke the PATRIOT Act as soon as I am seated in office, and to vote against any extension of it.

As Benjamin Franklin once noted, those who sacrifice essential liberties in the name of temporary security will soon have and deserve neither.

February 28, 2010

* To how to easily create jobs, read my Jobs plank.

** As former NJ Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano notes: "The tools Congress gave to intelligence agencies are only constitutional when used just for intelligence purposes -- like watching or deporting foreign spies -- and only against genuine foreign threats. When criminal prosecution is implicated, the Constitution's protections are triggered. Most Americans don't want the government to know of their personal behavior, not because we have anything to hide, but because without probable cause, without some demonstrable evidence of some personal criminal behavior, the Constitution declares that our personal lives are none of the federal government's business.

"Government is not reason or eloquence, George Washington once said, it is force. That's why we have a Constitution: to restrain the government's exercise of force so we can be a free people. Government surveillance undermines freedom because it is natural to hesitate to exercise freedom when the government is watching and recording."

** The Fourth Amendment: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


http://www.nolanchart.com/article7425.html

YouTube - Patriot Act Backdoor Extension Passes Congress - Jake Towne for US Congress PA-15

 

[Awesome]

This is no good. Security should not be at the cost of freedom and privacy.

 

[xdrive]

This is no good. Security should not be at the cost of freedom and privacy.

lol it's funny seeing a Pakistani saying that. Pakistan and pakistanis are good supporters of China who have a 100 times worse set of policies then the American patriot act.

The Chinese have barely any privacy or freedom at all. Human rights are regularly abused in china, there is no elections so government officials can do whatever they want, whenever they want without consequence. Any protest against the government for doing something wrong is illegal and will result in you getting arrested.

All television is state controlled, all newspapers are state controlled. Media is censored and will not print anything negative about the government. The internet is censored.

The list goes on.

 

[third eye]

Not sure if alls wrong here.

We are living in difficult times.. calling for difficult measures. The onus is on the state to protect its citizens therefore some measure of ' intervention' is necessary.

 

[Communist]

lol it's funny seeing a Pakistani saying that. Pakistan and pakistanis are good supporters of China who have a 100 times worse set of policies then the American patriot act.

The Chinese have barely any privacy or freedom at all. Human rights are regularly abused in china, there is no elections so government officials can do whatever they want, whenever they want without consequence. Any protest against the government for doing something wrong is illegal and will result in you getting arrested.

All television is state controlled, all newspapers are state controlled. Media is censored and will not print anything negative about the government. The internet is censored.

The list goes on.

I know you are not australian. Apna all india radio chalu rakh...(keep your all india radio on)

 

[xdrive]

I know you are not australian. Apna all india radio chalu rakh...(keep your all india radio on)

I am Australian.

I don't see how me, pointing out the flaws China has, makes me not Australian.

Everyone in the world is aware of what goes on in China.

Also i only speak English so i didn't understand this "Apna all india radio chalu rakh.."

 

[Communist]

I am Australian.

I don't see how me, pointing out the flaws China has, makes me not Australian.

Everyone in the world is aware of what goes on in China.

Also i only speak English so i didn't understand this "Apna all india radio chalu rakh.."

Though replying to a troll post is actually trolling, yet I am replying to your deliberate troll post. And this is my last reply to you in this thread.

Now, go, have a cup of coffee. Also don't forget to take the pills.

 

[third eye]

Not sure if alls wrong here.

We are living in difficult times.. calling for difficult measures. The onus is on the state to protect its citizens therefore some measure of ' intervention' is necessary.

Here is another reason why all nations need to tighten the screws within..

The rising threat of home grown extremism in US

BBC Newsnight. Page last updated at 16:51 GMT, Monday, 1 March 2010

Five US citizens accused of plotting jihad, attempting to join Al-Qaeda and planning terrorist attacks are due to appear in court in Pakistan's Punjab province on Tuesday. Peter Marshall considers whether a lack of opportunity for open debate in the US might have led these young Muslims to extremism.

When five US students were reported missing in November last year, their relatives had no inkling they had left the country. Yet nine days later the young men had turned up on the other side of the world in deep trouble.

So how did these young men go from quiet lives in a Virginia suburb to terrorism charges and a prison cell in Pakistan in little more than a week?

Police in Pakistan say the five had been trying to join militant groups for terrorist training. The Pakistanis also say there are emails with an Al-Qaeda recruiter. It is alleged the Americans may also have planned attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan, or on targets back in the United States.

Mustafa Abu Mariyam, Youth coordinator at mosque
Mr Abu Mariyam says he thought the five were "as American as apple pie"

The US has always taken comfort from the idea that American Muslims are well assimilated and well educated, live in diverse communities and earn more than the average wage.

They share the American dream, and until recently it had been assumed young American Muslims were not vulnerable to the clarion call of the jihadis.

Mustafa Abu Maryam, a youth co-ordinator at the neighbourhood mosque, describes what has happened to the five students as "jaw-dropping."

"But we have to stay strong and see what we can do to prevent other youth from taking a view that is radical and extreme."

Mustafa says he avoided talking politics and never considered counselling his college-educated friends against the extremist Islamic message.

"We felt that it was understood. We still feel that the vast majority of youth understand the right and wrong."

In future, he says, his approach will be different.

Americans who we had assumed were somewhat immune from this narrative, who were integrated into American society, who were born into Islam, not converts... are now falling prey to the ideology and committing to it

Relatives of the five men reportedly found a farewell video message, showing scenes of war and saying Muslims must be defended.

But the lawyer for the families, Nina Ginsberg, maintains it is not a martyrdom video or a call to arms.

"It was not a call to action in terms of 'Go out and kill the people who are killing Muslims'. It could easily have been a call to people to go out and demonstrate in front of an embassy 'You can't kill Muslims like this, you're killing young innocent children who are the victims of your drones, your tanks. '

There has been a rise in home grown terrorism in the US in recent months - the army major at Fort Hood who shot 13 people dead, the man in Chicago accused of helping plot the Mumbai massacre, the self proclaimed jihadi from Tennessee who murdered a soldier outside an army recruitment office.

It is a situation which has surprised Juan Zarate, former US Deputy National Security Advisor.

"You're seeing second, third generation Americans who we had assumed were somewhat immune from this narrative, who were integrated into American society, who were born into Islam, not converts. They are now falling prey to the ideology and committing to it."

Mohamed Elibiary is a counter terrorism advisor who has advised President Barack Obama's Homeland Security Council on home grown terror. He wants more open debate about the big issues that concern many moderate Muslims, like civilian casualties of US troops.

He says that suppressing discussion is dangerous.

"There's a good chunk of Americans who think if you're holding these discussions then you're not fully on board with the current policy and the current war on terror, so therefore they start questioning your loyalty and patriotism and wondering if you're an enemy within."

So could the young men held in Pakistan have felt inhibited about discussing their concerns in public and sought an outlet online where they became radicalised?

"Not every talker wanting to hit back against the government for bad policies is necessarily going to do something. And you can always steer a good chunk of these youth into mentorship and counselling programmes that can then put their life back on course."

That option is too late for the five Americans in Pakistan. They claim they are being tortured in prison where they could spend the rest of their lives if found guilty.

 

[xdrive]

Though replying to a troll post is actually trolling, yet I am replying to your deliberate troll post. And this is my last reply to you in this thread.

YouTube - Aborigines: "Australia Day" is the "Invasion Day" - ABC 100126

Now, go, have a cup of coffee. Also don't forget to take the pills.

I am not trolling, i am discussing the topic of the thread. You are replying to all my posts trolling so you are the only one trolling.

You are replying with some stupid video about Australia day which has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

oh and the video doesn't offend me if thats what you are trying to do.

You can't take the fact that i am criticising China for things that need criticising.