Welcome to the New Soviet Union
How would you like to live in a nation in which due process was a detail of history?
How would you like to live in a nation in which the Federal government could enter your house without your permission, or even your knowledge, search the place, and put a device on your computer that would monitor every stroke on the keyboard? This is without your being charged with anything.
How would you like it if the law said that, in the event that you found out what the Feds had been doing to you, you weren't allowed to tell anybody? How would you like it if that ban on talking even included talking to a lawyer? So that if you found out that you were being spied on, and didn't know why, and wanted it to stop, and went and got a lawyer and told him what was going on... you could go to prison for it.
Would you like to live in such a nation?
You already do.
And the law is already in force, and about to become permanent.
It's called the Patriot Act, a laugh-out-loud funny name for the most Un-American legislation since McCarthy.
It was introduced almost immediately after September 11, 2001. Since Bush and his cronies kept saying that the terrorists attacked American because "they hate freedom," one might reasonably assume that our government decided to placate the terrorists by abolishing our freedom.
We have never had the freedom to engage in terrorism, of course; nor should we. It is a crime, and there has always been legislation in place to deal with criminal activity. The Patriot Act is not designed to track crime.
It is designed to track what you say, what you read, what you write. It is about tracking what people think, not what they do.
We might have hoped that the Patriot Act was simply a panicked reaction to 9-11, and that common sense (and real American values) would prevail when it came up for renewal. But that hope was in vain. Last Friday, Senators came to an agreement with the White House about some slight amendments to the act, clearing the way for it to become permanent.
Goodbye, America. We hope you come back to us someday.
We used to be a country that had a bill of rights. Now we're a country where you have to urinate in a cup to get a menial job.
We used to be a country with the presumption of innocence and the right to counsel. Now we're a country where some people can be arrested and held indefinitely without charges and without access to a lawyer.
We used to be a country with guaranteed freedom of speech. Now we're a country where what we say, write and read can be legally monitored.
Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like another country, one which America stood opposed to for decades?
You bet, tovaritch.
When you consider the provisions of the Patriot Act, you have to wonder what conservative would sign such a thing. And, when we're at a point in history where avowed conservatives will so easily sign away our rights, our freedoms, for some imagined sense of security, only one thing is certain...
The terrorists got what they want.
And so they've won. "
How would you like to live in a nation in which the Federal government could enter your house without your permission, or even your knowledge, search the place, and put a device on your computer that would monitor every stroke on the keyboard? This is without your being charged with anything.
How would you like it if the law said that, in the event that you found out what the Feds had been doing to you, you weren't allowed to tell anybody? How would you like it if that ban on talking even included talking to a lawyer? So that if you found out that you were being spied on, and didn't know why, and wanted it to stop, and went and got a lawyer and told him what was going on... you could go to prison for it.
Would you like to live in such a nation?
You already do.
And the law is already in force, and about to become permanent.
It's called the Patriot Act, a laugh-out-loud funny name for the most Un-American legislation since McCarthy.
It was introduced almost immediately after September 11, 2001. Since Bush and his cronies kept saying that the terrorists attacked American because "they hate freedom," one might reasonably assume that our government decided to placate the terrorists by abolishing our freedom.
We have never had the freedom to engage in terrorism, of course; nor should we. It is a crime, and there has always been legislation in place to deal with criminal activity. The Patriot Act is not designed to track crime.
It is designed to track what you say, what you read, what you write. It is about tracking what people think, not what they do.
We might have hoped that the Patriot Act was simply a panicked reaction to 9-11, and that common sense (and real American values) would prevail when it came up for renewal. But that hope was in vain. Last Friday, Senators came to an agreement with the White House about some slight amendments to the act, clearing the way for it to become permanent.
Goodbye, America. We hope you come back to us someday.
We used to be a country that had a bill of rights. Now we're a country where you have to urinate in a cup to get a menial job.
We used to be a country with the presumption of innocence and the right to counsel. Now we're a country where some people can be arrested and held indefinitely without charges and without access to a lawyer.
We used to be a country with guaranteed freedom of speech. Now we're a country where what we say, write and read can be legally monitored.
Does this sound familiar? Does it sound like another country, one which America stood opposed to for decades?
You bet, tovaritch.
When you consider the provisions of the Patriot Act, you have to wonder what conservative would sign such a thing. And, when we're at a point in history where avowed conservatives will so easily sign away our rights, our freedoms, for some imagined sense of security, only one thing is certain...
The terrorists got what they want.
And so they've won. "
posted by robert at 7:33 AM
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