Audit Finds FBI Abused Patriot Act 341
happyslayer writes to mention that according to Yahoo! News a recent audit shows that the FBI has improperly and in some cases illegally utilized the Patriot Act to obtain information. "The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine found that FBI agents sometimes demanded personal data on individuals without proper authorization. The 126-page audit also found the FBI improperly obtained telephone records in non-emergency circumstances. The audit blames agent error and shoddy record-keeping for the bulk of the problems and did not find any indication of criminal misconduct. Still, 'we believe the improper or illegal uses we found involve serious misuses of national security letter authorities,' the audit concludes."
What are the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
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No chance at all.
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course intent isn't everything, and being ignorant of laws doesn't always protect you from the consequences either.
If anything at all comes out of this, it will be limited to discussion and that's about it. MAYBE it will get a few congressmen hot under the collar and debate the merits and abuses of the unPatriotic Act. I seriously doubt any repealing or scaling back will happen however.
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Try and recall the last time you heard of a guy getting off for not knowing drug possession or zoning violations or drinking coffee on the train was illegal.
Re:What are the chances... (Score:4, Insightful)
What this means is that information seized illegally, outside of the bounds of the statute, will not be available to federal prosecutors, not that anyone in the FBI will be prosecuted, because they may not have violated a specific criminal statute in doing so.
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The only useage of the Patriot Act to my direct knowledge is still going on in Las Vegas as a corruption probe to bury various City Councilmen. Seems to me to be the perfect political weapon regardless of your political affiliation...
Re:What are the chances... (Score:4, Interesting)
SKipping over the details a bit for times sake, I was arested for something I didn't do, held overnight and filed a complaint directly after my release. The officer who wrote the report out was going on vacation the day I was released and he didn't have it finished. So he handed it over to another who worte one or two lines and signed it. MY complaint trigured the watch commander to make all of the officers on the scene write detail acounting's of what happended. The officer who went on vacation did his in the morning before leaving and mailed it in while the other five officers sat in a room and colaborated everything.
The difference was black and white. On one hand, you had reports that I stormed the officers and he put up his hands to say stop and I fell into them stumbling to the ground. In the officer on vacation's report, the officer told me to stand against the wall and when I didn't the other officer pushed me against it and after my head struck the brick wall, I pulled my hands to my head wich look as if i was going to strike him, so the officer then threw me to the ground in a headlock. My acounting of events was that after leaving a nightclub because the music as too loud and the speakers were poping and hissing, an officer was saying something and I couldn't hear him. So i started getting closer to him when he threw me agaist the wall and then draged me to the ground.
In court, it was four people saying one thing, ME saying something else and this officer who went on vacation supporting bits and pieces of both our stories. The judge asked to see me, my lawer, the one officer and the DA in private. In there he told us we better strike a deal before this goes any further. After refusing to cop to a plea, I was finaly offered all charges being droped if i signed a statment that I wouldn't sue the city, police, these officers or anyone associated with them about this particular incident.
So yes, It goes on and it is propbably something more often then not. But if the FBI has a record of this being used in an illegal way, then the cops lieing shouldn't be a factor in it. And BTW, there are ways to charge officers who break the law. Look at the border patrol agents in jail right now. And ever normal person would think they were just doing their job when whatever happened to put them in prison.
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Right. That's why they keep doing it.
Right. That's why they keep doing it.
This is a fundamental flaw in the system. Not only should law enforcement — at all levels — not
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Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Funny)
One has to love all those tiny synchronicities that are floating by in this funny Universe.. ;)
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You haven't been in a Western democracy for very long, have you?
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Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Insightful)
Arrested as a product of the illegal activity, or arrested for performing the illegal activity?
The former has probably already happened, the latter is probably unlikely (summary says no criminal misconduct).
You didn't really think they would get in trouble for abusing the law we've all been saying has huge potential for abuse, did you?
While they might make policy that says internally they need to do things correctly in the future, I doubt that will prevent them from obtaining information on a whim because it's expedient. But, I'm a cynic about such things, hopefully I'm wrong.
Cheers
Define abuse...? (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here. No one is alleging that the FBI used these Patriot Act powers outside of their intended purpose. What the FBI didn't do, that they should have, was properly account for the letters they did use, specifically, properly count the number used, and properly follow up with the recipients of the letters.
So yes, if FBI agents were using this power to get information that the law was not designed for them to get, then I'd expect criminal prosecution. But, as it appears is the case, the FBI just didn't properly ACCOUNT for the letters they did use, an administrative penalty seems perfectly sufficient to address the problem.
That all, of course, is separate from the issue of whether this law should exist at all (it shouldn't).
The government itself says that abuses happened (Score:3, Informative)
The spokesperson of the Justice department has conceded that abuses have occurred. He categorized them as being ``small in number'' and asserted that ``it appears'' that no harm was done to either individual persons or corporations.
So your analogy isn't very apt; it's more like a police bureau not only not tracking the issuing of bureau firearms to officers but saying that it didn't keep track and in a large number of situations they have been fired in situations that did not warrant that extent of force
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-Eric
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Funny)
The first rule of the USA PATRIOT act is that you do not talk about the USA PATRIOT act...
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In other news (Score:2)
cops hardly ever give speeding tickets to other cops.
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Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Interesting)
She further discovered that "senior elected US officials" were implicated by these documents in direct involvement with organized crime groups in the Middle East and Turkey involved in drugs, arms smuggling, and the nuclear materials black market. These same people were involved with the outing of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame Wilson, apparently for the purpose of protecting these same organized crime groups which Plame's covert operation was investigating. (Marc Rich, the alleged "money man" for some of these organizations, was a client of "Scooter" Libby at one time.)
For these discoveries, she was fired and gagged by a direct order from the DoJ from ever discussing these matters with anyone not in the US Senate with a security clearance. So far, no one in the US Senate has had the balls to come forward and request the details.
When I was arrested by the FBI, I was presented with a document they requested me to sign before interrogation. The document expressly stated that I would waive all rights to an attorney before questioning. I pointed this out to the agent. He said, "No, it doesn't mean that." I pointed out that I could read and understand English perfectly well, and there was no caveat whatsoever anywhere on that paper that said anything other than that I waived all rights to an attorney.
I refused to sign. They stomped off. My Miranda rights were secured.
Anybody who thinks the FBI adheres to ANY form of "rule of law" is living in a dream world.
Such people need to look at the Federal court decisions that ruled that the FBI engaged in YEARS of illegal "black bag" jobs and other illegal operations against the American Indian Movement.
Such people need to look back at the 1960's when the FBI printed up posters of Abbie Hoffman and other activists of Jewish background accusing them of being Jews who were racist against blacks and had these posters plastered all over black neighborhoods in Harlem and elsewhere.
Such people need to look at the case of the Federal prison inmate who was beaten to death in the Oklahoma City transit center by two Bureau of Prisons correctional officers. The Oklahoma coroner had to get a court order to be allowed in to investigate the case. The FBI was called. One of the agents took the bloodstained garments of the prisoner, threw them in the trunk of his car and drove around with them, destroying their value as evidence, until he eventually complained to his supervisor that they were stinking up his car.
The FBI are the scum of the earth. The only lower scum are Bureau of Prisons correctional personnel. In fact, this is being detrimental to the reputation of earth scum to put these people on the same level.
Re:What are the chances... (Score:5, Informative)
Or even better, look back to the 1920's, and the founding of the FBI. A good start is to google for "Palmer raids", for an explanation of how and why the FBI came into existence.
The FBI started as a political agency, and it has remained one throughout its history. The idea that it's a law-enforcement investigative agency comes mostly from Hollywood.
The fun thing is that none of this is hidden. People who read actual history rather than watch TV and movies tend to be quite aware of this history. But there's no need to hide it from the general population, since most Americans don't read any history at all.
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no surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
And if so what drug are you on
Law enforcement agencies will abuse any law to get the maximum leverage that they
can, it does not matter that the laws they use were not originally intended for
the purpose they are being used for.
In NL we only recently got the obligation to carry ID, ostensibly to fight heavy
criminals that would not ID themselves. Of course now you can get arrested a
lot easier for say being a jogger and having no ID on you.
And that has already happened to a lot of people, but not to the so called heavy
criminals.
if you want to stop this trend I'm afraid it will take a lot more than a vote in
a ballot box at some point.
if that is still possible...
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
Cops screw up all the time, with the best of intentions. I know an officer who made a traffic stop, and searched the trunk based on an exhaust leak he noticed (they can bypass the right to an unlawful search in cases like these, safety trumps it). Trunk had two kilos of cocaine, perp gets off because the judge decided the search was unlawful.
A lot of these guys really are out there trying to catch the bad guys, or just trying to get ahead in their careers. We all take shortcuts in our jobs and to reach our goals, and when you're on the street, with a bust so close you can feel it - and the only thing stopping you is what you percieve as "beurocratic red tape", it's easy to slip up.
I'm not defending them, just offering some more rational explanation other than "da govment is out to get us". It's people that screwed up, in the end.
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
That's probably because that judge knows a load of bullshit when he hears it. I mean, seriously, he decided to search the trunk because he noticed an exhaust leak?!?! Give me a break.
-Eric
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Funny)
There could've been deadly metal-burrowing acid moles in there. Those devils will dissolve the flesh right offa yer bones. That perp was a lucky S.O.B. that the cop was so observant.
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
But did you know that if your hand is bigger than your face, you've got cancer?
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Funny)
The judge was probably pissed because his regular delivery didn't arrive
Re:no surprise there (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing in the trunk that has anything to do with an exhaust leak. In addition, you can't actually tell if a car has an exhaust leak until you stop it, unless you go past it with open windows and hear the characteristic sound. The clouds of smoke could come from any number of sources. Once I got pulled over for excessive smoke because I had spilled some oil on my exhaust manifold while adding to my crankcase.
Thus this is a clear violation of authority, and a clearly illegal search.
Police have a responsibility to be more, well, responsible than "normal citizens" because they have more power. With power comes responsibility.
This is why it is simply not acceptable for any cop to ever break any law. Period. I realize that's impossible, and it's why I told the CHP officer who pulled me over and tried to talk me into applying to work for the CHP (after he already had written out my ticket, for something I didn't do, what a fucking asshole) that I felt that the law is simply the arms of a corrupt system that I don't want to be a part of. He'd already written the ticket, so what did I have to lose? And of course I have convictions. And I don't mean legal ones :P
But regardless, if someone isn't willing to live within the law, they shouldn't be a cop. And we should never let cops off when they do break the law. It's fucking hypocritical.
you are the government
you are jurisprudence
you are the volition
you are jurisdiction
and I make a difference too [lyricsdepot.com]
Wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
No.
With power comes the desire for more power.
Re:no surprise there (Score:4, Insightful)
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If we allow the evidence gained from an illegal search made with good intentions - we have to allow the evidence from illegal searches made with bad intentions too. What good is it having laws against illegal searches if the fruits of an illegal search can still be used against you ?
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Exactly.
These FUCKS were do ANYTHING no matter HOW illegal it is to "get ahead in their careers."
And YOU don't see anything wrong with that?
What police department do YOU work for?
I knew an inmate at Leavenworth who was working on appealing his case. He was convicted on the basis of a search warrant which was served off-premises of the address the warrant was for, which was "issued" based on the cop's report of a "drug sale" which never happened, and on "lab results
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Re:no surprise there (Score:4, Insightful)
All this government has to do is use the word "terrorist" in a sentence and all of your civil liberties are thrown out a window. In fact, by me writing this, I'm sure it has been flagged on some ISP/Government computer somewhere and they will notice its just another user bad mouthing big brother. Its disturbing how we must all sit idly by and watch as all of our rights continue to be diminished... Hopefully something will change and soon.
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This is exactly how our system is supposed to work. This is good news.
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it's called 'legitimatieplicht'...
http://www.tctubantia.nl/binnenland/article433268
http://www.pzc.nl/zeeland/algemeen/article794651.
in case you read dutch...
And this is news because... (Score:2)
Surprised? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny. I seem to recall a lot of screaming about the possibility for abuse and I distinctly recall being told to shut the fuck up, we can *trust* them to do the right thing.
pfft.
Danger! Red Herring! (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with this whole discussion is that it's about the FBI failing to keep track of how many letters they issued.
So now the government is saying "We'll keep better track of how many letters we issue, problem solved!"
NO! PROBLEM NOT SOLVED!
The *REAL* problem is that the government can compel release of private information WITHOUT A
Accountable? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Where is the accountability?
Well... ummm...
He expects to keep his job, presumably also pay, pension, benefits, etc.
It take accounting to keep track of all that money. So clearly, at least that part of his professional existence continues to be accountable.
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Only half the consequences of old-fashioned accountability!
Look at the advantages: Less embarassment! More job security! Freedom to make critical mistakes without having to pay for them!
(Only available for cabinet-level Federal employees)
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It's an interesting comment.
"I am to be held accountable". Suppose he is not fired, and furthermore, our criminal justice system fails to hold him accountable through some appropriate punishment such as a life sentence... it seems then that by Mueller's own comment, the onus must ultimately fall on us, the citizens, to hold him accountable somehow. I have to applaud the man for at least having the conscience to demand punishment for something so unforgivable.
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I know I'm not the only one to think.... (Score:2)
What's next? Libarachi was gay? Say it ain't so!
ha-HA! (Score:2)
And yesterday Captain America was shot to death. (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess, maybe we can't trust those in power.
Welcome back, Tricky Dick!
Re:And yesterday Captain America was shot to death (Score:5, Insightful)
The tactics (and some of the players) never really left, they've only refined the techniques and the spin to explain it away to an apathetic public. At least Nixon stepped down when he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Re:And yesterday Captain America was shot to death (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And yesterday Captain America was shot to death (Score:5, Funny)
Don't drag Cheney into this. Yes, he was hunting again, but he was hundreds of miles away when Captain America was shot.
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For?
before answering, bear in mind that all charges brought against them were investigated very heavly by republicans looking to get them. Nothing was found.
So, are you just completly ignorant, a FUD spreading turd? or do you bring new information to the table(always welcome)?
We are shocked! Shocked! (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Ha Ha stupid Americans (Score:2, Funny)
I'd bet my Party membership that any randomly chosen citzen of the PRC is happier, healthier, and more truly free than an citizen of the USA.
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Our Freedoms? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is what happens when you ignore human nature (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a fact.
This is a truth of humanity.
Laws such as the patriot act, which remove checks and balances and allow individuals or small groups of like-minded individuals to act unilaterally in a way that is damaging to the rights of other citizens is a gross violation of this principle and is evidence to a loss of touch with what our government is put in place to do.
While protecting the people is a primary goal of a government, protecting the people must weigh protections both on the freedom and liberty of people against the PHYSICAL protection of people.
Unfortunately, our society is so sheltered from physical trauma, we have grown risk-averse in a disturbing way.
A few hundred years ago, when most people did not reach 60, and 1/4 of children died before adolescence, we had a realistic view of how important liberty is in our society. People dealt with death and destruction, as it was part of nature. Liberty, however, was not a constant and had to be protected at all costs.
Today, people take liberty for granted and so fear death and destruction that they will throw away their liberty for temporary saftey.
This is the trap which our founding fathers warned us against. They saw its power and also its danger.
We need to open our eyes to that truth as well.
Stew
Re:This is what happens when you ignore human natu (Score:2)
To put it this way is to fall into the rhetorical trap laid by the cynical power seekers. A statement like that one reinforces the idea that we're safer as a result of ignoring the Constitution.
The extra powers, for the stated purposes, are both unnecessary and useless. Unnecessary, because the FBI could have rolled up the 9/11 cells under pre-9/11 law (see the Colleen Rowley memo). Useless, as we see in pract
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I agree, but not with your theory about what caused it. The people granting the government more and more power is directly attributable to people that have socialist leanings.
No, I'd rather say it has a correlation to people no longer being able to defend themselves. Yes I'm talking about Gun Control, but even beyond that. If somebody breaks into your home, they have less fear of you than you do of them (in most places) since if you hurt them getting them off your property, you're likely to spend time in prison, and them as less likely.
The whole thing is whacked, but the end result is that if people need protection, and they are FORBIDDEN from protecting themselves, then the
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Since World War 1, it is no longer a deterrent to governments.
As has been shown in overseas wars, a small detachment of a dozen or so trained marines with modern weapons can mow down several thousand citizens. This is not utilizing things such as cruise missles, air strikes, battleships, or even more feared weapons like tactical nukes, napalm, bio and ch
Re:This is what happens when you ignore human natu (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that people with FEDERALIST leanings are more to blame. Isolated pockets of socialism are not damaging when they are confined. At that point, it becomes a choice, rather than an obligation. For example, if California decided they wanted welfare, excelelnt. It is the nationwide push for such things that cause problems.
Our country was designed (and was most efficiently operated) as a loosely coupled federation of states. The federal control extended to ALMOST nothing, except where it concerned one state accepting the laws of other states and where it concerned international trade, commerce, war and diplomacy.
In this structure, if California becomes corrupt with power, you are free to move to Oregon. Presumably, there would develop a certain state of homeostasis between locations as like minded individuals move together and learn to inter operate with other groups of unlike minded people.
On the far other extreme end from your socialist comment lies a society of laissez-faire corporate oligarchy, not seen since the "oil baron" days of entire cities, owned, policed and supervised by corporate regulations and institutions, where corporations oppress citizens in exactly the same way, from exactly the opposite direction.
Surely there is a balance in the middle?
Regardless, the balance must be approached seperately by a number of smaller state governments, rather than centrally by a bureaucratic federal dictatorship.
Stew
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See also: Confederation vs Federation [wikipedia.org]
The US Federal Government became
Dealing with stuff like this...... (Score:2)
"Your rights guaranteed by the constitution are about to be violated. Cancel or allow?"
Serves us right (Score:4, Insightful)
So, Sweden (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:So, Sweden (Score:4, Insightful)
Methinks we'd all be better off if we could support each other's efforts to restore freedom in our homelands, rather than sniping back and forth about how much worse off the other is.
Surprised? (Score:2, Redundant)
If I may quote Iago, from Disney's Aladdin: (Score:2)
Moral of the story (Score:4, Insightful)
Never give the government a power that you would not feel comfortable in having your worst enemy exercise.
(Because someday they will)
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I take you're a fan of nuclear disarmament - because I sure wouldn't want my worst enemy sitting on a stockpile of nuclear weapons.
The way I see it, as a citizen you try fill the positions of power in government with good people who will do their best to act in the best interest of the people generally. But, you also set up enough oversight that you can tell when the people in positions of power are no
The insurgency is REALLY in its last throes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The insurgency that is dying is the one that began 230 odd years ago, against a distant King in England, by a ragtag group of people who believed in liberty. What kind of country we have now, if our citizenry can be so scared by the loss of couple of skyscrapers and surrender the freedoms so quickly?
The insurgency led by Geroge Washington and Thomas Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers is really in its last throes.
Shocked! (Score:2)
These people took the power our congress gave to them and abused it. Maybe it was on purpose and maybe it was by accident. We'll never know.
Is the FBI a "good" organization or a "Bad" organization? Neither. The FBI is persuing its organizational goals which are to gather information about people. The fact that the information it gathers and the tactics it uses fall on one side or another of an arbitrary line defining "good" or "bad" changes nothing.
The fact is that gathering AN
This can't be true! (Score:2)
As if this is news. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's starting all over again (Score:5, Insightful)
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, as a result of FBI abuses including targeting of dissident groups, new laws were passed and court decisions occurred putting restrictions on the FBI and on state and local police because of agency misconduct. Consider Bull Connor [wikipedia.org] and his thugs at the Birmingham (Alabama) Police, who felt the appropriate response for peaceful protests was attack dogs and firehosing. We did not 'hobble' them because we wanted to let criminals get away with things, we put restrictions on police because they could not be trusted not to abuse their authority.
You didn't get decisions like Miranda [wikipedia.org] , Escobedo [wikipedia.org] , Mapp [wikipedia.org] , and others because it was thought that it would be a good idea to make the job of law enforcement more difficult, but because law enforcement was acting in an improper and often illegal fashion. Depriving police of the ability to use illegally obtained evidence, of suppressing forced confessions and other such things would, it was claimed, destroy law enforcement. And you know what happened? Police officers learned, generally, to act within the rules, to be professional and to work on finding evidence in a proper manner. But it still wasn't enough.
The Govenor of Illinois had to commute the death sentences of over 150 because of police and prosecutorial misconduct, including cases where prosecutors sought death sentences and sent people they knew were innocent to death row. The incident was so bad that some prosecutors were arrested for misconduct.
There is an old saying in Latin, Quos custodes ipsos custodes?, i.e. Who will watch the watchers? When the police don't have serious restrictions, they will do anything they can get away with. Sometimes the police act properly and in a professinal manner. Sometimes the police can be almost as bad as the people they are supposed to catch.
it's just a goddamn piece of paper (Score:2)
Yeah, but if you just change your reading of the Constitution [sfgate.com], then you can do whatever you want! It's just a goddamn piece of paper [homelandstupidity.us], right?
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That's so wrong I'm not even sure it's not sarcasm. I think what you meant was:
The constitution was not intended to allow ordinary people to do bad things to each other without fear of consequences but to prevent people holding positions of power in the government from doing bad things to ordinary people.
In case you're still not understanding, remember that it is the people who hold power in the gover
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It was created to restrain the terrible power of government from abusing the sovereign rights of the people.
Government is the worst invention of man. It has created the most terrible acts of all history and has only one tool at its command.. that is force. If you try to say no to a government you will eventually be fined, if you don't like the fines, you will be put in a cage, and if you try to resist the men that come to put you in one you will be killed. Your rights are not granted to you by any such gove
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A direct democracy probably does not work well either, as it is easy to sway the masses (though I would prefer the tyranny of the majority to the tyranny of 100 people any day), but at least the issues, rather than the representatives, would receive attention.
The optimal solution that does not require a radi
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Something tells me that even now, our elected leaders will do nothing about this. I've repeatedly bitched to my elected representatives about this, only to get the same crap back about "gotta give the president the tools to do his job" line. Sure seems like he's a pretty poor workman. I've given up on trying to convince those right-wing nutjobs to be less rig
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Let's have the Justice Department audit Microsoft.
We tried that, but we got stuck with Bush before they could finish the audit, and it all went to pot.
Re:Wait a minute, aren't we missing something here (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the first rule of National Security Letters is not to talk about National Security Letters, then ya, it will be a good while till you hear an actual example.
Or did you mean that surveillance, eavesdropping, searching and financial snooping aren't violations of fundamental, inalienable rights? If that's the case, I won't argue. If we can't agree on what's fundamental, there's nothing really to discuss. BTW, can I have your SSN?
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