Constitutional Right to emit radiation?

[Blotan Hunka]

After 911 it was all "how come with all our intelligence gathering agencies and technologies we were not able to find and stop these people".

Now its "All this Homeland Security stuff is bull****, we are too paranoid."

People are freakin amazing. I just watched that special on discovery channel about the flight that fought back on 911 and it made me so angry. Angry at the people and organizations that did it and applauded it and angry at Americans who seem to have already forgotten about it.

 

[Flying Crane]

After 911 it was all "how come with all our intelligence gathering agencies and technologies we were not able to find and stop these people".

Now its "All this Homeland Security stuff is bull****, we are too paranoid."

People are freakin amazing. I just watched that special on discovery channel about the flight that fought back on 911 and it made me so angry. Angry at the people and organizations that did it and applauded it and angry at Americans who seem to have already forgotten about it.

Nobody has forgotten 9/11, and nobody should. However, the world is, unfortunately, a violent place. To believe that we can make the US completely safe from any further attack on any level, is unrealistic. Yes, we will be attacked again at some point, as we have been in the past, but this will happen no matter what level of security the government puts into place. Yes, the government needs to take reasonable steps to safeguard the citizens of this country, but some of their actions deserve scrutiny as they could very easily get out of control. If fear and paranoia are cultivated well enough, as the current administration seems to be trying to do, our nation will become a fascist police-state. Nobody wants this.

We will always be a target for attack by people who hate us. These people don't hate us for the simple reasons that the White House wants us to believe. They don't "hate our freedom" like Bush tells us. The real issues are far far more complex. We as a nation, for decades, have treated other nations in ways that have made them hate us. We have pushed them around both economically and militarily and taken advantage of them for our gain, while giving them little or nothing in return. Until we wise-up to this, take a good hard look at our past actions, acknowledge our mistakes as a nation, and take serious steps to change our behavior toward other, weaker nations, especially weaker nations who have natural resources that we want, we will continue to be hated.

I hate to say this, but the events of 9/11 were in many ways brought upon us by our own actions. There is no single event or action that this can be connected to, but rather a long history of actions that have offended, insulted, or manipulated people in other parts of the world. There is a very very big picture that the events of 9/11 are only one small part of. We need to pull back and look at this big picture to understand the full situation. Only then will we begin to understand what can be done to repair our relationships with other nations, and only then will we lessen our liklihood to be attacked again.

To some nations in the world, The US with the Bush Administration in particular, are seen as the single largest threat to world peace. Some people may write off these nations as rogue or insignificant, or extremists who don't matter, but the fact is, they do matter. These are the very same nations from which the extremists who do our nation harm come from. Like it or not, their opinion does matter. They are the one's who need to be convinced that the US has good intentions, but this is a tough message to deliver when we deliver it down the barrel of a cannon. While many of these nations have oppressive regimes, regime change needs to start at home. It needs to come from the people, not have it imposed upon them by the US military.

The US is a nation that sponsors terrorism. The CIA, by our own definitions, is the world's largest, best organized, best funded, State-sponsored terrorist organization. The CIA has used fear through torture and assassinations, has taught other regimes how to use torture, has supplied weapons and training (including to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein) and encouraged civil wars, has assassinated political leaders, made people disappear, and undermined elected governments all over the world, to further the political and economic gains of the US. We are a terrorist nation, through the agency of the CIA. Yet we hypocritically accuse others of terrorism and extremism and call them the "bad guys".

This is what makes people around the world hate us.

 

[sgtmac_46]

I dont think the real objection is whether or not civil rights have been directly violated, but rather that this kind of activity is a targeting of a certain ethnic and religious group on a broad scale by the government. This is a step in the direction of demonizing and scapegoating a broad group of people. Once the government takes a step down that dangerous road, it becomes easier and easier to take the next step after that. Eventually, we end up with things like Internment camps like Japanese-Americans were put into during WWII, or worse yet, the Jewish Holocaust. While these may be extreme examples, they all started out as something that the people of the time considered "modest" and "reasonable" and grew into something terrible. It is this trend in our government's activities that people find objectionable.

What religious affiliation are all the members of al-Qaeda again? Wouldn't really make much sense to check for radiation among the Amish.

Muslims and Arab-Americans are becomming the scapegoat for this administration. They want Americans to be constantly afraid, and that is easier to do when there is a minority group who can be demonized and scapegoated. The administration wants Americans to believe that any Muslim or Arab is a potential terrorist or enemy of the state.

Scape goats?! You are aware that the vast majority of terrorist who have attacked the US and other nations in recent years, the overwhelming amount, have been Arab Islamic men between the ages of 17 and 45, right? I mean, that FACT has not escaped you, has it? Perhaps you'd prefer we started randomly scanning old ladies walking down the street, like at the airport! The idiotic belief that we must AVOID directly investigating where the problem most likely is, to avoid offending anyone, is beyond me.

In reading the online article, I did not get the impression that what they were hoping to find was individuals who are emitting unusual amounts of radiation, (i.e. "badguys" who were exposed to radiation in the middle east before slipping illegally into the US to commit terrorist acts) but rather looking for a source of radiation kept at the mosques that would indicate there are activities going on centered around building some kind of a dirty bomb with radioactive material. Making a broad assumption that mosques and other centers of Muslim and Arab activity in the US are going to be hotbeds of terrorist activity is racist, and goes a long way in sending a message to other Americans that they not only need to be constantly afraid, but specifically be afraid of Muslims and Arabs. This casts suspicion on all Muslims and Arabs, making people question and suspect their neigbors for no good reason, and is wrong, plain and simple.

Well, mosques in the middle east are used as bases of operations and safe havens for muslim extremists, why is this such a leap?

Moreover, I don't quite get your distinction between scanning the bad guys for radiation and scanning the mosques for radiation. If there's a radiological bomb on either one, I want to know.

What's more, my friend, since this was a secret operation, it certainly doesn't seem designed to make YOU or anyone ELSE afraid. More likely, they were operating on the, I BELIEVE QUITE CORRECT, assumption that there are still islamic terrorists operating in the US who wish to attack us.

So, your paranoia about 'them trying to keep you in FEAR' seems grounded mostly in paranoid delusions. If this served that purpose, it wouldn't have been a 'secret' operation, only revealed after someone leaked it in hopes of damaging the administration.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Nobody has forgotten 9/11, and nobody should. However, the world is, unfortunately, a violent place. To believe that we can make the US completely safe from any further attack on any level, is unrealistic. Yes, we will be attacked again at some point, as we have been in the past, but this will happen no matter what level of security the government puts into place. Yes, the government needs to take reasonable steps to safeguard the citizens of this country, but some of their actions deserve scrutiny as they could very easily get out of control. If fear and paranoia are cultivated well enough, as the current administration seems to be trying to do, our nation will become a fascist police-state. Nobody wants this.

In other words, folks, just bend over and grab your ankles, and hope the bad man don't do it too much, right?

We will always be a target for attack by people who hate us. These people don't hate us for the simple reasons that the White House wants us to believe. They don't "hate our freedom" like Bush tells us. The real issues are far far more complex. We as a nation, for decades, have treated other nations in ways that have made them hate us. We have pushed them around both economically and militarily and taken advantage of them for our gain, while giving them little or nothing in return. Until we wise-up to this, take a good hard look at our past actions, acknowledge our mistakes as a nation, and take serious steps to change our behavior toward other, weaker nations, especially weaker nations who have natural resources that we want, we will continue to be hated.

More myths about Islamic fundamentalism based on the outdated 'socialist' model of world history (i.e. everything is the result of US imperialism ala soviet propaganda that is still reverberating far beyond the death of that government).

Islamic fundamentalism has been expansionist for a millenia. What they want, isn't us out of their affairs, what they want is to return to the glory days when they were on the offensive, that ended at Vienna in 1683, when European forces routed the Islamic armies, and pursued them back to their old borders.

It isn't the US that Islamic Fundamentalists hate, it's the fact that infidels are in power anywhere.

If it was just the US, then why is there war and conflict ANYWHERE the Islamic world touches the non-islamic? Sudan, Israel, India, Thailand, the Phillipines, on and on and on. Anywhere Islamic populations touch non-islamic, fundamentalists groups engage in violence against their non-islamic neighbors.

It is very clear that they take the proclaimation that there exist only two abodes in this world, the abode of islam and the abode of war, quite literally. Moderate muslims don't take this literally, but fundamentalist extremist muslims certainly do.

Ignorance, however, is in trying to apply socialist views to Islamic fundamentalists. They hate, EVEN MORE, than christian Americans, secular Americans. At least christians, in their view, are considered children of the book. Atheists and other non-believers are considered blasphemers.

The rest of your post is the same conspiratorial drivel I come to expect from those who buy in to the socialist view of history and politics. Again, it's the same old leftist propaganda recycled. The problem is that many on the left desire to view the islamic terrorists as simply just brothers in the struggle against 'the big baddies', which leftists define as the US in general, and Bush and republicans in particular.

Problem is, Islamic Terrorists don't have any love for you either, and would just as gladly remove your head from your shoulders as they would mine.

Inane Michael Moore 'scare tactics' talking points don't an argument make. Especially when he, and many like him, are completely IGNORANT to the far longer history involved here and how continues to apply.

 

[Flying Crane]

In other words, folks, just bend over and grab your ankles, and hope the bad man don't do it too much, right?

More myths about Islamic fundamentalism based on the outdated 'socialist' model of world history (i.e. everything is the result of US imperialism ala soviet propaganda that is still reverberating far beyond the death of that government).

Islamic fundamentalism has been expansionist for a millenia. What they want, isn't us out of their affairs, what they want is to return to the glory days when they were on the offensive, that ended at Vienna in 1683, when European forces routed the Islamic armies, and pursued them back to their old borders.

It isn't the US that Islamic Fundamentalists hate, it's the fact that infidels are in power anywhere.

If it was just the US, then why is there war and conflict ANYWHERE the Islamic world touches the non-islamic? Sudan, Israel, India, Thailand, the Phillipines, on and on and on. Anywhere Islamic populations touch non-islamic, fundamentalists groups engage in violence against their non-islamic neighbors.

It is very clear that they take the proclaimation that there exist only two abodes in this world, the abode of islam and the abode of war, quite literally. Moderate muslims don't take this literally, but fundamentalist extremist muslims certainly do.

Ignorance, however, is in trying to apply socialist views to Islamic fundamentalists. They hate, EVEN MORE, than christian Americans, secular Americans. At least christians, in their view, are considered children of the book. Atheists and other non-believers are considered blasphemers.

The rest of your post is the same conspiratorial drivel I come to expect from those who buy in to the socialist view of history and politics. Again, it's the same old leftist propaganda recycled. The problem is that many on the left desire to view the islamic terrorists as simply just brothers in the struggle against 'the big baddies', which leftists define as the US in general, and Bush and republicans in particular.

Problem is, Islamic Terrorists don't have any love for you either, and would just as gladly remove your head from your shoulders as they would mine.

Inane Michael Moore 'scare tactics' talking points don't an argument make. Especially when he, and many like him, are completely IGNORANT to the far longer history involved here and how continues to apply.

well, you don't have to agree with me, but until we step back and take a look at the bigger picture and recognize that we as a nation have more that just a little responsibility for our own woes, we will continue to have problems. Denying this isn't going to help matters. I am not in any way justifying what happened on 9/11, but at the same time, we as a nation are far from being pure blameless victims here.

 

[Flying Crane]

Problem is, Islamic Terrorists don't have any love for you either, and would just as gladly remove your head from your shoulders as they would mine.

of course.

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Lots of victims of crime have responsibility for their woes too. Hanging out in bad places, flashing lots of money, letting themselves get drunk when they are among strangers, and the like. Just because they did things that allowd themselves to become victims doesnt make what the other guys did right or even understandable. Saying that plane loads of working people and children somehow deserved 911 and that we deserved it is plain wrong. Tell the parents of some murederd child that they bear some responsibility because they didnt watch their child close enough. That was one of the most disturbing posts I have read. I dont get how Americans have gotten that way.

 

[Flying Crane]

Saying that plane loads of working people and children somehow deserved 911 and that we deserved it is plain wrong. Tell the parents of some murederd child that they bear some responsibility because they didnt watch their child close enough. That was one of the most disturbing posts I have read. I dont get how Americans have gotten that way.

I have NEVER EVER suggested that plainloads of citizens deserved what happened to them on 9/11. Do not twist what I have said.

I am only pointing out that OUR OWN GOVERNMENT has, for decades (and this is not a Republican, or Democrat thing, because all administrations, like the current one, have contributed to this) treated other people around the world with distain and a tremendous lack of respect, and this is what causes people to hate us and strike at us. NEVER have I suggested that the people who suffered in these attacks deserved what they got.

I am suggesting that we need to recognize the decades of history that lead up to the events of 9/11, and we need to change our nation's activity on an international level, in order to head-off further attacks like 9/11. Hiding our collective head in the sand and refusing to recognize this will inevitably lead to more attacks in the future. Our nation's actions around the globe have repercussions, and we saw a terrible example of those repercussions on 9/11, something that NEVER SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED.

But do not ever accuse me of saying that the individual victims of 9/11 deserved what happened that day.

 

[Cryozombie]

And, I don't believes it makes us any safer because, as the President has stated, the terrorists can 'adapt'. If someone has bad designs, and they know shoes are getting looked at, they'll find another way to accomplish their objectives.

True, but at least we are forcing them to think and change plans. If we did... nothing... and made it EASY on them... I have to wonder if we would see more of it... rather than a slowdown as they test the waters, see what they can and cant get away with... etc...

If you planned one day to walk into a courtroom and shoot a judge, and then someone tried and they put in metal detectors... obviously that would put a dent in your plans more than if they did not... you might go in several times... see who they check, who they dont etc etc... as opposed to if they had done nothing and you just walked in and shot him.

 

[michaeledward]

True, but at least we are forcing them to think and change plans. If we did... nothing... and made it EASY on them... I have to wonder if we would see more of it... rather than a slowdown as they test the waters, see what they can and cant get away with... etc...

If you planned one day to walk into a courtroom and shoot a judge, and then someone tried and they put in metal detectors... obviously that would put a dent in your plans more than if they did not... you might go in several times... see who they check, who they dont etc etc... as opposed to if they had done nothing and you just walked in and shot him.

You make the assumption that there has been a slow down? On what basis, I wonder?

We have no idea what their plans are or were.

As easy as it is for some to imagine the color-coded heighten alert system has 'slowed down' the plans of al Qaeda, it is for me to imagine they have taken a 'wait-and-see' attitude toward the New Caliphate as George Bush provides for them much which they could not acquire for themselves ....

• U.S. Freedom under attack from with ...
• An Shi'ite government in Iraq ...
• New Terrorist training camps against real targets.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Today world is different, todays bombs are larger and more dangerous.

The American people should have the right for someone to find radiation signatures.

Remember our constitutional was written in a different time and type of world.

Today if they were alive I am sure things would have been written a little different.

Take religion when they wrote separation of church and goverment. They meant that religion cannot play politics or make rules basis on religion.

Yet they Ben and the others did not mean to remove the word god,10 commendament from goverment buildings. Prayers in schools and so on....we got carry away.

They did mean we can practice religion everywhere....but not to let it rule our laws.

Why do you think congress have their own prayers before starting.....

America was built on belief's of God.....to right to worship him in our own ways........Not total separations................Aloha

Coins " In God we Trust" who else can we trust? "Bush"?

 

[Cryozombie]

You make the assumption that there has been a slow down? On what basis, I wonder?

Prolly on the same evidence you assume there HASN'T been.

If you re-read my post I said that as a hypothetical...

I have to wonder if we would see more of it...

See? I said I wonder IF... not we would have.

As easy as it is for some to imagine the color-coded heighten alert system has 'slowed down' the plans of al Qaeda,

There is a big difference between taking real action like searching people and scanning Mosques for bombs and Creating a system of colors to use as a code. Even you know that.

 

[CanuckMA]

Something about the 4th Amendment?

Privacy, illegal search and seizure?

Scanning specific locations without a warrant is just as illegal as wiretapping without a warrant, or simply entering a building to physically search without a warrant.

 

[michaeledward]

Prolly on the same evidence you assume there HASN'T been.

If you re-read my post I said that as a hypothetical...

See? I said I wonder IF... not we would have.

There is a big difference between taking real action like searching people and scanning Mosques for bombs and Creating a system of colors to use as a code. Even you know that.

Yes, I do not there is a difference among the actions taken. I have used one of the actions the government has taken as an example, hopefully representative of all the legal actions taken by the government. It is certainly the 'highest profile' action taken (or at least it was high profile before the election, eh?).

Yes, I understand your discussion was a hypothetical. Which hypothetical is more probable?

That we have slowed them down.
That we have not slowed them down.

New York, 2001
Bali, 2002
Jakarta, 2003
Madrid, 2004
London, 2005

Attacks seem to continue. Can we be certain we are looking in the right direction? Are we doing for Osama bin Laden that which he couldn't do himself?

Did we remove a secular leader from a major middle east country?
If they are attacking us, as the President likes to say, 'because of our freedoms', are we restricting those freedoms to secure security?

 

[michaeledward]

Something about the 4th Amendment?

Privacy, illegal search and seizure?

Scanning specific locations without a warrant is just as illegal as wiretapping without a warrant, or simply entering a building to physically search without a warrant.

I don't think any citizen can expect privacy in a public place. Setting up monitoring devices in the town square, I don't believe, violates the forth amendment. I think there is some question about the targets of some of the sampling devices.

Yes, profiling is an important tool in law enforcement. But, when the vast majority of 120 sampling sites are directed at Muslem's, the citizens can legitimately question if they are free to practice their religion.

This is a difficult question. Much more difficult than the wiretapping issue (or the Abramoff issue, or the Plame issue, or the Curveball issue, or the Padilla issue, or the .... well, you get the point).

I don't know the answer on this one. Although, I think accepting the possibility, and probability of future attacks is a prudent place to start. We can not be made completely secure. At least, not without turning into the a totalitarian, facsist state. I am not willing to surrender to that.

So, while honest people can disagree where the line should be drawn, on this issue. I think it should be pulled back quite a bit. Secure our chemical, biological and nuclear sites. Send money to Russia more quickly to secure their nuclear sites. And stop putting the gieger counters outside churches.

 

[Cryozombie]

New York, 2001
Bali, 2002
Jakarta, 2003
Madrid, 2004
London, 2005

Attacks seem to continue.

But are WE providing the security measures in Jakarta, Bali, Madrid, and London? Or were they just easier targets?

Again... We dont know... *I* am trying to think about it like I am in their position, and looking at what *I* would do... and one thing I would do is go for the easiest target that would do the most damage... so Im not gonna try an bypass any "hard" security... I'd go for fast dirty and easy...
Was that Bali, Jakarta, Madrid, and London? Maybe. It certainly WAS New York in 01

 

[Cryozombie]

But, when the vast majority of 120 sampling sites are directed at Muslem's, the citizens can legitimately question if they are free to practice their religion.

Can you offer me a legitimate reason passive scanning around mosques interferes with someone freedom to practice religion, unless maybe we snatch em for for taking the Sacramental Plutonium to the altar...

 

[Blotan Hunka]

Something about the 4th Amendment?

Privacy, illegal search and seizure?

Scanning specific locations without a warrant is just as illegal as wiretapping without a warrant, or simply entering a building to physically search without a warrant.

I found this.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/kyllo.htm

That does not appear to be entirely true.

 

[michaeledward]

Can you offer me a legitimate reason passive scanning around mosques interferes with someone freedom to practice religion, unless maybe we snatch em for for taking the Sacramental Plutonium to the altar...

Nope.

Except, the slippery slope argument. I am thinking of Monk's role in that Danzell Washington/Bruce Willis film. A good upright arab police officer, rounded up and brought to the football stadium under and sanctioned off with all the other swarthy looking men. I just don't think that is a country I want to live in. .... that whole "with liberty and justice, for all" thing.

And, it seems to be casting a wide net, with very big holes in it. I have to imagine there is a more intelligent way of searching of radioactive materials. This almost looks like: "We have no idea what we're doing, but we have to do something".

 

[michaeledward]

Again... We dont know... *I* am trying to think about it like I am in their position, and looking at what *I* would do... and one thing I would do is go for the easiest target that would do the most damage... so Im not gonna try an bypass any "hard" security... I'd go for fast dirty and easy...
Was that Bali, Jakarta, Madrid, and London? Maybe. It certainly WAS New York in 01

I am not an expert, but I have heard/read that Mr. bin Laden's idea of a 'New Caliphate' is a 100 year war. I have heard that 'they' know we are impatient. Viewed from that time-table, juxtaposed against our cycle of heightened security alerts, the pace of those attacks don't necessarily look, perhaps, quite so random.

And we have gone from the President saying "Dead or Alive", to a President saying "I don't think about him".

Where, if what I have seen is true, they know they will not be around when there objective is going to be fulfilled.

Two different mind sets. I don't know which is correct.

I just don't want my country to be doing things that meet their objectives. If we assume zero conversion rates among religions (which is false, I have heard Islam is growing faster than any other religion in the world today). There are 25 million more people living under an Islamic government today than there were three years ago.