We Told You So: Government Spying Has Been Targeting Innocent Citizens, not Terrorists

[Twin Fist]

So, you're ok with me (if I was a government agent) listening to your phone calls, reading you mail (electronic and dead tree), and randomly asking you for your ID? How about if it was Shesulsa, or Barack Obama or Ted Kennedy?

there is nothing in my mail, my email, or on my phone that can get me into trouble.

although, i do have conversations with people on my paintball team that could sound strange to someone.............................

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Oh, so you train with a group of like minded people in military tactics and engage in small unit training? Sounds suspicious to me. Perhaps we should send a team to follow you around and check out your family and friends, Komerade?

 

[Archangel M]

Angel, is it that you are pointing out that the Patriot Act was an attempt by the government to curry favour by being seen to do something about the 'crisis' and it's backfired on them?

Whereas if they'd just kept on quietly doing what they've always done, noone would have been any the wiser?

I have heard something very similar from others before, I have to say - sadly I can't recall the source as it was a few years ago (getting old you know, must write more things down ... NOO! The Secret Service will find out and I'll be off to the Tower before I can blink ROFL).

There ARE some sections of the Act that could use some "tweaking" (IMO) but its far from the big "conspiracy" that the tin-hatters claim. By and large it just took existing powers and expanded their scope. This stuff would have been nothing new "pre 9/11" if directed at organized crime/ drug king pins/ foriegn intelligence agents etc.

Im NOT saying that the Act is perfect and not in need of adjustments. ALL laws and acts ARE. To make it into an "Orwellian" nightmare just illustrates some peoples preconcieved predillictions towards government in general. Which as Americans isnt necessarially a BAD thing. Just dont go all nutter.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

But the Napoleon hat fits me so well.

 

[shesulsa]

I tried to take a picture of the local courthouse for my daughter's social studies report two years ago and was reprimanded ... albeit gently ... by a deputy. He was very nice - he wanted to witness me deleting the pictures from my cel phone, which I did. We were unable - due to a recent bomb threat - to obtain a stock photo of the current building anywhere.

That's my only run-in with a potential national security issue, other than myself and my oldest son being frisked at the airport a few times.

I have not had the honor of serving this country in uniform - though other vets on the board will tell you - my current avatar displaying my constitutional concerns notwithstanding - that I am avidly grateful for the efforts and price paid by those who do serve and have served. All of my uncles served in WWII, one a Pearl Harbor vet.

The notion that typing on an internet board is tantamount to giving one's life is ludicrous and quite a twist of words, though hardly surprising.]But the effort to engage in debate and opinion-trading regarding our country is not to be minimized.

If I've personally attacked anyone here, it has not been my intent.

There have been some far more compelling arguments than I could currently make by others here so I'll hang back for a while ... but I felt compelled to reply.

Thanks.

 

[Xue Sheng]

Oh, so you train with a group of like minded people in military tactics and engage in small unit training? Sounds suspicious to me. Perhaps we should send a team to follow you around and check out your family and friends, Komerade?

HEY!!!!

Its "tóng zhì" to you

 

[Twin Fist]

Oh, so you train with a group of like minded people in military tactics and engage in small unit training? Sounds suspicious to me. Perhaps we should send a team to follow you around and check out your family and friends, Komerade?

feel free, they will be bored to tears in next to no time. A bunch of overweight old guys with paintball guns..LOL

again, i live in REALITY where if you aint doing nothing wrong,you got nothing
to fear

idealism is nice, but i choose reality

all your concerns and fears are based on maybe's, what if's and might be's

the reality is, if you aint doing nothing wrong,y uo have nothing to fear.

 

[Twin Fist]

But the Napoleon hat fits me so well.

man, that hat is HAWT

 

[elder999]

the reality is, if you aint doing nothing wrong,y uo have nothing to fear.

Again, THAT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE!:

......secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law — with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.

By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."

By 2003, the U.S. governement had detained nearly 4,000 foreigners-of those, 4 were tried for terrorist activities. Some were deported on charges not related to terrorism, some were "rendered" to countries where they would be "harshly interrogated," but the vast majority were innocent, and released. I'd submit that the vast majority should never have been detained at all, and that we might have made a lot more noise had they been citizens at the time, and now will never get around to it when it is citizens........baaaahh.....baaahhhh....baaaahhhhh

 

[Sukerkin]

The reality is, if you ain't doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear.

I don't think that that has ever been true, TF, Patriot Act or no, for little Joe Public's like us. Get in the way of what the Government, or the powers directing government, want and it's "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya" for us.

At an 'ordinary', keeping the peace and enforcing the law level, I do agree with you (tho' the court records are replete with cases that saw innocent people go behind bars (or worse)).

When it comes to matters of national security, however, the best we can hope for is not get underfoot.

Sadly, if you're a person with a social conscience and a desire to at least try to have an influence on public opinion, then you are going to fall under the sights of those with the powers (now enshrined in law) to make your life very miserable. That's whether you've actually done anything wrong or not.

That, I think, is the thing that is making everyones shoulder-blades itch. Shut-up-and-keep-your-head-down is par for the course for us peasants over here in Britain. As I've said many times before on this board, you chaps have a country that set out to be better than that.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

"if you aint doing nothing wrong,you have nothing to fear."

So, it should be ok for someone to pull you over, do a full BC search, tear your car apart to check under the seats and inside the door panels, to enter your home when you aren't there and search through your possesions, to check out your bank transactions, library check outs, vehicle milage, etc.

Because they won't find anything.

Right.

I don't trust the government, and neither did the authors of our constitution. That is why there were strict limits set on what the government was allowed to do, and why specific individual rights were afforded citizens.

The government has long sought to impinge on the right to privacy of citizens, "for our own good". Communism, drugs, civil rights and the labor movement are just a few of the evils that our government also thought were important enough to infringe on our right to privacy. Each time there is someone like you that says "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear."

Which misses the point entirely.

What we do in private is none of the Government's business.

Uncontroled government access to our lives is, not could be, not might be, is and has been abused. Now, and in the past.

In March 2007, the Justice Department's Inspector General revealed that FBI agents had sent a flurry of fake emergency letters to phone companies, asking them to turn over phone records immediately by promising that the proper papers had been filed with U.S. attorneys, though in many cases this was a complete lie. These letters had no legal basis and essentially asked companies to turn over data by pretending there was an emergency in order to get the data necessary to get a proper NSL. One former FBI agent says its clear the FBI violated the law. They sent out tens of thousands of these letters!

"We had to destroy the village to save it" didn't wash in Vietnam, and it doesn't wash today.

So, tell me. Why does Martin Luthor King Jr. have a 16,000 page FBI file?
Oh yeah, because the last time the FBI had this kind of power they abused it too.

Both the FBI and DOJ have documented records of internal abuse. Recent DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) reports confirmed long-held suspicions of widespread and systemic abuses of the national security letter statute, and the FBI's involvement in interrogations at Guantánamo Bay. With no outside oversight and with FBI agents acting autonomously, these new guidelines will likely lead to more unchecked abuse.

When some low paid government clerk mistakes your last discussion of a friendly paintball game for a terrorist attack rehersal and does a "no warrant needed" smashing the door down raid on you, confiscated your PC, puts 2 rounds in you for stupidly thinking the 3am raid was a robbery and trying to defend yourself against the masked intruders, let us know then how it feels. (this happens. Ask Kathryn Johnston. Oh wait, you can't, she's dead.)

 

[Sukerkin]

Oh my. I hadn't heard of that case before. Well, there you go. That's what happens even with the best of intentions.

Add in some less than moral intentions and you end up with a secular version of kristallnacht for whichever group falls into 'official' disfavour.

 

[Twin Fist]

again, nothing but maybe, might be, could be, what if

if you aint breaking the law, even if they search, what can they do to you?

do you REALLY think they have so much time of thier hands that they will go mess with normal innocent civilians for kicks?

the paranoia here is getting DEEP if you really think that.


Bob, AGAIN, you are ranting about ideals, i live in reality



oh screw it, you guys paranoid or not are totally 100% right, Bush is da debil, the country is ending, best start burning givernment buildings and killing ourselves now


YOU first

 

[elder999]

again, nothing but maybe, might be, could be, what if

if you aint breaking the law, even if they search, what can they do to you?

You need to look back a page at this post, because you're wrong.

 

[Twin Fist]

L2R Elder, i already gave up, I am plotting the rebellion now. BRB, gotta line my windows with tin foil. that stops them from listening in you know..........

 

[Sukerkin]

do you REALLY think they have so much time of thier hands that they will go mess with normal innocent civilians for kicks?

Now that is a valid point and I don't think anyone would contest with you on it.

But (you knew there was one, didn't you ) that isn't what I think people are striving towards in this thread.

Powers that are available to those in positions of authority will be used, whether for the purpose they were intended or not. It is an incontrovertable lesson of all forms of government throughout all of human history.

That is the salient thing to consider. Most especially when genuine grievances from the populous are concerned as all such grassroots movements have to have a spearhead which is all too easily removed with such provisions in place.

I concur, that under benign government, with a genuine interest in the welfare of it's people (rather than the bank balances of those that fund it's senior members) then it truly is just if's, but's and maybe's.

But there is no government that is like that, other than a benevolent dictatorship. Which is why you need effective checks and balances on those in a position to abuse the powers that are enshrined in law.

For us in Britain, as I've said before, the ironic situation is that those who protect us from the 'quicker, easy path' that the elected government wants to take is the non-elected House of Lords. The most recent example is that they have quashed the governments push for a very long period wherein they could legally hold people without charge.

Now I thought that Congress was supposed to perform the same function for you chaps in America. So why, especially given that Congress is supposedly controlled by forces inimicable to the incumbent, was the oh-so-misnamed Patriot Act ever passed? What am I missing from the picture?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

TF,
What was Kathryn Johnston doing wrong?
Nothing.

She ended up dead.

Ask Cheye Calvo if you can play with his dogs.

Oh wait. You can't.

They were killed when police raided his home.

He wasn't doing anything wrong, and neither were they.

I could take the rest of the evening, find dozens of names, post them and you and others will still sit there and say "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you'll be fine."

Ignorance will get you killed.

These people we not doing anything wrong, expected law enforcement to protect them, and things went wrong.

You could read this wiki page which has details of several additional violations of law and abuses, or, you can use any convenient hole into which to insert your head.

But ignoring it, pretending it doesn''t effect you, doesn't change the -fact- that governmment and it's agents have, are, and will continue to abuse their powers, and that a people who ignore and choose to pretend it's all ok, only empower them to do more.

The Price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance.

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."

 

[Twin Fist]

do you not read? i already gave up and lined my windows with tin foil

"They are out to get me"
and
"Bush is da Debil"

are my new mottos

you win

We should do NOTHING to deal with terroism, i mean, clearly the powers will be abused it isnt even in doubt, better to just sacrifice a few thousand citizens every few years, at the least the rest of us will be able to talk to our cousins in buttsnortistan in peace

you win

 

[Bob Hubbard]

You're being ridiculous. But then again, your statement "better to just sacrifice a few thousand citizens every few years" really does sum up what you really believe doesn't it?

Better that we sacrifice the Constitution, throwaway the sacrifices of the nations founders, and every man and woman to die defending it, so that we can live with the illusion of safety, than hold the government to that same constitution. You dismiss the writings of men like Franklin, and Jefferson claiming they are out of date, and refuse to understand that they lived under a government that did the types of deplorable actions I and others now condemn.

Yes, King George didn't have atomics, email, and anthrax. Virginia wasn't at risk of a religious fanatic crashing a 747 into Norfolk back in 1776. They dealt with simpler things, like forced conscription into the navy, being tossed into jail and left to rot for decades, torture just for kicks. Hey, kinda the same things that we kept saying made Sadamn do evil. Of course, Sadamn and his secret police also listed in to the phone calls of the Iraqi people, locked them up and tortured them indefinitely without trial, confiscated their property at whim, and more. They were evil, but it's ok if the US gov. does it, as long as they add in "so the terrorists don't win y'all".

Those that fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it's painful lessons.

Keep sacrificing those rights. Someday you'll wake up wishing you hadn't.
Because it's this type of ignorance that will allow those "boogyman" terrorists to win.

 

[Archangel M]

There were no laws/acts or changes that could have been made to deal with terrorism post 9/11 that wouldnt have been hype/demonized by tin hatters and Bush haters. Thats the bottom line.

And doing nothing would have been denounced too.