ACLU Drops Challenge Over Patriot Act 274
An anonymous reader writes, "The ACLU announced on Friday that they were dropping their case against the US Government over the highly contested section 215 of the Patriot Act. ACLU Associate Legal Director Ann Beeson stated: 'While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration's most reckless policies. The ACLU will continue to monitor how the government applies the broad Section 215 power and we will challenge unconstitutional demands on a case-by-case basis.'"
Patriot Pieties (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is there any evidence that there are fewer institutional barriers to cooperation and coordination? Because if the rest of the agencies effected by the Patriot Act were reorganized like FEMA was, i don't feel very confident that the changes made to the US government are of any use at all.
Also, there is a difference between policy consensus, and the reality of implementation. (for instance, integrating national crime database
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Clinton's watch (Score:3, Insightful)
To state that it has made us safer is up for debate as well. There is no proof that it done its job.
Re: (Score:2)
*cough* ANTHRAX *cough*
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Patriot Pieties (Score:4, Insightful)
I wore a red shirt yesterday and a green shirt today. It was colder yesterday than it is today. Therefore, wearing a green shirt makes the temperature warmer.
How is this reasoning any different than yours? Correlation does not imply causation [tamu.edu]
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
1995 -> 2001 didn't have any significant terrorist attacks either. Change to 1996-2001 if you prefer to include the Unabomber as significant during that time period, though I'd argue that you'd then need to include the November 2001 anthrax-letter attacks (insignificant as
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Virtually no Americans have died in America from terrorist attacks following implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act.
Virtually no Americans died in America from terrorist attacks prior to the Patriot Act, either, excepting one particular day in September. I am far more inclined to attribute the relative safety of the past 5 years to status quo than to some hastily and ill-conceived piece of legislation, but that's just me.
That we are safer from terrorism as a result is obvious.
This is not obvious to me.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"Shaking the tree", however, was possible before it passed.
Proof by example: end of 1999. There were warnings of possible "millenium" terrorist attacks, not as numerous or as loud as the warnings before 9/11, but serious. The administration met, planned, and passed alerts down to various law enforcement organizations. An alert border guard then spotted somebody who turned out to have a car full of explosives m
Re: (Score:2)
The entire "institutional barriers" slogan was just a bunch of Rovian trash. There never *was* a legal barrier. Unless you consider your 4th amendment rights a barrier. The CIA can do thing
Blame the opposition? (Score:2)
But yes,
I know why they did it (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know if there are any new ones, but I'd say all those laws banning automatic weapons, requiring registration, etc. count as attacks on (or rather an occupation of, since they're already in effect) the 2nd Amendment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
or would you prefer the ACLU and not the NRA fought 2nd amendment issues?
Here's a thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
So maybe they did the math. Lose the right to privacy en masse or gain a little bit o' facism.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Results-driven judges = badness. (Score:3, Insightful)
Roe rests on a rather silly argument. Rather than using any number of very good justifications for enabling abortion -- such as the equal protection clause, or better yet, just tossing it back to the legislature until public pressure forced the creation of a real "Right to Privacy" amendment -- the USSC created a legal fiction. Beg
Wouldn't it be funny if (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey slashdot editors: please post US-specific stuff when Americans are online.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Making your population afraid is old-school, and pretty much died with the Cold War. Making your population apathetic, otoh, is what all New Totalitarianism is all about.
What next ... (Score:2)
That's easy, they could just change the contitution while their at it. The people in power seem to be destroying so much that was good in the US government. The problem with current system is that there are too few parties, so it is too easy for one party to enact dubious laws, whether its democrats or republicans.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
No. They just drop bombs on random citizens.
The ban on assassinating leaders is just one more way that line animals and citizens take the brunt for the decisions made by those who do not have to sully their hands with the direct consequences of war, and as such, I think it serves as a condemnation of the system, not a point of honor.
If a person is "commander in chief" (or some kind of intermediate officer) of the armed forces, then he is a legitima
Ob-Quote: (Score:2)
When did the Patriot Act become un-bad? (Score:2)
How did the Republicans manage to spin support of the Patriot Act into something politically mandatory? What happene
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:"Reauthorized" (Score:4, Insightful)
They weren't stupid, they were trying to hold onto their jobs. Vote against PATRIOT Act and in the next election, your opposition will campaign on it because you obviously 'are against keeping us SAFE', and in some cases 'want the terrists to WIN'.
Remember how they got the Federal ID law passed? They tailgated it on the back end of an appropriation bill reputedly to supply body armor to the troops in Iraq. You couldn't vote against the rider without voting for the appropriation. Would YOU want to face re-election when the opposition says 'Hey, he voted AGAINST body armor for our troops!!!'?
What really needs to happen is stopping the practice of putting riders on bills at the last minute. You can submarine all KINDS of nasty shit with the current system. Problem is, I don't see this happening. Ever.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I am so tired of this miserable excuse for crappy behavior from our politicians. "Boo hoo, I had to save my career!" That would be understandable if they were plumbers or lawn cutters. But their JOB is to SERVE the American people and act in our interest. What is the point of them holding their jobs when they don't do it? Oh, I know, they need to stay
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Bush League America (Score:2)
Play dead
Soon, you won't be only playing
This time's for keeps
All America get the treatment
They showed the world before
Remember the Congo of Lumumba?
Iran of Mossadegh?
Of course not, dear. But we're bringing it all back home for you.
"Before your pride causes you to harden your heart and further close your ears, and before your ignorance provokes laughter, search the Christian Scriptures. Search even the histories of other nations that sat in the same positions of wealth, power, and authority that th
Re:"Reauthorized" (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
I know, I know, the first one to invoke the Nazi comparison loses, but I just read an interesting historical tidbit that Hitler's Enabling Act [furnituref...people.com] also required it to be reauthorized after four years.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Authorized again.
Re: (Score:2)
To give authority again. Has nothing to do with writing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So this is how the ACLU Says: (Score:4, Informative)
huh? (Score:2)
How is it not a waste to win a case against something that did not exist anymore? It makes as much sense as trying a dead man in court.
Re:huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Because the law DID exist when they filed the case. The reason it "doesn't exist" anymore is that there was a sunset (ie expiration) clause built into the bill. Congress could have chosen to reauthorize PATRIOT 100% exactly as it had been passed before. Instead, they rewrote sections of it to give back some of the civil rights they had previously taken. In all likelihood it was the ACLU's initial court victory that convinced the government that it needed to tweak section 215 to make it more constitutional.
A case doesn't HAVE to get to the SCOTUS to convince Congress to rewrite a law, you know. If they see the writing on the wall, they're free to change it before they get ordered to. And therein lies the victory here.
thanks (Score:2)
Re:So this is how the ACLU Says: (Score:4, Insightful)
Like the Republicans who currently control the purse strings wouldn't have found a way to increase government expenditures and take money out of your pocket.
You know, like wanting to prosecute Jose Padilla as a terrorist, holding this american citizen in jail for three years without counsel then dropping all terror related charges and finally settling on a charge of aiding terrorists in a civil, not military, court.
Seems that the government knew its case wasn't going to fly so it settled on lesser charges and claimed victory. After spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on legal fees on a case they couldn't win.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean they sued him? Meaning that "aiding terrorists" is not a criminal offense? Or did you mean to say that they charged him in a civilian, but criminal (rather than civil), court? (I'm not implying you're wrong; I just don't know and want to fi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For three years t
Re: (Score:2)
Of course, the state of Indiana recently gave a lot of money to the speaker of the Indiana House's old law firm buddy to help the state appeal a ruling regarding prayer in the statehouse.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Couldn't you use this argument to discontinue the wasteful and inefficient practice of holding elections?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
People may originally get into politics for noble reasons but, eventually, it becomes about "doing business." And whether they are Republicans or Democrats it makes no difference. Eventually the
Re: (Score:2)
That said, that's two politicians that I know anything about that appear honorable, as opposed to more than 50 that I know about as much about that I would class as "better rendered harmless".
Re: (Score:2)
But that's the point really. When organizations or people give to a politician's campaign, they *do* expect to get a return on their investment. And they usually get it. By the time that they get to any real position of power, most politicians are bought and paid for many times over. People who cannot be bought will not be given money, and will not get a great deal of power.
If greed could be eliminate
Re:it's about the lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
Or they see some change happening in Congress in the near future and decided that might be a better way to fix the problem.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Really? I thought our country was founded on revolution. Silly me.
Re: (Score:2)
Democrats, or any other party. Don't forget that -- some of us (me not included, sadly) live in places where a third-party candidate might have a decent chance, and we shouldn't discourage them.
Re: (Score:2)
No, but if you like puppies, you have to vote for this guy. [youtube.com] (A real campaign ad, by the way. Sometimes I wonder about my decision to move to Maryland.)
Re: (Score:2)
...Wha? Sorry, could you repeat that? We were too busy trying to figure out Lost...
Seriously, I don't think enough is going to change until electoral participation becomes as broadly embraced and popular a pastime as following the exploits of disasterous voids of character like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton.
Schwab
Re: (Score:2)
That's one of the many examples where the ACLU works to censor expression. I don't think they need to be "investigated". However, they can do more work to protect individual rights instead of fight against them, as they sometimes
Re: (Score:2)
It looks like you don't understand it. This part of the Bill of Rights is certainly not a justification for censoring individual expression that happens to be "religious." What part of "abridging the freedom of speech" do you not understand?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Now if we can (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that displays of crosses on the right of way of the road, which is government owned land, and the display of religious artifacts such as monuments to the ten commandments amount to an apparent endorsement, by the government, of religion, said religion almost always being Christianity. For example, I do not recall a single instance of seeing Shiva in a house of legislature, a voodoo altar at an accident site, or a monument to Ayn Rand on a courthouse lawn. When we talk about the US government's sponsorship of religion, It is Christianity first, last, and always.
Now, if some farmer wants to put up crosses in his field, or a church wants to put up religious monuments on church property, or any private citizen wants to erect a shrine to whomever, these are all examples of free expression by the citizens and as such, they are what the constitution seems to be worded to protect. It would be very difficult, I think, to read the first amendment as anything but encouraging the citizen and discouraging the government with regard to religious expression.
Remember the times: This country was founded by people who had been ruthlessly suppressed by the British government because the religion they followed was not that of the state. In 1789, when James Madison introduced the first tentative bill of rights, feelings were very strong that one religious sect or another must not gain religious control of the people through the mechanism of the government.
Madison's suggestion regarding religion read as follows:
That was whittled down to this:
This final version of this idea prevents the establishment of a national religion, and also prohibits government aid to any religion, even on an non-exclusive basis, or so the courts have said until very recently.
Now, there are state constitutions that read slightly differently; however, the supreme court has interpreted the due process clause of the 14th amendment to mean that states may not override this particular section of the bill of rights (the 1st amendment is part of the bill of rights.)
So this means that states shouldn't be putting religious symbols on road right of ways, either, nor should they be erecting monuments to any particular religion's artifacts, creeds, or personalities.
Remember: The bill of rights assigns rights to the people. It takes them away from the government. So you can't really argue that telling the government it can't erect religious artifacts suppressed the speech of the people based on the 1st amendment. It suppresses the ability of the government to tacitly or directly sponsor religion, and that is clearly what the intent of the framers was, not to mention the authors of the bill of rights. The problem, as always, is that when a government expresses a preference for a religion, those who do not follow that religion either are, or feel they are, being marginalized. This is a situation that it is very important to avoid, specifically so that no citizen's expression of religion is likely to be curtailed by concerns about how the government might react to that expression.
Finally, as the government's support of religion is almost exclusively Christian — crosses at the roadside, the ten commandments, Christmas displays, creches, etc. — it is clear that the current situation serves to discommode anyone who isn't a Christian. Therefore it would seem obvious, at least to me, that we have arrived at precisely the birthing of religious sponsorship the 1st amendment was designed to prevent us from getting to.
Y
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think if the private citizen simply leaves something alongside the road without government approval, that citizen is littering and should be punished.
If the government supports that citizen leaving something alongside the road, then the government is endorsing that action, and consequently, any meanings that come along with it.
In that case, we need to examine what kind of mes
Re: (Score:2)
It seems to me that any reasonable reading of the constitution supports the erecting of a (cross | flag | other symbol or structure) that you paid for on your own land, and subsequently lighting it afire or otherwise treating it harshly (or coddling it), as constitutionally protected free expression. You don't want to let a fire get out of control, is all, because then you're risking your neighbor's property, which has its own prot
Re: (Score:2)
You are entirely missing the point.
Religious "decorations", as you call them, amount to a tacit endorsement of the religion they represent, by the government, and that is a bad thing on every level.
Then again, you have missed the point. The ideas that underlie the constitution are designed to protect the individual first, not power-wielding groups such as your local, state and federal governments.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'd be very interested if you would provide a source for this, because frankly, I don't believe you. Either that, or there's significantly more to the story than you're mentioning (e.g., the cross was put there by the state, or it was on public property and the owner wanted it removed, or something like that).
Re: (Score:2)
I assume you meant "private" property, as with public property, well, the public would be the owner, and if the public wanted it removed, a simple town-wide vote would better make such a decision. My two cents: I'm not Christian (Pagan, actually, but that's not the point), but I'm not "offended" seeing Christian symbolism in a predominatly Christian region. Take for example, the "controversy" surrounding the creche. Back in my home town,
Re: (Score:2)
Newsflash fuckhead, I'm not willing to give up my freedom and rights for a while, not one little bit. Anyone who has studied history or has a grain of common sense or who isn't some inbred Fox news watching fucktard such as yourself would know and understand that once you give up your freedom and rights, even when you're told it's for a 'little while', it's hard to get them back. People such as yourself have no right to live in a free countr
You know... (Score:2, Insightful)
There's something going on if you can't tell the difference between different types of public land.
Roads are public in the COMMON sense - a cross memorialising someone who died on a particular stretch doesn't actually impose o
Re: (Score:2)
I'm willing to give up some of my freedoms and rights for a while. I have no problem with it. Also the none of my civil rights have been broken.
Some? For a while?
Surely you have seen this before
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
How can you give up inalienable rights? Which ones, and for
Re: (Score:2)
That's a lie, habeas corpus was not suspended. It was just clarified that non-citizen enemy combatants do not enjoy that right. Unless you want Osama to have access to an attorney?
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:5, Insightful)
It says "no person," not "no citizen" or "no non-combatant" or anything else. It means no person, period. That includes Osama bin Laden, Adolf Hitler, and Satan himself. In other words, your "clarification" is explicitly unconstitutional!
You betcha! What, are you afraid he'd somehow manage to win anyway? Don't you have any confidence in our laws and the ability of the US prosecution to put forth enough evidence to convict him?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
But the new law that Bush and Co. passed circumvented that and took the right to name who and what a combatant was away from the conventions and into the loving arms of the Executive & Congress.
So, the foreign terrorists were never under Haeb
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Habeus Corpus (Score:4, Insightful)
Who specifically are we at war with? That is to say, other than "the terrorists." Who do we have to kill or who has to surrender to end this war, bin Laden, the Taliban? The fact is, we are not at war in any meaningful sense of the word. We are at war only in the same sense that we are at war with drugs and poverty.
Re: (Score:2)
Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and the Taliban at present. Hezbollah is operating in the US [nationalreview.com], and has threatened the US, so its time may come. Hamas, also operating in the US [washtimes.com] might get there too.
The fact is, we are not at war in any meaningful sense of the word. We are at war only in the same sense that we are at war with drugs and poverty.
Here
Re: (Score:2)
Your formatting of the 5th Amendment [findlaw.com] is bad. I fixed it for you:
Re: (Score:2)
The phrase "the land or naval forces" refers to the army or navy. Putting an enemy on trail after capture by the army would be part of that "cases arising in the land or naval forces" referred to in the
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You bet your ass I do! Justice is best served in public, where the accused have every opportunity to defend themselves, and everyone can see the evidence for themselves. And if the accused is found guilty, it is because the evidence clearly indicates their guilt.
-Ster
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
ACLU operates in USA only. Civil liberties violations in Europe should be handled by European counterparts of ACLU.
Re: (Score:2)