PATRIOT act expanded.

Hobbes

Appears the recent review to cull it did the reverse.

http://news.com.com/2061-10789_3-5736302.html?part=rss&tag=5736302&subj=news

Some of the highlights...

- FBI can demand documents from companies without a judge's approval (that includes medical/bank records).
- Issue Subpoenas as secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison.

Only gone to senate at the moment though.

bonkey

At least there's a chance this bill will be read before its voted on, unlike (IIRC) the original.

jc

Quantum

Hobbes wrote:

Appears the recent review to cull it did the reverse.

It's only a proposal. It hasn't even made it to the House floor or the Senate.

Sadly America is sliding down the road to a police state. Civil liberties are being slashed in the name of Nationalism and a perverted concept of Patriotism, and the perenial self characterisation of American as being "The land of the free" is becoming a tragi-comical parody.
I have never ever been more thankful that I don't live there.

Hobbes

It may not of made it to the senate but Bush has gone on TV to not only say it should be enforced but all the extras to it are accepted.

Also appears democrats complaining about it were censored in the Senate by the Republicans.

Can these acts be ammended or softened at some future point under a Democrat congress/presidency?

My point being the people are getting what they voted for.We can criticise but surely the criticism that we may have offered on the lack of freedom at the height of Communist power in the USSR for instance (or any of the former Iron curtain countries) holds more weight that criticism leveled at laws passed in a society where a majority of people have said they want a goverment that advocates stuff like the patriot acts?

murphaph

Earthman wrote:

My point being the people are getting what they voted for.We can criticise but surely the criticism that we may have offered on the lack of freedom at the height of Communist power in the USSR for instance (or any of the former Iron curtain countries) holds more weight that criticism leveled at laws passed in a society where a majority of people have said they want a goverment that advocates stuff like the patriot acts?

Makes you question the intellect of the electorate, don't it?

Not necessarally.It's a different mindset.
You are actually talking about the largest Economy in the World with the largest sphere of influence in the World.
That didn't come about from a lack of intelect.

Hobbes

Earthman wrote:

Can these acts be ammended or softened at some future point under a Democrat congress/presidency?

There was sunset clauses for portions of this. That is what Bush is now trying to get amended so it cannot be changed at a later date.

murphaph

Earthman wrote:

Not necessarally.It's a different mindset.
You are actually talking about the largest Economy in the World with the largest sphere of influence in the World.
That didn't come about from a lack of intelect.

On the contrary, you don't need an intelligent electorate to make a powerful country. Like I said before anyway, corporations and individuals you've never even heard of run the world.

Memnoch

the electorate doesn't need to be intelligent, just easily malleable, as the US electorate are. A lot of americans rely on fox news as their main information source. And consdering the amount of garbage they put out, and propaganda and brain washing, it's no wonder.

I don't think real democracy can exist like this. Democracy is about informed choice, not brainwashed zombies.

Nuttzz

Memnoch wrote:

the electorate doesn't need to be intelligent, just easily malleable, as the US electorate are. A lot of americans rely on fox news as their main information source. And consdering the amount of garbage they put out, and propaganda and brain washing, it's no wonder.

thats right tar all americans with the one brush, sure they are all fox watching zombies :rolleyes:

murphaph

murphaph wrote:

On the contrary, you don't need an intelligent electorate to make a powerful country. Like I said before anyway, corporations and individuals you've never even heard of run the world.

Could you provide a source for that...They're not running my world.Our own corporates probably relatively give as much money to the parties here.

Memnoch wrote:

the electorate doesn't need to be intelligent, just easily malleable, as the US electorate are.

Are they though?
They're no more malleable than the people of Iran tbh or us lot here. They just have a different mindset to you.They're entitled to that when it comes to voting for a party that gives them the patriot act.
As regards Fox news,I've not seen it too much in U.S homes that I've visited.
It's the more watched of the cable networks but not that far ahead of CNN and nowhere in comparison to the news programmes on the main channels ,the print media or the internet.

Rather than me trudge through the Nielsen figures for news programmes in the States I found this [I like the url ]

Last August for instance,peak primetime audiences for Fox news approached 2 million people (or 1% of the potential U.S audience)whereas the main nightly news programmes on the big 3 caught ten times that audience.

I'm sorry I don't buy this "Americans are thick mullarkey" some of them undoubtedly are, like some Irish, some French , some everybody
But really all you have got is a different mindset and thats a long way removed from widespread poor intelect.

Sand

Last August for instance,peak primetime audiences for Fox news approached 2 million people (or 1% of the potential U.S audience)whereas the main nightly news programmes on the big 3 caught ten times that audience.

I remember reading stats on a sample of Republican and Democrat voters about trust in the media, in light of the recent election. Despite the stereotypes they place little trust in any media, but more interesting was the fact that the Democrats trusted Fox News more than the Republicans did. Fox News was the Republicans most trusted, and the Democrats least trusted media source.

Fox News is not some sort of thought control device for Republicans. If anything, for the really hard core Republicans, theyd probably take far more direction from their religious leaders, certainly on the hot issues like sexuality, abortion, stem cell research and so on - the stuff that divides Republicans from Democrats.

Makes you question the intellect of the electorate, don't it?

the electorate doesn't need to be intelligent, just easily malleable, as the US electorate are.

Sadly America is sliding down the road to a police state.

A)As Earthman has said, if Americans are so dumb it doesnt say much for everyone elses intelligence that theyre running the show.
B)The US is very far from unfree, and the concept of a police state is not really workable where there are more guns in the hands of the people than there are households. There are parts of the US that rival Mogadishu for guns per capita and distrust of central government.

murphaph

Sand wrote:

A)As Earthman has said, if Americans are so dumb it doesnt say much for everyone elses intelligence that theyre running the show.

I don't think it matters one iota how intelligent or otherwise they are. Big business leaders bend the ear (pull the strings) of governments the world over. I'm a firm believer that a select few have the power. Give it 200 years when poverty has trapped a large percentage of western peoples and watch the revolutions happen all over again (it's happened before). This decadent version of capitalism is doomed to fail IMO-it favours the born wealthy just like monarchies favoured the heirs to the thrones of old.

Anyhow, the american people can't be generalised and even if they could it wouldn't matter because the US president is not elected by popular majority. I never questioned the intellect of americans generally anyway. I questioned the intellect of the electorate and of those a minority actually voted for dubya first time round.

To state that there might be a correlation between everyone else's intelligence levels and those of the US population because the US is the most powerful country in the world is groundless. The US had a lot of good fortune in building it's economic and military might as we all know. Like I said before anyway, America doesn't run the show, people you've never even heard of from all over this planet run the show. Imagine world governments as their 'front men' and that's how I see it.

Orizio

Sadly America is sliding down the road to a police state. Civil liberties are being slashed in the name of Nationalism and a perverted concept of Patriotism, and the perenial self characterisation of American as being "The land of the free" is becoming a tragi-comical parody.
I have never ever been more thankful that I don't live there.

Hardly.While the Patriot Act may seem like a repressive piece of legislation,its not a massive step up from past national security legislations.And in practice its been useless.It has neither stamped all over human rights like many democrats and 'liberals' said it would nor has it stopped any terror attacks or arrested any actual terrorists like its advocates said it would.Its worthless and takes away from real debate that might actually save some American people ilke discussing Bush's foreign policy and the lack of co-operation and laziness of the US intelligence structures.

Victor

Hobbes wrote:

There was sunset clauses for portions of this. That is what Bush is now trying to get amended so it cannot be changed at a later date.

Not really. Any act can be amended by a future act, all you need is the appropriate majorities. A sunset clause specificly says the act (or parts thereof) doesn't apply after X date.

Quantum

murphaph wrote:

On the contrary, you don't need an intelligent electorate to make a powerful country. Like I said before anyway, corporations and individuals you've never even heard of run the world.

Jeeez... and I thought it was the Tooth Fairies... :rolleyes:

The truth is that the electorate of America are very intelligent.

The problems are these - firstly very few of them bother to vote, secondly a lot of them know very little about the outside world, and thirdly they are frightened with the spectre of daily threats to every city and town across America and 24 hour coverage of "The war against terrorism".

They are being kept in this constant state of fear for purely political reasons by the Bush Republicans with the collusion of the elite right wing media and the aquiescence of the media in gerenal who are afraid of having their patriotism questioned.

'We are at war' is the daily chant by the republicans in response to any whisper of criticism. That together with 'putting our soldiers' lives at risk' appears to be enough these days to silence the majority of criticism across America. Added to that is the Voice and attack-dog of the White House, FOXNews where O'Reilly, Hannity-the-barbarian and his colleagues spit their vitriol in the faces of anyone who dares challenge them.

Captain Trips

Quantum wrote:

Jeeez... and I thought it was the Tooth Fairies... :rolleyes:

The truth is that the electorate of America are very intelligent.

Here's a response. It's actually a comparison of the US DoE IQ stats per state versus states that voted Bush in the majority for the 2004 eletions.

There's nothing shocking in it, as it's common knowledge that the north eastern is more highly educated than the rest.

Furthermore, remember that we meet the NY, Boston, Chicago people mostly, or the people from wealthy states here in college, etc., . The US is a predominantly rural population where around 200 million of it's 270 are in towns of 50,000 or less.

A trip to the CIA world factbook can help dispel a lot of myths.

Hobbes

Victor wrote:

Not really. Any act can be amended by a future act, all you need is the appropriate majorities. A sunset clause specificly says the act (or parts thereof) doesn't apply after X date.

and people keep telling me Bush would never be able to run for a third term because he can't change that law.

Hobbes

Hobbes wrote:

and people keep telling me Bush would never be able to run for a third term because he can't change that law.

Would that not require a constitutional ammendment ie a vote from the electorate first?

sceptre

Earthman wrote:

Would that not require a constitutional ammendment ie a vote from the electorate first?

It would (to effectively amend or repeal the existing 22nd amendment), though ratification by a two-thirds majority in each congressional house and by three-quarters of the state legislatures would do rather than an actual referendum in any state.

xm15e3

Sand wrote:

B)The US is very far from unfree, and the concept of a police state is not really workable where there are more guns in the hands of the people than there are households. There are parts of the US that rival Mogadishu for guns per capita and distrust of central government.

And that's the purpose of the 2nd Amendment in a nutshell. Citizens have rifles, subjects don't. Which is probably part of the different "mind set"

I've lost more personal freedom due to the economic fall out of Trial Lawyers Association (DNC Contributors) lobbyists than I have to the Feds laws. Other than lame TFRs every time a herd of elk pass gas, I've seen absolutely no loss in personal freedoms since 9-11. We've got plenty of legal/Judicial problems that completely overshawdows the Patriot Act.

xm15e3

Quantum wrote:

The truth is that the electorate of America are very intelligent.

No more or less than anywhere else.

Quantum wrote:

The problems are these - firstly very few of them bother to vote, secondly a lot of them know very little about the outside world, and thirdly they are frightened with the spectre of daily threats to every city and town across America and 24 hour coverage of "The war against terrorism".

Something like 61% Voted, we average between 30-40% depending on election. How would this compare to Ireland and the EU?

Quantum wrote:

They are being kept in this constant state of fear for purely political reasons by the Bush Republicans with the collusion of the elite right wing media and the aquiescence of the media in gerenal who are afraid of having their patriotism questioned.

If you think American's are living in some perpetual (I'd infer Orwellian) state of fear, you don't know much about us. Sounds like you've been listening to NPR.

Quantum wrote:

'We are at war' is the daily chant by the republicans in response to any whisper of criticism. That together with 'putting our soldiers' lives at risk' appears to be enough these days to silence the majority of criticism across America. Added to that is the Voice and attack-dog of the White House, FOXNews where O'Reilly, Hannity-the-barbarian and his colleagues spit their vitriol in the faces of anyone who dares challenge them.

Oh come on, there is public dissent daily. In fact, we've tolerated crap from the like of Charlie Rangle that probably would have been prosecutable during the Vietnam era. It's not the opposition that can't be heard, it's the opposition that won't shut up. We've heard their argument, somewhere around 41% buy it, the rest don't.

Elite Right Wing Media....now that is right out of the Franken/Moore parallel universe. You mean Right-wingers like Ted Turner, Dan Rather, Ted Koppel, Katie Couric, Tom Brokaw? More Americans get their news form late night comedies than from network newsrooms. For better or worse.

bonkey

xm15e3 wrote:

More Americans get their news form late night comedies than from network newsrooms. For better or worse.

Jon Stewart - you gotta love him

I've seen absolutely no loss in personal freedoms since 9-11

"Seen", "been affected by", and "could be subject to, in accordance with the law" are entirely different things.

The loss of personal freedom has been blown out of proportion, but it does exist.

jc

Quantum

bonkey wrote:

Jon Stewart - you gotta love him
-The loss of personal freedom has been blown out of proportion, but it does exist.

I'm not sure I buy into that one.... Freedom is a little bit like being pregnant... either you are or your aren't....

The Patriot Act is an enormous Act that was brought in as a knee jerk reaction to 11/9 and permits roving wiretaps and so-called “sneak and peek” warrants (preventing the person whose property is to be searched to assert his or her Fourth Amendment rights), adds new terrorist crimes, knocks down the wall between foreign and domestic intelligence, amends the definition of domestic terrorism and makes many other changes too numerous to list.

Of course the honest men and women of the law enforcement agencies in the US would never misuse or abuse such power. Never :rolleyes:

Normally, the Fourth Amendment requires law enforcement officials to obtain a warrant based on probable cause before searching a person’s home. The standards are relaxed if the subject is suspected of being, say, a foreign spy. The Patriot Act lowers those standards even more....
Previously, the FBI could only obtain business records from vehicle rental agencies, transport services, storage facilities and similar places. Now, the Patriot Act enables them to obtain “any tangible things,” which can include library records, health-care records, logs of Internet service providers and other documents and papers. All requests because all the FBI has to show is that the records are sought for an authorized investigation !

I suggest that at this stage Americans can pack up and take home their historical boast of being the Land of the Free. It's getting tired and comical.

bonkey

Quantum wrote:

I'm not sure I buy into that one.... Freedom is a little bit like being pregnant... either you are or your aren't....

Surely, given that every nation has its own rules, none of us are fully free, so we can only speak meaningfully to look at it in relative terms.

Put a different way, I couldn't tell you if a Swiss or an Irish person is or is not free, because I don't know what freedoms one must have to what degree to meet some cutoff point (nor would I expect that we'd ever necessarily agree to a T as to where that cutoff point was).

I can, however, compare them against each other and conclude which offers more/less freedom in particular aspects of law, and can maybe conclude which aspects in which nation constitute unacceptable practices regarding the suppression/denial of freedom (although, again, I'm pretty sure no two people would ever agree 100% what is or is not acceptable).

So to me its a relative thing. If you can draw the lines for yourself as to where freedom starts and not-freedom begins, then maybe for you it is black-and-white.

Of course the honest men and women of the law enforcement agencies in the US would never misuse or abuse such power. Never :rolleyes:

Of course not

I was more trying to draw the distinction between losing some freedom and actually being directly and personally affected by the loss of said freedom.

Having said that, I do believe that the US - even with this new legislation - is comparatively more free than most nations. Maybe its slipped otu of the top 10 and down into the mid 20s or low 30s were we to rank nations on their comparative freedoms, but if we were to believe some of the police-state / fascist-state / etc. allegations, it should be ranking far lower.

The Patriot Act lowers those standards even more....

Don't get me wrong. I think the Patriot Act is - overall - a kneejerk POS which should be thrown out en masse at the earliest possible opportunity. I just think that the condemnation of the effects of the PA overblow its significance somewhat. It does not turn the US into some sort of western oppressive regime comparable to the likes of Saudia Arabia (f'r example) or Afghanistan under the Taliban, or Germany in WW2 (cue Godwin), but if one were to listen to some of the detractors, thats what one would be led to believe. Thats all I meant by it being overblown.

I suggest that at this stage Americans can pack up and take home their historical boast of being the Land of the Free. It's getting tired and comical.

I would suggest that the historical boast was no less comical than the current. Wasn't it coined when it was the "Land of the Free (Land-Owning, White, Male)"

Quantum

bonkey wrote:

Surely, given that every nation has its own rules, none of us are fully free, so we can only speak meaningfully to look at it in relative terms.

Put a different way, I couldn't tell you if a Swiss or an Irish person is or is not free, because I don't know what freedoms one must have to what degree to meet some cutoff point (nor would I expect that we'd ever necessarily agree to a T as to where that cutoff point was).

Perhaps - but there is probably a lot of similarity between most people in the EU, and when law enforcement starts to gain powers such as those in the Patriot Act surely it crosses a line - such as when they can so easily search your house when you are out and not have to even tell you they did it ? And when they can so easily gain access to information about people's lifestyle history, reading history and medical history ?
At least previously there were controls based on judges approval to a reasonable degree of necessity, where this Act did away with most of those controls.
Across the board the controls in the US are now more and more exercised within the law enforcement agencies themselves and decisions they make are essentially rubber stamped, where they are even required, by the judiciary.

And all of this in a land of 300 million people, as a result of one (appalling though it was) attack. It is clear to me that the motivations for this Act were far deeper than this one attack. It was the perfect excuse for the extreme right wing faction that Bush is at the centre of, to bring in the kind of powers they had been looking for for years. They're justification being the cliche'd "if you haven't done anything then you have nothing to fear" drivel.

Having said that, I do believe that the US - even with this new legislation - is comparatively more free than most nations. Maybe its slipped otu of the top 10 and down into the mid 20s or low 30s were we to rank nations on their comparative freedoms, but if we were to believe some of the police-state / fascist-state / etc. allegations, it should be ranking far lower.

Which.... when you look at the state of most of the 180 or so states in the world, is not such a wonderful thing.

Don't get me wrong. I think the Patriot Act is - overall - a kneejerk POS which should be thrown out en masse at the earliest possible opportunity. I just think that the condemnation of the effects of the PA overblow its significance somewhat. It does not turn the US into some sort of western oppressive regime comparable to the likes of Saudia Arabia (f'r example) or Afghanistan under the Taliban, or Germany in WW2 (cue Godwin), but if one were to listen to some of the detractors, thats what one would be led to believe. Thats all I meant by it being overblown.

Fair enough, but isn't that setting the bar extraordinarily low ? to say "at least they's not at the level of Saudi or North Korea..." when they should be looking at places like the EU as a comparison. And the way things are going they are slipping farther and farther down below the EU.

murphaph

Quantum wrote:

And all of this in a land of 300 million people, as a result of one (appalling though it was) attack. It is clear to me that the motivations for this Act were far deeper than this one attack. It was the perfect excuse for the extreme right wing faction that Bush is at the centre of, to bring in the kind of powers they had been looking for for years. They're justification being the cliche'd "if you haven't done anything then you have nothing to fear" drivel.

I agree. The elements controlling government were wanting to control us people (the world over) more and more and this gave them ample 'reason' to impliment it in the US. I think that's a fundamental reason why these 'dark forces' behind governments are so fearful of Islam, because it has no real hierarchy to allow the believers in that faith to be controlled by their faith alone. It's a scary agenda that these foks have and we don't know the half of it.

bonkey

Quantum wrote:

Fair enough, but isn't that setting the bar extraordinarily low ?

Probably

to say "at least they's not at the level of Saudi or North Korea..."

I was more pointing out that suggestions that they are already that bad (or as close as bedamned) are exaggerating the situation.

when they should be looking at places like the EU as a comparison. And the way things are going they are slipping farther and farther down below the EU.

Agreed, but lets not forget that they're dragging us down with them in many ways. Nor is the EU (nor any nation) an ideal model of freedom.

Of course, many Americans and Amerophiles will no doubt disagree that the US is losing necessary freedoms, rather making necessary sacrifices in the name of preserving the "greater" freedom. This is (almost amusingly) usually coupled with an insistence that Europeans just don't know the horrors of having attacks on their homeland and/or regular terrorist strikes against them.

jc

xm15e3

bonkey wrote:

Jon Stewart - you gotta love him

True

bonkey wrote:

"Seen", "been affected by", and "could be subject to, in accordance with the law" are entirely different things.

The loss of personal freedom has been blown out of proportion, but it does exist.

jc

Agreed, absolutely. Any loss of personal freedom by the Patriot Act is dwarfed by the day to day crap state and county gov. tend to impose. If the US is no longer in the "Top 10" free countries, it would be due to impositions of the right to private property, freedom of association, and complete twisting of the 1st Amendment. All of which is out of the scope of the Patriot Act.

IMO, the Patriot Act is overly hyped. For the most part it gives law enforcement access to the same type of information, with a warrent, in the digital age that they would have had in the analog/paper world. (A warrent to tap a land line now applies to cell, porbably email, and voicemail as well) My understanding is that all of these "new" searches still require a warrent. If I'm wrong, I'd be glad to switch to the anti's side on this issue.

axer

I think Ireland & others should invade the USA to liberate the american people from their government that continues suppress their freedom (plus I think they have weapons of mass destruction too!!)