Patriot Act to be Expanded

[HipHopaholic]

"Give liberty or death, Its freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody"

[L3thal Veteran]

"Give liberty or death, Its freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody"

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:yes: (Y)

[rumbleph1$h]

You have to understand that the FBI isn't this suprime entity. It is made up of people, all of which are subject to evil intentions. With the safeguard in place, a malicious FBI agent would be much less likely to commit an illegal act of searching because of the higher possibility of being caught and punished. After all, it would require him avoiding a judge's decision which would make it much more obvious. Without the safeguard, the chance of getting caught decreases, which makes the incentive to commit the crime more worth it.

The safeguard helps protect against people in the FBI performing acts of malice or stupidity against people like us (or people with darker skin, or certain names).

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Let me go ahead and ask this: has a federal judge ever denied a warrant / wire tap to the FBI under PATRIOT provisions? The answer is NO if you didn't know (i.e. that says to me that FBI can't be bothered with abuses).

There are still several safeguards to protect civil liberties. Keep in mind this will likely only be used for cases in which time is of the essence. An administrative subpoena does little more than request the information - and CANNOT be enforced without the review of a federal judge (i.e. the FBI cannot both issue and enforce it). The recipient is able to challenge the subpoena's reasonableness (under 4th amend) in a federal court before complying. A federal judge must be notified of the administrative subpoena AND, the FBI must report directly to various committees in the House and Senate for Congressional review. To me, this leaves very little room for abuse. With all the bad press the PATRIOT Act has received lately, you can expect the FBI to avoid any negative images at all costs.

All of you who feel this will somehow trample on the privacy, freedoms, and civil liberties of U.S. citizens - how do you feel about the FBI's administrative subpoenas in criminal investigations? Surely these investigations include a much broader spectrum of the population than terrorism investigations, yet nobody cares. Congress has granted administrative subpoena authorities to most all federal agencies - as code monkey mentioned earlier. It's hard to see how this became such a radical idea.

I thought this was a good quote by Sen. Jon Kyl: "One can hardly contend that although the federal government can use subpoenas to investigate Mohammed Atta if it suspects that he is committing Medicare fraud, it should not be allowed to use the same powers if it suspects that he is plotting to fly airplanes into buildings."

[ChiefChickenWing]

In the aftermath of the Red Scare, and the whole Hoover debacle (sanse McArthy) we have SEEN, firsthand, how these types of Government provisions can, and have been, abused.

I am very happy you are secure with your personal, and Idyllic, view of our Government agencys, Rumble. I dont have that faith, as they are human, and in the history of this country, even those with the very best motives have been proven to be acting in idiotic ways, and making nasty mistakes. But hey, you cant PROVE the FBI ever abused its powers, tight?!? And you cant PROVE that the state and local police have ever abused their powers, right?!?

But hell, I am ALL for ignoring our own history. I am more than happy to look at our country and base my decisions on how this CAN be abused, as opposed to how it HAS been abused. You call it paranoia, I call it looking at our own history and seeing that its been done, and since we are human, History is bound to repeat if we give it the chance.

So why is it, when people ask others to look at the history of our country, and SEE how our Law Enforcement officials have made mistakes and abuses in the past, its so dificult to actually see where these abuses and actions can occur. I am GLAD you are so optimistic that you believe, without a doubt, that these abuses wont happen. I am not that optimistic, nor do I swallow everything they feed me and say "Thank you Sir!!" afterwards. I keep an eye on it, and if it looks funny, and smells funny, I will go with my gut and call "Shinnanegins!!", and if I am wrong, you can be ****ed off at me all you want. Just reallise, what you are saying, and speaking against (people being worried about the govenrment making mistakes and abusing its power, and heading these issues off at the pass) is a central part of America, and its freedomes. If we didnt speak against these things, I would be much more worried.

And asking what has ahppened with the Patriot Act to this point, to cause concerns, would be like asking what would happen when McArthy deceided to take his actions, and go his path, BEFORE any of it started. You cant make that call, but looking at our own history, I wold rather err on the side of previous experience and take actions that way, as opposed to take action, ignore previous experience, and just deal with the flak once its started rolling downhill. I dont believe everything the Government does is bad, I just have alot less faith in thier overall benovolence than you do, and am happy to admit it, and MORE than happy to speak out about it. Well, unless that makes me unpatriotic and stuff. Or it makes me a Liberal. Or....ah hell, whats it matter, have the people arguing FOR the Patriot Act wont read through the first 23 lines because I disagree..... ;)

[Dashel]

I strongly suggestion everyone go find a copy of the latest P&T episode of Bull****! - Big Brother. I love those guys and it does a fair job of showing why so many of us are ****ed off about this tripe.

[sfay]

I see it as a double-edge sword. On one side you have the freedoms we have come to expect and some of them are now slightly lessened, yes it sucks and yes I see it as a problem that could become larger and larger as the powers of the PA are expanded (if anymore). On the other side its not tough with enough intelligent people to take full advantage of our loose system to slip through the cracks and become invisible. Now imagine the FBI has to go before a judge for each and every wire tap and persuade the judge to allow it on non-concrete evidence. It's like pulling teeth, and sometimes worse. So then the FBI gets denied the wire tap and misses critical information, like say they are planning on detonating a bomb in a major train station. The information passes by the FBI because they are unable to get someone to sign off on the wire tap, and the NSA has too much intel to go over in a quick amount of time. So the bomb goes off and thousands of people die, the FBI is seen as a failure and once again the system of freedoms that we have gets bent-over (if you will).

I see both sides and the real trick is reaching the happy medium. Right now I don't see news reports of people having their rights trounced over for no good reason, so I don't see it as all evil at this time. What the expansion puts in I don't know, so I will reserve judgement for a later time.