BOGUS Republican Argument

Adam Weinberg said:
Considering it was old fashioned on the ground floor intelligence that cracked the case in Britain, and it was the same sort of thing that prevented the recent attacks in Toronto, I don't see any up to date evidence to suggest that our government needs more control over the average citizen or less Constitutional oversight in order to combat terrorism.
Click to expand...

This is just plain wrong. BOTH investigations utilized measures made possible by the MANY changes in post-9/11 intelligence and security policies and guidelines. You simply can't conclude otherwise, without just being void of common sense.

No one has ever advocated "more control over the average citizen" or "less Constitutional oversight" with regard to NSA or anything else. You have a gross misconception of what the actual laws are, and how they are applied. You've drawn up every conceivable horror story you can think of, and made that reality, and when reality presents results like this, you refuse to believe it and continue to decry the false reality you've built.
 
Oh, really?

So, three minutes ago, nobody was qualified to say how these investigations were handled, and now that I've made an assertion on the matter, suddenly you've known all along?

I'm going to say the onus is on YOU, Dix, to show us how and why post 9/11 policies led to cracking the case in London and Toronto.
 
the bad guys in here who want to use terrorism as an excuse to trample all over the Constitution.

In so much as the Patriot Act and NSA WWP are needed to enable government to fulfill it's first and foremost obligation to protect it's citizenry, how do you manage to find a "trampling of the Constitution" in what has been done? I hear people say this all the time, and I have not once heard of an instance where someone had their Constitutional rights trampled, only instances of the GOOD guys catching the BAD guys.
 
Adam Weinberg said:
Oh, really?

So, three minutes ago, nobody was qualified to say how these investigations were handled, and now that I've made an assertion on the matter, suddenly you've known all along?

I'm going to say the onus is on YOU, Dix, to show us how and why post 9/11 policies led to cracking the case in London and Toronto.
Click to expand...


According to Chertoff, the US initiated several key provisions of the Patriot Act, including details about banking records and finance, as well as phone records, to assist the Brits in this investigation. I stand by what I said, no one knows all the details of the investigation, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude, they probably used some of the provisions made legally available for them to use in such circumstances. I certainly don't see where this foiling of a mass terror plot, is any proof that we don't need the Patriot Act or other anti-terrorism tools.
 
Secret searches and gag orders on private citizens and institutions resulting from those secret searches, without a warrant or probable cause are in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The fact is that all of our records and properties and persons are now up for grabs due to the Patriot Act, and it's not just library books. The Patriot Act is a sanctioned form of breaking and entering, privacy-violation and institutional manipulation.

These warrantless searches have been done, before and after the Patriot Act, but after the Patriot Act it is now recognized as legal, and that is a very dangerous power for our government to be granted.

It's not right that your private transactions can be traced against your will, they can be intercepted and documented, and you can be tracked in any number of methods, with all parties related to your records sworn to secrecy by the government if they do obtain those private records.

The Bill of Rights is very clear about this, not only in the Fourth Amendment, but also in the Ninth, which was used to establish our right to privacy.

The government may not search or seize without very clearly describing what they've searched and seized, with a warrant issued under probable cause and the Patriot Act claims to invalidate that essential liberty.
 
The fact is that the vast majority of the Post-9/11 Anti-Terror Gospel Preached by DHS is bunk. Color alerts are bunk.

Most of the TSA system is bunk. The liquid ban is bunk. Racial profiling is bunk. Most of the FAA system is bunk. Not having double cockpit doors five years after 9/11 is bunk. Not having more air marshalls and armed pilots five years after 9/11 is bunk.

These agencies have a lot of everything but common sense.
 
Dixie said:
This is just plain wrong. BOTH investigations utilized measures made possible by the MANY changes in post-9/11 intelligence and security policies and guidelines. You simply can't conclude otherwise, without just being void of common sense.

No one has ever advocated "more control over the average citizen" or "less Constitutional oversight" with regard to NSA or anything else. You have a gross misconception of what the actual laws are, and how they are applied. You've drawn up every conceivable horror story you can think of, and made that reality, and when reality presents results like this, you refuse to believe it and continue to decry the false reality you've built.
Click to expand...

What a totally irrelevent argument. You have no clue. Wiretapping without a warrant is unconstitutional and a violation of FISA. It doesn't matter that no one has advocated those things. They are the inescapable results of Bush's illegal wiretapping program.
 
Dixie said:
According to Chertoff, the US initiated several key provisions of the Patriot Act, including details about banking records and finance, as well as phone records, to assist the Brits in this investigation. I stand by what I said, no one knows all the details of the investigation, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude, they probably used some of the provisions made legally available for them to use in such circumstances. I certainly don't see where this foiling of a mass terror plot, is any proof that we don't need the Patriot Act or other anti-terrorism tools.
Click to expand...

The terror plot is irrelevent to the fact that the Patriot Act is an unamerican infringement of our constitutional rights. There is never any excuse for abrogatng our rights.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
 
Adam Weinberg said:
Secret searches and gag orders on private citizens and institutions resulting from those secret searches, without a warrant or probable cause are in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The fact is that all of our records and properties and persons are now up for grabs due to the Patriot Act, and it's not just library books. The Patriot Act is a sanctioned form of breaking and entering, privacy-violation and institutional manipulation.

These warrantless searches have been done, before and after the Patriot Act, but after the Patriot Act it is now recognized as legal, and that is a very dangerous power for our government to be granted.

It's not right that your private transactions can be traced against your will, they can be intercepted and documented, and you can be tracked in any number of methods, with all parties related to your records sworn to secrecy by the government if they do obtain those private records.

The Bill of Rights is very clear about this, not only in the Fourth Amendment, but also in the Ninth, which was used to establish our right to privacy.

The government may not search or seize without very clearly describing what they've searched and seized, with a warrant issued under probable cause and the Patriot Act claims to invalidate that essential liberty.
Click to expand...


Yada yada yada... 10-20 Commercial Airliners are still in the air today, and countless innocent people aren't resting in peace at the bottom of the Atlantic. That's the bottom line.
 
zoombwaz said:
The terror plot is irrelevent to the fact that the Patriot Act is an unamerican infringement of our constitutional rights. There is never any excuse for abrogatng our rights.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
Click to expand...


You know, if we were talking about disturbed clowns going around hitting people in the face with cream pies, I would be on the side of you and Adam here, I would simply say it's not worth sacrificing any of our freedom for security against the threat, and we would just have to put up with the occasional clown popping up out of nowhere with a cream pie.

I think there is a fundamental disconnect, you people genuinely don't comprehend the nature of the threat here. These radicals have studied our way of governing, our Constitution, our freedoms, and they have devised ways to exploit those freedoms to their advantage in order to perpetrate terrorist acts on innocent people. We can either ignore the problem, or we can take measures to make it more difficult for them to exploit our freedoms. The problem you have is, these measures encroach on your own freedoms as well, and you simply don't understand the magnitude of the threat we face.

Here we are, five years into the Patriot Act, and literally dozens of terror plots foiled because of these provisions, and you have yet to give an example of someone having their Constitutional rights violated. In theory, you can argue this or that is a violation, but when it comes to examples, you struggle to find any real good ones. The fact of the matter is, normal everyday people are not having their rights violated at all, some people are being inconvenienced at times, and those who are up to no good, are being caught and apprehended before they commit terror.
 
!. Should the fear of terrorism be used to manipulate people for other interests outside of fighting terrorism ?
 
AssHatZombie said:
A. Do you think terrorism is something harmful?
B. Should we fear harmful things?
Click to expand...
It would honestly depend on the statistical chances of the reality of such an attack hitting you personally that should make you "fear" such an attack.

You have a far larger chance of dying in a swimming pool than in any terrorist attack in the US. Should we fear swimming?

Now should we fight such attacks? You bet. These are people who wish to do harm. Should we fear them? No, not really. Should we logically and practically look at how they were able to do such things and stop access to such? Yes, definitely.
 
Damocles said:
It would honestly depend on the statistical chances of the reality of such an attack hitting you personally that should make you "fear" such an attack.

You have a far larger chance of dying in a swimming pool than in any terrorist attack in the US. Should we fear swimming?

Now should we fight such attacks? You bet. These are people who wish to do harm. Should we fear them? No, not really. Should we logically and practically look at how they were able to do such things and stop access to such? Yes, definitely.
Click to expand...


No. Honestly it doesn't depend on the chance of personal harm. A nation is a social construct in which we internalize the fears and victories of other individuals of the nation.

Fear of unwelcome outcomes does prompt people to think logically and practically to prevent such an occurence.
 
I lean more towards Damos response AHZ.
A fear driven response being used by this administration is what got us into Iraq...
 
uscitizen said:
I lean more towards Damos response AHZ.
A fear driven response being used by this administration is what got us into Iraq...
Click to expand...


Any action taken would have been a "fear driven" response, because terrorism is scary, dangerous and should be feared. Fear doesn't necessarily result in irrationality. You may disagree with the solution the administration offered, but that has little to do with "fear". Only an idiot would not fear a terrorist attack.

I think the most rational response would be to curtail mulim immigration, but most people are too afraid of being called a racist to take that reasonable action.
 
I do not FEAR a terrorist attack.

I have lots more "fear" umm expectations really of dying in an auto accident.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top