Personaly i view the clause that says im removed from the US at anytime the goverment is Nice compared to the old fasioned way of Threatening me/killing me or puting me in an internment camp.
Viva la mexico/australia/Cananada
the patriot act is, in several ways, wrong. it is analogous to using a rocket missel to swat a fly, when a fly-swater would do.
but it is something, it is a step taken to psychologicall reassure a shaken country. i think, that for the nation, it is necessary.
not that the masses are right. they’re not. but i think that this is what they demand.
it’s an easy sell to a punk-nose kid in england that the patriot act will bring about the end of democracy in the free world as we know it, and that the usa is turning into a facist state. it’s also an easy sell to a middle-aged housewife in idaho that ‘those brown people’ who keep killing our boys in iraq, (when all they are doing is helping them!) and will, given the chance, blow up the entire country.
it’s too easy to look at it either way. the act will probably be improved if it were given a sunset clause, so it would have to be renewed every couple of years, or something in the middle ground. i doubt any politican would openly denounce the entire act, especially with elections coming up. also remember that there is a thing called the constitution in american, (yeah, they got to write theirs down) and any part of the bill, once passed is up for court challenged. and courts, mostly, do not need to listen to the masses in their rulings.
All I ever got from police was tickets, well deserved parking tickets : (
When my house was robbed, no investigation.
When my ex gf and her sister were raped, investigation for 1 wk. No results, no call, no records. (funny, I found em easy enough. They were living the same neighborhood.)
When my car was stolen, no investigation.
Furthermore, it has been ruled that the police have no duty to an individual, simply to the public at large. So says my laywer when I wished to sue. And it is frightfully difficult to prove negligence to the public at large.( And by thier own admission, only about 22% of cases are ever resolved)
So, while distrusting the competance of the city police, I have decided not to rely on them at all. Any bill that gives them more leverage in my life will, Im sure, not help me in any fashion.
My concern about the Patriot Act is the sweeping powers it gives to unaccountable bodies with already extraordinary diciplinary power. First there were witches, then there were criminals, communists, drugs, terrorists - when will the fearmongering end? Our Western societies are inculcated to fear as a reflex. Thankfully, most of us on this site are thinking beings, who don’t just take Bush for his word (or those that are put into his mouth). Here’s to an open society.