Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 8:29 am:

Hello again, Elg.

So, you bought into that right wing propaganda "....if you have nothing to hide...."?

Then set up a camera in your bedroom, I would like to see if you do anything illegal. And, even if you don't, I'm sure my friends at the fed would enjoy looking.

Oh, ho. You do have something to hide, after all?

You're teaching young minds. They won't learn crap if teach them with slogans. I suggest that really think about the things you say, and what they really and truly mean.

Of course, you'll say that you're a professor, and you know what those things mean. Well, I'm an exconvict and I say you don't.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 8:44 am:

And, let me add this. It's easy to spout slogans, and suggest that you and your family's doors are wide open, when you know (at least you think you know) that that in not likely to happen (at least not to you, as things presently are).

But, if the feds pulled up in front of your house, and did a number on you - because they wanted to, because an enemy snitched on you, because you have too much money, because you're a Jew, a Catholic, in the real world (where I live - and you don't), you wouldn't like it one bit.

Now, tell me that you would.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 9:05 am:

I'm not done.

Here's the flat out truth. The only way to guarantee that the feds won't search you, is to make sure that they can't search anybody (without due process, as your Bill of Rights calls for).

You right wingers slay me. You always have a list of people who shouldn't enjoy the same rights you do. It's interesting, you're never on that list.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 9:17 am:

And, I'm still not done.

If you think it's ok to even have a list, someday you will be on it. That is a no-brainer.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 9:21 am:

Nope, not yet.

Before you protest about a list, let me tell you who's probably on yours:

Exconvicts, dope smokers, illegal aliens, homosexuals and people whom the government thinks are bad.

The rest are guesses, but not bad ones: Commies, liberals, poor people, blacks, homeless people, Muslims, Mexicans. Am I close? Come on. You can tell us.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/29/04 9:50 am:

I'm done.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by Bishop_Chuck on 08/29/04 2:12 pm:
Commies, liberal, poor people, blacks, homless, muslims and mexicans ???

forgot the worst of the worst, those French and honestly those Swill bother me some too.

Clarification/Follow-up by tomder55 on 08/30/04 4:46 am:
Re; secret searches :

In 1978 the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (passed by Congress in the aftermath of the Church hearings and signed by Jimmy Carter ) created an exception to the Fourth Amendment's "probable cause requirement" for searches, and wiretaps . FISA created a secret court that granted search warrants so long as a pleading before a closed court asserted that the primary purpose of the search or wire tap was to gather foreign intelligence. The warrant needn't be based on a suspicion of criminal behavior. But the target had to be linked to foreign espionage.

Again ;this is not new legislation .It was consolidated along with other law enforcement provisions into the Patriot Act.The impact of the act lies in the way it has facilitated intelligence sharing.

Clarification/Follow-up by kindj on 08/30/04 6:52 am:
By the way, I don't mind being called a "winger," but I much prefer "wingnut."

DK

Clarification/Follow-up by excon on 08/30/04 9:53 am:

Well, I guess I'm not done:

Elg, I know that you read my remarks, and you still answer with the same BS that say's you're doors are wide open.

They're not. Nobody's are. I know it, and you know it. Me thinks, you prevaricate, are a hypocrite, and afraid to argue with me in public. Instead, you still throw around slogans.

Thank God, I'm not one of your students.

excon

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 08/30/04 10:59 am:
Excon,

I fail to see why the Patriot Act is a Jewish issue.

Frankly, I have no issue with government secrets, or secret societies. Secret groups are hampered by the fact that they are forced to operate in secrecy. Its when they come out into the open that we need to worry.

And the fact remains that NOBODY has had their rights abrogated by the Patriot Act. Conspiracy theories about how we wouldn't know it if they were are complete bullsh*t. We weren't supposed to know that there were any enemy POWs at Guantanimo... but we do. There is no such thing as a government secret. ESPECIALLY not with regard to the Patriot Act. Every watch-group from the ACLU to the ADL to the Librarians' Union is watching the government for even a hint of iregularities with regard to the Patriot Act. If there was even the slightest little bit of a loss of rights to anyone causd by the Patriot Act, it would have been splashed all over the front of the NY Times and the Washington Post, and Michael Moore would already be filming another docu-drama.

Elliot