It's just inevitable

[Tim May]

On Thursday, November 29, 2001, at 09:26 AM, Adam Shostack wrote:

>> "One former senior F.B.I. official described the investigation this
>> way: "When you send a whole lot of agents out after a whole lot of
>> people, they're going to find some who committed various crimes. It's
>> just inevitable."
>>
>> http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/national/29DETA.html
>
> (The article focuses on the fact that only about 1% of the 1200
> detainees are suspected of terrorist involvement.  It's a crime that
> they still haven't gotten due process, and we haven't seen their
> names...)
>

I save most of my rage for other fora (forums), but America's rapid move 
to a kind of police state has been faster than even most of us expected:

* warrants no longer needed to invade houses, tap phones, tap computer 
lines...only the say-so of a minor bureaucrat.

* "freezing of assets" (which I call a "taking," subject to due process) 
on the word of a government official, with no trial, no review

* unlimited detention without charges being filed, courtesy of abuse of 
the "material witness" process

* suspension of due process for "terrorists" (funny, how do they know 
someone is a terrorist until a trial has been held?)

* military tribunals for "terrorists" (ditto the above point)

* many cases of folks being stopped for "inappropriate praying" 
(Houston), "inappropriate reading material" ("Hayduke Lives!" novel), 
taking photos of dams (California tourists), etc.

Most of these police state measures were rushed into law, or declared to 
be an Executive Order, without any consideration of the 
constitutionality or the long-term implications.

These laws can and will be used after the 911/Afghanistan thing is over 
to suppress dissident groups, to arrest and hold people like Bell 
without charges being filed, and to wiretap and bug many more people.

Congress spent a year debating the "definition of what "is" is" and yet 
rushed through these Orwellian measures without serious debate. See the 
comments of Congressman Ron Paul in the .sig quote below.

Every Congressman who voted "Yea" on USA-PATRIOT deserves to be strung 
up from a lamp post.


--Tim May
"They played all kinds of games, kept the House in session all night, 
and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually 
read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the 
vote." --Rep. Ron Paul, TX, on how few Congresscritters saw the 
USA-PATRIOT Bill before voting overwhelmingly to impose a police state