America is beyond salvation

[Tim May]

On Thursday, October 25, 2001, at 08:42 PM, Mark Talbot wrote:

>> Dangerous? Yes, there are dangers to a mandatory national I.D. card, 
>> but
>> there may be greater dangers without one. The fact is, to live in a 
>> society
>> as vulnerable as ours, we may have to give up something - but I 
>> disagree
>> that what's lost is freedom. Instead, it's privacy, and maybe not even 
>> that.
>
> This guy is clueless: privacy is a form of freedom.
>
> I have yet to see a post 9/11 scheme that would actually enhance my 
> safety in any significant way. Even police states have terrorists.
>

The United States Government supported the Chechen "freedom fighters" 
who blew up a couple of apartment building blocks in Moscow. Hundreds 
died.

But this was not terrorism...this was freedom fighting.

Now that the U.S. has been hit so hard, the party line in the U.S.G. is 
shifting rapidly.

As for the USA/PATRIOT law, about to be signed into law tomorrow, 
Friday, October 25, with enforcement to "begin immediately," I am not 
too worried about roving wiretaps. That's just technological evolution 
of the standard old judge-approved wiretap.

No, what worries me a great deal is the all of the language about 
terrorist organizations and what happens to those who "provide support" 
for some claimed terrorist organization. There is even frightening 
language (available by grepping the text) about how the asset 
forfeitiures, arrests, detentions, etc. should not be done for ordinary 
first amendment practitioners!

(Language like: "provided that such investigation of a United States 
person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected 
bythe first amendment to the Constitution.'';")


The USA/PATRIOT bill was hastily put together, with most 
Congresscritters have essentially no idea of its implications for 
building a police state. The U.S. Congress wastes more than a year 
debating the impeachment issue over the Lewinsky affair, blah blah blah, 
then races to construct an American Reich with barely any discussion.

Disgusting. The nation is beyond salvation. America is preterite.

--Tim May
"Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice."--Barry Goldwater