How many of us legitimately have time to read legislation? How many of us know what to do in the event we don't like what we have read? How many of us are really concerned if just a couple of little ol stinking rights are taken away? As crazy as it sounds there are people that don't care saying crazy stuff like, we needed to have that right taken to protect us since times have changed from the days the constitution had been drafted. A prime example of this lunacy are contemporary gun laws that often receives the same argument and in most cases ban guns that have not been used in any crimes and does not curb any violent crime rates at all.
All gun laws do is take guns out of the hands of the law abiding citizen, place them in the hand of the criminals who never sought conventional means of purchasing fire arms anyway and make it harder for the average citizen to protect themselves. A majority of crimes take place outside of the home vs inside. Try nowadays to protect yourself without going to jail for being successful at it now. It is extremely important to be aware any infringement on our constitutional rights whether warranted or unwarranted as well as the proper channels to take to circumvent or protest such abuses.
The Patriot Act sold many of rights down the river. this Act in addition to others contain dozens of pieces of legislature we generally have no knowledge of until we are personally affected. Luckily we have groups such as the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) among others that fight the types of issues. To this day they still call for reform of this act although they have already forced some modest changes in it's provisions. They have sued the DOJ challenging the constitutionality of the NSL's (national security laws) the act awarded. In April 2004, they filed suit against the government on behalf of an unknown Internet Service Provider who had been issued an NSL, for reasons unknown. In ACLU v. DoJ, the ACLU argued that the NSL violated the First and Fourth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution because the USA PATRIOT Act failed to spell out any legal process whereby a telephone or Internet company could try to oppose an NSL subpoena in court. The court agreed, and found that because the recipient of the subpoena could not challenge it in court it was unconstitutional.
Congress later tried to remedy this in a reauthorization Act, but because they did not remove the non-disclosure provision a Federal court again found NSLs to be unconstitutional because they prevented courts from engaging in meaningful judicial review. Prior to all of this although reported afterward in November 2005, BusinessWeek reported that the FBI had issued tens of thousands of NSLs and had obtained one million financial, credit, employment, and in some cases, health records from the customers of targeted Las Vegas businesses. Selected businesses included casinos, storage warehouses and car rental agencies. An anonymous Justice official claimed that such requests were permitted under section 505 of the USA PATRIOT Act and despite the volume of requests insisted "We are not inclined to ask courts to endorse fishing expeditions".
Critics such as EPIC and the ACLU strongly criticized the law for violating the Fourth Amendment. In 2004, FBI agents used this provision to search and secretly examine the home of Brandon Mayfield, who was wrongfully jailed for two weeks on suspicion of involvement in the Madrid train bombings. While the U.S. Government did publicly apologize to Mayfield and his family, Mayfield took it further through the courts. On September 26, 2007, judge Ann Aiken found the law was, in fact, unconstitutional as the search was an unreasonable imposition on Mayfield and thus violated the Fourth Amendment.
Laws governing the material support of terrorism proved contentious. It was criticized by the EFF for infringement of freedom of association. The EFF argues that had this law been enacted during Apartheid, U.S. citizens would not have been able to support the African National Congress (ANC) as the EFF believe the ANC would have been classed as a terrorist organization. They also used the example of a humanitarian social worker being unable to train Hamas members how to care for civilian children orphaned in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, a lawyer being unable to teach IRA members about international law, and peace workers being unable to offer training in effective peace negotiations or how to petition the United Nations regarding human rights abuses. Another group, the Humanitarian Law Project, also objected to the provision prohibiting "expert advise and assistance" to terrorists and filed a suit against the U.S. government to have it declared unconstitutional. They succeeded, and a Federal Court found that the law was vague enough to cause a reasonable person to guess whether they were breaking the law or not. Thus they found it violated the First Amendment rights of U.S. citizens, and struck it down.
Perhaps one of the biggest controversies involved the use of NSLs by the FBI allows the FBI to search telephone, email, and financial records without a court order. However the most troubling aspect of the USA PATRIOT Act is the immigration provisions that allow for the indefinite detention of any alien whom the Attorney General believes may cause a terrorist act. Russell Feingold, in a Senate floor statement, claimed that the provision "falls short of meeting even basic constitutional standards of due process and fairness [as it] continues to allow the Attorney General to detain persons based on mere suspicion". Before the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, Anita Ramasastry, an associate professor of law and a director of the Shidler Center for Law, Commerce, & Technology at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle, Washington, accused the Act of depriving basic rights for immigrants to America, including legal permanent residents. She warned that "Indefinite detention upon secret evidence — which the USA PATRIOT Act allows — sounds more like Taliban justice than ours. Our claim that we are attempting to build an international coalition against terrorism will be severely undermined if we pass legislation allowing even citizens of our allies to be incarcerated without basic U.S. guarantees of fairness and justice." This is just one of several acts that have horrid potential, most of which I will cover in future posts.
There have been many other critics of this Act as well. However we can not take for granted the the small number of those who do fight for any particular issue or trust in our heart of hearts that our viewpoints will be represented accurately and whole heartedly unless we do that for ourselves. But how can we do it if we have no time?
We are in a shameful political where congressional figures claim not to have time to even read the legislation they pass. Let's not forget the revealing scene Michael Moore displayed in his critically acclaimed blockbuster Fahrenheit 9/11 where Congressman Jim McDermott alleging that no Senator read the bill and John Conyers, Jr. as saying "We don't really read most of the bills. Do you know what that would entail if we read every bill that we passed?" Congressman Conyers then answers his own rhetorical question, asserting that if they did it would "slow down the legislative process".
Mainstream media conglomerates that place real issues on the back burner in order to supply force fed issues, financial institutions making money hand over fist receiving bailouts. I just don't understand why everyone knows the stimulus money would be better spent in the terms of giving every tax paying citizen a check, and not one voice was heard saying so until after the stimulus had passed with Rep. Ron Paul (R) Texas stating this on the D.L. Hughley show of all places (CNN) 3/8/2009. No disrespect to Mr. Hughley but Rep. Paul's argument would have been better made on the congressional floor as well as unamiously accepted by the public. Leaving only the bureaucracy to further expose their lack of regard on truly stimulating the economy. Which is one of my main concerns of the stimulus plan.
Naturally people would take that money and place it right back into the economy. Certainly there are those that would go shopping blowing their whole check on clothes and jewelry. Just as well as their would be those that would invest in stocks/bonds, small bussinesses of their own, an existing business that would invest in their infrastructure etc. Speaking of infrastructure that is where the stimulus is going, to rebuild the infrastructure of the United States.
Which on one hand is not a bad thing unless your industry of profession has no way to capitalize on these rebuilding plans or has no way to benefit from industries that do. Which is no way a direct stimulus. The government at this point would never consider or support giving each adult American a check when they have such a rare opportunity to rebuild infrastructure. Which of course will help bridges, parks and roads. But let's take into account the technology that has developed in recent years. Technology that is ever more intrusive into the privacy of our citizens. Always look at the underlying factors associated with any major moves from Washington.
It's completely understandable with this complete lack of time to study these types of things, but it is extremely imperative that we do so. Otherwise you will perhaps one day find ourselves the victims of a plethora of things we are unaware of such as video cameras on every corner, higher police to citizen ratios, our phone calls under constant surveillance, martial law type practices and RFID chips to monitor your every move and transaction. Money is being taken from education to fund these types of projects everyday, nine thousand layoffs of California teachers alone as you read these words. The national statistics are virtually similar across the board.
The underlying goals of RFID technology in relation the New World Order is frightening and I advise you; if you have no time to look into any other issue please Google these topics together and seek the truth for yourself. In doing so you may find things you will never believe, possibly may refuse to believe as far as intent is concerned. Unfortunately that is exactly what the powers that be look for you to do. They would like nothing more than for you to leave them to their own devices, dismiss any opposition as unfounded or mere conspiracy theory. Whatever you do, do not accept, purchase or volunteer to accept any type of RFID technology whether on your person or products containing these chips. This for all you religous buffs is the real life Mark of the Beast you have read about for centuries! Don't believe me? Find the time to prove me wrong. I warn you in advance I as well as people of my caliber and greater, of incredible stature have predicted by way of open minded reasoning these wars and financial collapses among other things to happen!
Qoutes courtesy of Wikipedia.org
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