Comments on: Must we renew the Patriot Act?

CNET News.com's Declan McCullagh wonders how taxes and drug testing relate to catching terrorists.

[shrippyshram]

Its not Pork, its better Planning

The items that you list in the first section as either "bizarre" or "relevant" are overall relevant. The only measure in that section which seems to be irrelevant is the methamphetamine crimes items. But this is only because terrorist or terrorist support involvement in methamphetamine crimes is extraordinarily rare. Meth precursor chemicals, sure, but not meth itself.

The rest of the measures all share one thing in common: discouraging and deterring direct and indirect logistical and conspiratorial support for terrorists. Some businesses engaged in the sale of counterfeit cigarettes have been linked to terrorist support. Its commonly believed that terrorists "case" their targets, making the "no casing" provision a no-brainer. Many suspected terrorist come here as students or tourists, not as government attaches as spies did in days of old, making many provisions of the FISA inapplicable to their activity, even though the Patriot Act was designed to make FISA applicable to their activity. And what about smuggling? Increasing the penalty helps to deter--and flip, in the event they are caught--mere support personnel who may not have been assigned or prepared to take the fall or martyr themselves in a campaign. If you aren't a hardcore jihadi, a measure like this might give you second thoughts about being the guy who was "just supposed to pick up the package."

But you know, that's cool. If you want to second guess the professional lawmakers and investigators about why they want or need the tools that they do, based on your broad experience REPORTING on TECH NEWS, you're welcome to. (I often forget the reporters are masters of all trades. I have some free time this afternoon, if you want to come by and tell me how to do my job, too.)

Just don't insinuate that men and women whom you don't know and never will are "power mongering liberty-haters." Media skepticism has gone too far if public servants are now presumed to have nefarious hidden agendas. If that were true, there would be no hope for America.

[jlarsen]

Please pass the Koolaid

I just don't know what to say to you other than wow. You honestly believe that our professional lawmakers are out for our own benifit and not for relection, you are kidding yourself.

Trusting our government and government officals to play nice with rights and liberties is not something I'm willing to do. Perhaps you really believe that the government has the people's best interest at heart, but I really think you need a history lesson before making comments like that.

Expansion of government powers always comes at a price. Now we are trusting our government to spy on whoever they choose without their knowedge. If you don't think this will be abused you really need to pass me the koolaid.

The basis for our government was built on the fact that people should not trust it. Checks and balances were put in place because the founding fathers knew that governments always move toward corruption.

So some terrorists might use contraband cigs to fund themselves, they also might use busses to get around. Should we put in security guards and ask people to show their papers before boarding a city bus?

If people aren't doing anything wrong, why should they care if the government comes in to their house? Lets get rid of that pesky 4th ammendment because people should trust their government to be unintrusive.

Trust of government is one of the worst things that someone can do. Look at a law and try to figure out how the government will try to use it to subvert our rights.

The patriot act is bad law. I don't care how many lives it has saved (assuming it has saved any at all). It tramples on the Bill of Rights, it gives up our individual rights to the government under a false hope of safety.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Ben Franklin

[ebrandel]

As I always like to remind myself

most journalists majored in... journalism. They are skilled in the art of writing seemingly knowledgable articles about topics they know very little about.

McCullagh has already let his anti-Bush, anti-Repubplican bias out of the closet several times in the past and here's yet another article showing this to be true.

[hardedge]

Easiest Answer Possible

Yes.

[thomcarl]

History often repeats its self

yes is what the majority of Germans said to Hitler in the 1930's.

[ddesy]

Ouch....

I guess you want to live in an Orwellian world.

[bcsaxman]

Nothing Worthwhile Is Easy ...

... including answers.

Giving an uncritical "yes" to a law like the Patriot Act ignores the lessons of history, as well as the specific warnings of our Founding Fathers.

To the extent something like this is needed at all, it should be preceded by rigorous debate, written so that it accomodates the freedoms its supposedly intended to protect, and paired with strong oversite of the agencies that want to use it against a largely innocent populace.

If that's all too difficult to manage, than I would approve of only one "easy answer":

No.

No, to the Patriot Act.

[casper2004]

The Patriot Act should have been called the new world order.

I think there is a hidden agenda with the Patriot Act. I feel it was designed to drag the USA to the new world order.

[heystoopid]

Oh well,

Oh well, what price freedom and democracy, at the rate that GOP pad the patriot act with additional draconian sub clauses, soon even the simple act of littering on the sidewalk, will become a felony offence!

[Catgic]

USA Citizen Surveillance Improvement & Reauthorization Act

Replace the term ?Patriot? in the USA Patriot Improvement & Reauthorization Act of 2005 title with ?Citizen Surveillance? to accurately describe the effect Pat Act 2005 legislation will have on U.S. citizens.

If passed as written, it will be Big Bro: 1, Citizens: 0. JP B-)

[KittyAW]

Those Who Initiate Force in Name of Government

The fact that many making comments here in support of the so-called "Patriot Act" is ironic. Would these individuals themselves hack into their neighbor's emails, tap their phones, break into their homes, steal their cars/boats/computers, interfere with their voluntary mutually beneficial transactions, assault them? I suspect that most would immediately say "No" to these activities. But if to do these acts is wrong for one individual against another, what makes it right when an agent of the government does it? Most of these individuals I suspect have never spent time considering this fundamental question. They simply accept the proclamations of some persons who have been voted for by the majority of those voting residents of a location. The voters and the elected are willing to impose their will on others - at the point of gun of enforcers. Were there however, very few willing to actually initiate force, governments would be powerless and would soon wither and die. So, maybe these posters, and their friends who think likewise, are actually among the government enforcers and their direct supporters, or would be willing to take up the guns themselves against their neighbors and initiate force "in the name of government".

The current enforcers, their direct supporters and even those, like certain posters here, who praise and encourage government force are among those with whom I choose to have no voluntary association - and I urge others to do likewise. The tool of social preferencing against government enforcers - and even those who directly or actively support/encourage such initiation of force - can be a powerful tool of social influence. To simply cast a vote against certain politicians is worthless since all seek to physically interfere with/control the actions of others. But a reduction of the numbers of those who would enforce the edicts/laws/regulations of those politicos is really cutting into the power base. http://selfsip.org/focus/preferencing.html


**Kitty Antonik Wakfer

MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org
Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality
Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org
Rational freedom by self-sovereignty & social contracting

[James Anderson Merritt]

The challenge of a free society

The terrorists do not hate us for our freedoms, our wealth, or our way of life. If we give up our liberties to enable the government to protect us from terrorists, we are gullible fools who deserve what we get. The riders on the present PATRIOT reauthorization act only go to show how unimportant true homeland security is, and how important control over people's lives and behavior is to our small-minded politicians.

The challenge of the free society that the USA was supposed to be is a challenge for (and to!) government: our government is obliged by the weight of our tradition of liberty, not to mention the so-called "chains of the constitution," to find ways to conduct its business -- including protecting us from invasion, insurrection, and piracy -- without infringing individual rights. IF THERE IS A WAY to get its job done without infringing individual rights, government should choose that path before going down a road that requires "we the people" to surrender any rights or liberties.

So you have to ask yourself: is there anything that government is doing, and could either do differently or quit doing entirely, which leaves us less secure; which enables or encourages terrorists; which can't help but turn others against us?

I think any honest person, looking dispassionately at our government's history of dealing with not only foreigners but also citizens during times of crisis, must agree that there are a LOT of things that government could change about the way it does business, which would not affect American freedoms one bit, but which would noticeably lesson tensions outside and inside the US borders, making us much safer by giving malcontents -- foreign and domestic -- less motivation to take desperate measures such as terrorism.

Why doesn't government try doing some of THOSE things before giving up and concluding that civil rights must be sacrificed for such things as the PATRIOT Act? Why aren't we demanding that they do so, and further demanding accountability from those who fail to put the people's freedoms first?

Unless the people discipline their elected officials -- tossing out those who demonstrate that citizen liberty, secured by strictly limited government, is NOT their primary concern -- we'll keep getting crap like the original PATRIOT Act and this bloated monstrosity of a re-authorization Act.

Don't fall for it. Let the politicians know you won't tolerate this silly game. Let the sunsetting provisions of the PATRIOT Act lapse and behold the world continuing to exist and life going on -- the sky still above our heads and in no danger of falling.

[bdonohue1]

Geek trumps mass media

A very impressive piece, with detail that I hadn't found at cnn,
msnbc, or any other mass media political news outlet. In other
words, a geek at c-net trumped the big mass media boys. I've
posted a link to it at my blog, Daily Revolution.