Details of the Patriot's Act

[cuppajoe]

Does anybody know details of what the newest "Patriot" Act contains? Perhaps we need a "Dummies Guide to the Patriot Act." I remember that Bush was extremely eager to get this one passed, so I assume he needed to have it in place for his own purposes.

It would be good to know what's in it.

[Nathan Morrison]

cuppajoe, the part I remember the most is that it is now illegal to report the news, at least when it involves the administration. Investigation into 9.11 is also a crime under the newest version.

I'd love to see you grab the actual law from the congressional records and post it here.

This is one we need to examine thoroughly in order to best understnad it's implications and how to undo it in the name of citizens rights.

It has always been my contention, that since the Congress is not authorized to pass laws that are in violation of the Constitution, that the Patriot Act has never been valid. If confronted with this law in court, that would be my primary defense. The congress CANNOT legislate away our rights. Even should they choose to try (as they have done with the patriot act) those laws are not valid.

[wyldberi]

I'm in agreement with Nathan concerning the Constitutionality of the Patriot Act.

The U.S. was established through armed conflict with the British. It was the British who flinched first and relinquished their claim to any right to rule in the American Colonies.

Collectively, the American colonists based their new government upon the rule of law to which all citizens were equally subject, British common law that supported the concept of individual liberty over and above the right of government to interfere with individual liberty, the concept of separation of church and state, and limited federal authority.

The Constitution was created to strengthen the authority of the federal government. The compromise was achieved by explicitly stating what authority the federal government possessed, placing within it the phrase: "all powers not explicitly granted to the federal government herein are reserved to the individual states and to the People", and by including the Bill of Rights to guarantee the government would never violate the rights of citizens.

The Constitution is the supreme, absolute law of the land. No act of Congress, no government regulation, and no executive order or decree can supercede or conflict with what is contained within this document. It is the legal compact between the People and the government by which the government acknowledges the sovereignty of the People. When the government claims otherwise, it relinquishes its right to govern.

By claiming the government has the right to violate or ignore the Bill of Rights and other Articles contained within the Constitution, the so-called Patriot Act, and the Homeland Security Agency have disqualified themselves from operating under any federal authority.

This same principle is currently being called into play with regards to the Geneva Conventions. When ratified, this international treaty became an ex post facto part of the Constitution. It, too, has become the supreme law of the land. The only thing our government can do to modify this treaty is to formally abrogate it by declaring we will no longer adhere to the terms contained with it. The moment we do that, each signatory to the treaty must decide on its own if it will continue to abide by the terms, and if so, will that compliance apply equally to the United States.

On another note, the attempt to pass retroactive laws to make legal acts that have already been committed by the bush cabal is completely illegal and void of all consequence. I'll post the reference to that when I find it.

[wyldberi]

cuppajoe said:

Does anybody know details of what the newest "Patriot" Act contains? Perhaps we need a "Dummies Guide to the Patriot Act." I remember that Bush was extremely eager to get this one passed, so I assume he needed to have it in place for his own purposes.

It would be good to know what's in it.

bush's eagerness to have the Patriot Act passed was merely going along with what other authoritarian zombies wanted. He was assured by his masters it would forward his agenda, so he jumped on that bandwagon.

In actuality, the original Patriot Act consists of a smorgasbord wish list of items the law enforcement community had wanted to have in place but were precluding from having due to the Constitutional rights of citizens and the concern for individual privacy. Even as this bill was being passed in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, some commentators were pointing out the fact that there was no way the monster legislative package could have been put together in the short time span that had elapsed after the disaster, and that legislators were not even given time to read or have their staffs read the bill before it came to the floor for a vote.

[Nathan Morrison]

Wyld, FANTASTIC WORK HERE> That explanation was a masterpiece. I'll be distributing it to my daily readers in my column as such. Very well done.

We need voices like yours, tell this to everyone you know~!

[wyldberi]

You should have read the analysis I just did over at the Malloy forum concerning the reforms that need to be created to take back our democracy. Trouble is, I'm ostansibly working in an office this afternoon and got interrupted a number of times. By the time I finished the piece, without my knowing, I'd been timed out and when I hit the button to post the message my words disappeared into cyberspace as the screen appeared asking me to log in again.

I hate it when that happens.

[cuppajoe]

Is it illegal [yet] to read and know the contents of the Patriot's Act? More of that Orwellian doublespeak, huh, the title of this bill, I mean, a bill that IDs us as patriots as the bill takes away our rights.

[wyldberi]

cuppajoe said:

Is it illegal [yet] to read and know the contents of the Patriot's Act? More of that Orwellian doublespeak, huh, the title of this bill, I mean, a bill that IDs us as patriots as the bill takes away our rights.

I don't think the understanding is illegal. But I'm pretty sure they've got it fixed so that if/when we get arrested for some violation we will not be told what that offense was; that information will be "classified for national security" "reasons."

The same will hold true for the location where you are sent for detention. It could be to Syria or Tajikistan, or Guantanamo Bay, or one of the prison facilities being constructed by Haliburton at remote locations throughout the U.S. Your friends and family who are not arrested will not know where you are. You will have been disappeared.

In Central and South America, those who were "disappeared" by the School-of-the-Americas-trained death squads were frequently pushed out of flying helicopters over remote locations; sometimes living, sometimes having been executed with a bullet first.

[Nathan Morrison]

Here is a link to the text of the Act:
www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

And here is the ACLU page on the implications of the Act pertaining to Surveilance in a domestic capacity:
www.aclu.org/safefree/resources/17343res20031114.html