Wednesday, 4 August 2004 - 9:58 PM CDT

(i) Due to the secrecy provisions, you wouldn't know when secret premises or library/business record searches have happen now, would you?

(ii) It's irrelevant whether or not these provisions have been used, yet. The measures are there for establishment of the security state and to chill dissent. The Nazis billed the Decree for the Protection of Nation and State ("...warrants for house-searchers, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed...") and Hitler's Enabling Act as necessary and innocuous measures required for "security". In a few years they had full-blown dictatorship. You know the rest of the story.

(iii) The second Patriot Act would allow expatriation of any citizen at what would amount to the president's whim. Let's say they pass that and don't use it for a few years. Would you be comfortable?

Thursday, 5 August 2004 - 10:54 AM CDT

All of these things are subject to judicial review and permission. They are also subject to the logic of our Government's resources. Which is to say, no one cares about how many times Aunt Gladys has checked out Danielle Steele at the local branch library. The Government is interested in knowing whether Ahmed the Yemeni taxi driver has been checking out books on the construction of hydroelectric dams.

We don't have anything in this society but by our own personal interest and vigilance in preserving them. I am glad that there are liberals and Leftists like you around to keep the G's feet to the fire, but I think there is a practical limit to these theoretical argumenta ad absurdum that you keep raising to make it sound like we're on the verge of a police state.

Friday, 6 August 2004 - 12:12 AM CDT

Okay, I'll grant you that some who howl doom on this can be a bit too dramatic. It's easy to go too far with the Nazi parallel as well. Sometimes that includes myself, though I think you really have to worry about the chilling effect. There are several recent COINTELPRO-like cases of infiltration/provocation of non-violent groups exercising free speech.

But let's say Kerry is elected, a distinct possibility. Then would you feel comfortable that the president has Patriot Act powers? Just ask conservative and former Republican Congressman Bob Barr about that one.

Oh, and some of us have been "upset" about torture in US wars and client states for decades, as far back as the days the swift boats grabbed up rice farmers in the Mekong delta for stays in the American-made tiger cages of An Thoi. You ought not pretend you know who "the anti-war crowd" is until you get to know us from somewhere other than Fox or NR.

Friday, 6 August 2004 - 7:35 AM CDT

Now that I've read the Cockburn article you directed me to, I would like to hear more about what Kerry thinks of the prisoner abuses in Iraq. After all, he may very well be guilty of shooting a badly wounded and defenseless man himself. And there ain't no statute of limitations on murder.

As for a Patriot Act-empowered President Kerry, I have nothing to fear. If I am ever snatched up or investigated for what I read or write or do, I will have to stand tall before the man, like anyone else would. I have absolute confidence in the civil liberties inherent in the constitution of my society. If they are ever abrogated unjustly, I will then have the obligation amd, indeed, the sweet privilege of fighting for them, instead of theorizing about how they may be lost someday and losing my mind to Leftist paranoia along the way.

What gets broken may be fixed in a society built on the rule of law and conscience.