We have very little time left as a democracy- the Patriot Act, open-ended weapon against democracy

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Thursday, October 16, 2025 15:16
VIEWED: 18510
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SIGNYM

Thursday, May 19, 2005 2:49 PM

Quote:
Yeah. One can say the same thing about murder. I guess that means we should ignore terrorism all together or at least ignore it when it can’t be labeled specifically “right-wing.”

Finn- did I say "ignore terrorism"? You're doing the usual right-wing thing: when you don't have a cogent argument (which is just about most of the time) you put words in other people's mouths. So tell me- repeat after me so I know that you understand what I'm saying- what DID I say?

SIGNYM

Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:13 PM

Apparently, the story has been yanked from all major internet newpapers like cnn, nytimes etc. I can't even find the original AP article anymore. It may re-appear later, re-cast in less alarming terms.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:23 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Finn- did I say "ignore terrorism"? You're doing the usual right-wing thing: when you don't have a cogent argument (which is just about most of the time) you put words in other people's mouths. So tell me- repeat after me so I know that you understand what I'm saying- what DID I say?

You said that an act of terrorism using arson is not terrorism since arson is covered under other laws. I quote you: “Arson on behalf of a political cause is real. But the problem is already covered by arson, B&E, and other laws.” So evidently, you seem to feel that arson need not be covered under terrorist laws, because it’s already covered under other laws. I’m simply pointing out that the same can be said of murder.

Murder “on behalf of a political cause is real. But the problem is covered by” homicide laws.

And then I wonder, what exactly prompts you to make such an absurd statement that terrorist acts need not be considered terrorist acts at all? I’m not putting words in your mouth; I’m simply logically extending forward your own arguments. That your arguments don’t seem to hold water upon examination is not my fault.

And apparently, when you can’t find a source you supposedly cited, it must be because the information is conveniently suppressed. When evidence doesn’t exist to support your political musings, it must be because of a conspiracy against you! Do you suppose it is possible that these mysterious sources were yanked because they weren't properly vetted or accurate. Based on what the BBC article claims and what you claim these mysterious sources said, that seems like a possibilty, if we are to beleive you.

Not that I'm saying you lied, but clearly, your definition of lie, based on some other posts you've made, is much easier to apply then the actual defintion which requires some sort of intent to misinform.

However, the BBC article that you just cited does not appear to support the argument you’ve made. To begin with, the particularly quote is still not referenced. What is said in this article is “Eco-terrorism has become a serious US domestic security threat, a senior FBI official has told a Senate committee.” (first line) So the cited article does not suggest, as you’ve claimed, that ‘eco-terrorism,’ as it were, is “more than the threat from al Qaida.” Rather it simply says that it is “a serious US domestic security threat.[emphasis mine]” And the remainder of the article supports this. Considering the degree of violent crime committed by these groups, this would seem to be a perfectly reasonable statement, nothing like the way you’ve attempted to spin the issue in the absence of actually cited sources.

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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

SIGNYM

Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:12 PM

Finn- even YOUR quotes were yanked. Go find their source and post their links, OK? The quote I got was cut and pasted directly from cnn. The article is no longer there. You can either believe me (knowing that the same thing happend to YOUR) articles, or not. I see no need to go over the same issue again since I already addresed it.

As far as why the articles were yanked... the BBC did not see fit to pull THEIR article. It benefits from quotes of Lewis saying that ecoterrorism is "one of the FBI's highest domestic priorities." That is pretty much in line with ccn's version of "one of the most serious threats to the nation" but not quite as extreme as the AP quote. I saw no reason to yank the cnn story since it had the same quote from Lewis. I think this is very similar to the politics that prevented to secret UK intelligence memo proving BUSH LIED from getting wide airing here in the USA. I doubt that this story will get ANY play in ANY form. (FYI, in case you want to maintain that reporting was wrong, the memo was never denied by the Blair govt or retracted by the London Times.)

Terrorism. There was a very long thread here on the defintion of terrorism. I think what it boiled down to was violence against ordinary citizens (as opposed to armed force) to create a state of widespread fear for political ends. I don't see ordinary citizens being hurt. In fact, animal-rights activists and eco-terrorists are especially careful not to hurt people. Their activties focus on institutions and property.

But OK- Let's assume that arson falls under "terrorism"... it was the classification of eco-terrorism as one of the TOP priorities of the FBI that made my antennae go up. One of the TOP priorities? The Administration is taking what is basically a low-level problem (110 million dollars in property damage since 1976. Wow. That's a couple of orders of magnitude less than property damage due to pollution) and elevating it to crisis mode. Why? Aren't you curious? It seems far LESS of a problem in terms of damage and lives than about ten other things I could name off the top of my head, all of which are the FBI purview. The only difference between eco-terrorism and all those other far weightier problems is that the provisions of the Patriot Act come into play. Now, I know you NEVER expect nefarious motivations from the Bush administration and I pretty much assume they are SOP. And you know what? My predictions are correct WAAAAY too often even for my own comfort, while Bush supporters have to twist themselves into pretty little knots trying to explain away the obvious.

You can either learn from experience -including the experience of seeing your very own stories yanked out from under you- or not. Hopefully, others will be more open to reality.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 19, 2005 4:36 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Finn- even YOUR quotes were yanked. Go find their source and post their links, OK? The quote I got was cut and pasted directly from cnn. The article is no longer there. You can either believe me (knowing that the same thing happend to YOUR) articles, or not. I see no need to go over the same issue again since I already addresed it.

What articles are those? I haven’t cited any articles in this thread or made any comments that would need external support. I don’t know what articles of mine you’re referring to, but for the sake of argument, if we assume that such articles existed and that they were yanked, I would not suggest that they were yanked in order to suppress the information. I might be inclined to believe, given recent events, that the information was wrong and that they didn’t want to get caught intentionally misrepresenting news.

Your problem is that you insist that your information must be true regardless of the evidence and therefore, if no sources can be found to support it, then it can only be because someone is suppressing it. This is the kind of rhetoric that is generally attributed to conspiracy nuts, which is, unfortunately, about as much legitimacy as your argument has, at this point. Perhaps you can come up with better sources (or sources), but at the moment, it’s suspect. I tend to rely heavily on the evidence, and I don’t see anything that constitutes evidence for what you are suggesting. Now, on the other hand, if there is no evidence, and you’re simply speculating then it would help you a lot to admit that, and we could all speculate together, but insisting that evidence must exist, is not helping your cause.

Right now the gist of your argument is that you seem intent on (1) attacking the Bush administration by artificially claiming that they are making a ‘mountain out of a molehill’ with regards to terrorist from fanatical environmental groups, and (2) attempting to distance the word ‘terrorism’ from Left-wing groups who clearly seem to be involved in terrorist activities. Your whole argument seems to be quite ideologically motivated to insulate left-wing terrorist groups.

And I have yet to see any evidence that Bush lied about WMD in Iraq. Wrong, perhaps, but there was no intent to misinform. Once again in the absence of evidence, this argument nor your current one has any credibility, and claiming the evidence has been suppressed is not good enough. At the moment, both arguments are speculation at best.

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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

SERGEANTX

Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:31 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
And then I wonder, what exactly prompts you to make such an absurd statement that terrorist acts need not be considered terrorist acts at all? . ...

I'm not sure whether Signym made such an 'absurd statement', but I will.

This is really the central problem of the debate. The Bush administration had sought to make a whole new classification of crime for the sole purpose of doing an end-run around due process. The fact of the matter is, everything that is bad about terrorism was already illegal. Every bit of it could, and should, have been prosecuted under the pre-9/11 laws.

But by creating a new classification, and taking advantage of the national fear induced by the terrorists, they've been allowed to run roughshod over due process. Most of us have supported that when the targets have been Islamist Fundamentalists. Those of us who saw the broader implications were labeled 'paranoid' or 'America haters' or whatever.

Now we're seeing where this little subterfuge will lead us. All they have to do is keep adding new members to the 'terrorist' club and they can go after them with the same disregard for civil liberties. It'll take every ounce of effort we can muster to keep it from happening, if it's possible at all.

SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

HERO

Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:42 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
First of all, if you look at the Patriot Act and the defintion of terorism.

...as activity that appears to be intended to (1) intimidate or coerce the government or civil population AND (2) breaks criminal laws AND (3) endangers human life.

The key is that the acts must be criminal. Terrorism is a criminal act coupled with a coercive intent.

As such, Eco-terrorism fits right in. You might argue that most Eco-terrorist acts fail to meet the third criteria, but often such acts employ a reckless disregard for human life and therin lies the danger.

I love the Patriot Act. As a Prosecutor I appreciate the expanded tools it gives us to investigate crimes and prevent terrorist attacks. And it lets me monitor my ex-girlfriend without her knowledge or consent. There's nothing like a Federal search warrant served at 2am to convince her new boyfriend that contact with "persons of interest" aint such a good idea. That slut...

H

SIGNYM

Thursday, May 19, 2005 7:29 PM

Quote:
I haven’t cited any articles in this thread or made any comments that would need external support but...if we assume that such articles existed and that they were yanked

Oh, those were Hero's quotes, not yours. But unless you're thinking that Hero is one of my conspiracy buddies, does it matter whether you or Hero found them and they subsequently disappeared? That is one of those pretty little knots that I'm talking about: You didn't post them and therefore - despite the fact that someone else quotes US sources and despite the fact that the story exists outside of US coverage-they didn't exist.

Quote:
...if no sources can be found to support it

I guess the BBC isn't a source? That's news to them, I'm sure! And so far, the BBC story is still there and still says the same thing so it hasn't been retracted due to "inaccuracy".

Quote:
And I have yet to see any evidence that Bush lied about WMD in Iraq.

Another pretty little knot. Hmmm, let's see... British intelligence says he was lying. I guess that's not evidence. After all, it was only a secret assessment by our major ally's intellignece service.

Quote:
Your whole argument seems to be quite ideologically motivated to insulate left-wing terrorist groups

And based on some loose word association of yours, you've decided I'm a suspect too! Jeez! All freedom-loving people reading this post, please take note- Finn wants to throw you in jail if you disagree with George Bush because that is terrorism!

Finn, instead of you resorting to intimidation is there any way that we can possibly have a REASONABLE discussion? Probably not, but I had to ask.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 19, 2005 8:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
I'm not sure whether Signym made such an 'absurd statement', but I will.

This is really the central problem of the debate. The Bush administration had sought to make a whole new classification of crime for the sole purpose of doing an end-run around due process. The fact of the matter is, everything that is bad about terrorism was already illegal. Every bit of it could, and should, have been prosecuted under the pre-9/11 laws.

But by creating a new classification, and taking advantage of the national fear induced by the terrorists, they've been allowed to run roughshod over due process. Most of us have supported that when the targets have been Islamist Fundamentalists. Those of us who saw the broader implications were labeled 'paranoid' or 'America haters' or whatever.

Now we're seeing where this little subterfuge will lead us. All they have to do is keep adding new members to the 'terrorist' club and they can go after them with the same disregard for civil liberties. It'll take every ounce of effort we can muster to keep it from happening, if it's possible at all.

Okay, fair enough. While I don’t agree with you or your alarmist tone, I do respect your lucid argument.

First of all, terrorism is real. It is not something invented by the Bush administration to stick it to the public. So it is meaningful to caveat murder or other criminal acts when committed in furtherance of terrorism in the same way that it is meaningful to caveat murder when done in furtherance of burglary or conspiracy. Terrorist organizations can be large foreign-based institutions with substantial funding and a small army of terrorists and guerrilla fighters at their disposal, and when these terrorist organizations put their funding and man-power behind killing thousand of innocent people, it becomes a matter of considerable danger and imminent need to impede their progress.

I would argue that pre-9/ll law is not capable of dealing modern terrorism and we have a clear example of that in the 1993 WTC bombing. That was handled as a criminal bombing case with lip service to terrorism. The individuals were prosecuted in US criminal courts under pre-9/ll law, and no consideration was given to the fact that this bombing was simply a small part of a very large conspiracy of an organization that was well funded and well manned from sources external to US jurisdiction. As a direct or indirect result of the inadequate manner in which the law dealt with things like the 1993 WTC bombing we have now experienced the worst foreign attack on US soil in history, the death of 3000 innocent civilians, the loss of a major US landmark and source of economic capital and the loss of billions if not trillions of dollars in revenue. All or part of which might have been avoided had we reacted different to 1993 WTC bombing.

It is also worth noting that while 9/ll was bad, it actually could have been much worse. Each of the towers of the former WTC was cable of housing some 30,000 people. This means that Al Qaeda was effectively targeting 60,000 innocent people, not 3000. Only 3000 people died because Al Qaeda underestimated US emergency response. They may not make the same mistake next time, so the next 9/ll, if it happens, could be much, much worse.

Also dealing with terrorism from policy of willful ignorance may basically guarantee one of two things (possibly both). First, if law enforcement is not given the tools that it needs to respond to terrorist threats, then there is considerable danger of a second ‘9/ll,’ and the death of thousands, possibly tens of thousands and conceivably hundreds of thousands of innocent people. But that is only half of it. By denying law enforcement the tools that it needs to respond to specific threats and the laws that it needs to identify terrorist acts and terrorist threats, to include organizations, you may guarantee that law enforcement will respond to every act as a terrorist threat. Terrorism is a real phenomenon. You can dismiss it as a

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Thursday, May 19, 2005 9:15 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Oh, those were Hero's quotes, not yours. But unless you're thinking that Hero is one of my conspiracy buddies, does it matter whether you or Hero found them and they subsequently disappeared? That is one of those pretty little knots that I'm talking about: You didn't post them and therefore - despite the fact that someone else quotes US sources and despite the fact that the story exists outside of US coverage-they didn't exist.

None of which means or implies that the information was suppressed by the government, and you’re a conspiracy nut.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I guess the BBC isn't a source? That's news to them, I'm sure! And so far, the BBC story is still there and still says the same thing so it hasn't been retracted due to "inaccuracy".

It’s not a source that supports your argument.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Another pretty little knot. Hmmm, let's see... British intelligence says he was lying. I guess that's not evidence. After all, it was only a secret assessment by our major ally's intellignece service.

According to you, the conspiracy nut. Show me a source. One that actually exists; that the evil dark lord shadow government hasn’t suppressed. Anyone can make stupid comments; if you can’t back it up with evidence though, all you have are stupid comments.

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
And based on some loose word association of yours, you've decided I'm a suspect too! Jeez! All freedom-loving people reading this post, please take note- Finn wants to throw you in jail if you disagree with George Bush because that is terrorism!

Finn, instead of you resorting to intimidation is there any way that we can possibly have a REASONABLE discussion? Probably not, but I had to ask.

I’ve decided your arguments are suspect, and based on their entire lack of support, that would seem to be the case. Instead of recognizing the deficiency in your own arguments you instead make up some wholly paranoid story about intimidation. Do you suppose it is remotely possible to have a reasonable discussion with you? I refer you to your previous arguments. For instance, your insistence that the government is suppressing CNN articles because they are crucial to your online debate. This is coming directly from DHS which is dedicated to thwarting online debate. You tell me if it’s possible to have a reasonable discussion with that.

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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.

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