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Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage
I can safely say that 99% of Americans will not be a part of any terror investigation. But hey, I guess you got me here....
How many Americans have been jailed indefinitely without a trial?
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As opposed to addressing each point which would take a long time, I'll answer fundamentally one, and point you to a site to review the entire history of this mess.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/t...es_patriot_act
Within this link is an excellent quote:
"Several congresspeople submit a list of 50 questions to Attorney General Ashcroft, asking him how the Patriot Act is being implemented (see October 26, 2001). [New York Times, 7/14/2002] For instance, they ask, “
How many times has the department requested records from libraries, bookstores and newspapers? How many roving wiretaps has the department requested?” Ashcroft refuses to answer many of the questions, even though he is legally required to do "
In other words your assurances of 99% cannot be confirmed at all since former Attorney General Ashcroft would not even answer the simplest of questions regarding this. Gonzalez did the same citing National security.
This goes to the crux of your question. what rights have I lost? You may feel that nothing fundamentally has changed regarding your own personal loss of rights, but the government via the Patriot Act has been given a much wider leeway in ignoring your personal freedoms. And your right of redress is drastically diminished, as well as your ability to even know or find out. Even Freedom of Information requests are rountinely now ignored by this WH citing national security.
So how many have been affected? Truthfully, we do not know as the WH has refused to share that information with us. We know some of the most egregious cases, but since the WH refuses to reveal the number of times they have invoked the Patriot Act and the number of times they've used it as opposed to prior law we're left to simply "trust them" without any acountablility. The government is not required to list the number of false arrests of American citizens it makes.
We know from Iraq we cannot trust what this WH tells us. Even Scott McClellan has tried to get that message out that there was more interest in propaganda than information. Paul O'Neill tried to reveal the same, as did Richard Clarke.
So if you choose to beleive you've lost no fundamental rights as a citizen, then by all means keep beleiving it. This WH relies on people like yourself to keep beleiving that. Just as they did that Al queda and Saddam Hussein were intrinsically linked and Hussein had massive stockpiles of WMD's poised to send a mushroom cloud over our cities. I would have thought you'd have learned by now, but your beleifs are so entrenched with this administration that it is hard to admit that perhaps you may have been wrong about them.
They're out of office in a few months, and whoever is elected it will be a better America for the Bush team's exit. No one could ever convince you because you've already made up your mind. You've bought into their madness and now you spend your time still trying to justify it.
