#1 If Hillary wins in 08 how will you feel about unlimited government spying on private citizens?

#2 With open immigration these laws become permanent

#3 It is un-american

#4 The most despotic regimes have the same power




I'm not real comfortable with allowing the government these kinds of power especially with what I see in our future.

I understand your concern about the potential abuse in government spying.  In truth, government spying is not a new thing.  Every government always has and always will sanction spying.

The two most fundamental roles of goverment are:  maintaining law and order and providing for our national defense.  Spying is a necessary evil in accomplishing both these fundamental and necessary goals.

The major concern about spying in modern times; is that we have such powerful technological tools that are available to both government and private individuals.

Between satellites, computer technology, wire tapping technology, etc. - the ability that we have to gather information on individuals and groups is at an unprecedented and frightening high.  We are living in an imformation age that our grandparents could have never envisioned.

Anyone wanting to live out their life with the same kind of freedom that our grandparents enjoyed needs to cut up their credit cards, stop shopping in stores, stop using all forms of public transportation, disconnect from the internet, throw away their cell phones, and build their home in a remote area with overhanging trees thick enough to block out satellite images.

The loss of some of our personal liberty is an unfortunate  by-product of progress.  I don't think many of us are prepared to give up any of the modern conveniences mentioned above.

For me, the really bad news is this:  Like it or not, there are both evil and good people who will use this vast amount of technology to further their respective agendas!!  And yes, some of them will be terrorists, some will be foreign govts. who wish us harm, and some will be our very on elected officials who will abuse the technology now available to us.

IMHO, it would be a hugh mistake to 'handcuff' those people in government who are charged with preventing evil people from doing us harm.  Those people who are charged with protecting our way of life - need to have the same tools available to them; as do those who wish to do us harm!!!

If we lose our ability to effectively maintain law and order and provide for our national defense, we will be left with a society living in anarchy.

I agree with ditto. As much as I hate government spying, we need it to win the WOT.

candance wrote:I agree with ditto. As much as I hate government spying, we need it to win the WOT.

But when will it stop or will they pass laws making it more intrusive ?  There really should be accountability on pulling warrants for surveilience just in case they screw up and do some harm to someone who didn't deserve it.

We can't just give them free reign to spy for no reason. But it's a complicated issue.

Why does this admin. refuse to use the system set up just for this activity?
Why do they refuse to keep records?

candance wrote:We can't just give them free reign to spy for no reason. But it's a complicated issue.

Yeah, right...complicated.

Why is this complicated?

Maybe they want to rehaul the system because the system failed to stop 9/11.

Al Qaeda's attacks on America under the old system: 7

Al Qaeda's attacks on America under the Patriot Act: 0

When facing a relentless enemy, we have to be in it together to win. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus to win the Civil War. FDR rationed food and everyday items to win WW2. Those people didn't feel like the Nazis had already won. They toughed it out for the sake of winning, because they knew that if the Nazis really won, they'd lose a lot more than a few luxuries.

I agree the Patriot Act should be limited. But for now, it does seem to be working, and we don't have cases of perfectly innocent American housewives ending up in prison.

I'm fine with surveillance of phone calls to & from known terrorist phone numbers, as long as that's where it ends.  These are extreme circumstances and I  think that this surveillance is useful and necessary.  I don't find this surveillance to be a general threat to the 4th Amdt.

However, I do worry about its potential misuse, especially under a Hillary Clinton Administration.  The woman is a totalitarian communist who I do not think would hesitate to misuse powers to spy on political adversaries.

I guess we just have to wait & be vigilant about misuses of the power afforded by the Patriot Act.

Eyas:

I don't know of any violations due to the application of the Patriot Act. The survelliance of telephone calls however applied to known terrorists outside this country to individuals in this country and vice versa. The libs howled endlessly about this being a complete intercept of all telecommunications when it was not.
There was NOTHING said about "Project Echelon" and Clinton using it to intercept and monitor ALL FORMS OF COMMUNICATIONS.

They dismissed the illegal aquisition of 900 FBI files, the illegal use of the White House Computer system to keep and maintain a database of campaign donors. There was little to nothing said on their end about the illegal intercept and recording of a phonecall between then House Speaker Newt Gingrich and another congressman by an eldderly couple. That recording was given to Congressman Dick Durbin who broadcast that on the air. They fought against the appointment of an independant council if I'm not mistaken because that would have led to Durbin's prosecution, conviction and removal from the House and shifted the balance of power from the Democrats to the Republicans.

There is deception on both sides, too often it seems clear it is the Democrats who are actively accusing Republicans of things they are doing themselves.

It's so obvious.