Civil liberties we are losing?

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Tex

Your experience is obviously narrower than your swipe.



And somehow Arch gets away with claiming that I'm most condescending poster ever.



You didn't point out anything of the sort. We're all talking in hypotheticals.

What about the guy in Iraq that was detained for 97 days? I don't know if that case fell directly under the Patriot Act or not, but it does fall under the broader issue of whether civil liberties may be eroding. You'd expect a US civilian citizen under control of the US army to still have Constitutional rights, yet he was specifically told those didn't apply and they were going to hold him as long as they felt like it. Finally they checked his story that he had been working for the FBI and found out he was telling the truth. But it took 97 days of harsh imprisonment before they even bothered to find out. Had he been allowed to speak to a lawyer it could have been cleared up a lot faster. The current attitude of the government towards civil liberties is what allows stuff like this to happen.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BlueK

What about the guy in Iraq that was detained for 97 days? I don't know if that case fell directly under the Patriot Act or not, but it does fall under the broader issue of whether civil liberties may be eroding. You'd expect a US civilian citizen under control of the US army to still have Constitutional rights, yet he was specifically told those didn't apply and they were going to hold him as long as they felt like it. Finally they checked his story that he had been working for the FBI and found out he was telling the truth. But it took 97 days of harsh imprisonment before they even bothered to find out. Had he been allowed to speak to a lawyer it could have been cleared up a lot faster. The current attitude of the government towards civil liberties is what allows stuff like this to happen.

But that's just one person, so one person no harm no foul. Besides it wasn't Tex or a family member so it really doesn't matter.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Archaea

But that's just one person, so one person no harm no foul. Besides it wasn't Tex or a family member so it really doesn't matter.

By the time this crap is happening on a larger scale it's going to be way too late to do anything about it.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by BlueK

By the time this crap is happening on a larger scale it's going to be way too late to do anything about it.

That's the libertarian's point. We don't want it to become widespread, that's why we scream at every little incident so that it doesn't. If it becomes widespread it won't be fixable.

[FMCoug]

Originally Posted by BlueK

By the time this crap is happening on a larger scale it's going to be way too late to do anything about it.

That's my point. I don't care whether it is happening on a wide scale in this country. The law is on the books that it COULD. That's bad enough for me.

[BarbaraGordon]

Originally Posted by NorCal Cat

I don't see how the Patriot Act or anything else has affected my civil liberties other than having to sign some extra forms when I get a mortgage or something similar.

Kind of late to the thread. Here's my thought NorCal. This country has never been about what affects "me." If this country had operated under such principles, women would still be disenfranchised and "Negroes" would still be enslaved.

The juxtaposition of Cheney's refusal to turn over documentation with the Donald Vance story is truly telling. This era in our history is all about the abridgment of rights of the common man (sure it's not you, it's not me...and yet it could be), combined with the extension of privilege of those in power. It's a dangerous precedent.


ps.
Wow...I leave you guys unsupervised for a week and the threads descend into turf wars between the programmers and the attorneys? Crazy.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by BlueK

What about the guy in Iraq that was detained for 97 days? I don't know if that case fell directly under the Patriot Act or not, but it does fall under the broader issue of whether civil liberties may be eroding. You'd expect a US civilian citizen under control of the US army to still have Constitutional rights, yet he was specifically told those didn't apply and they were going to hold him as long as they felt like it. Finally they checked his story that he had been working for the FBI and found out he was telling the truth. But it took 97 days of harsh imprisonment before they even bothered to find out. Had he been allowed to speak to a lawyer it could have been cleared up a lot faster. The current attitude of the government towards civil liberties is what allows stuff like this to happen.

Taking one (or a few) anecdotes and extrapolating that onto the entire country is a very poor course of logic.

Originally Posted by Archaea

But that's just one person, so one person no harm no foul. Besides it wasn't Tex or a family member so it really doesn't matter.

Originally Posted by Cali Coug

No- you are talking in hypotheticals. I am talking about abrigements of civil liberties that have actually occurred and are continuing to occur.

I think you'll have to make a more convincing argument than simply saying so. The prospect that "some" liberties might be denied to "some" people under "some" conditions is far too vague.

We live everyday with the reality that we cannot be perfectly free, at least by a libertarian's definition. In peace time and in war time.

Dick Cheney is not the end of western civilization, despite what the haters say.

[Tex]

In addition, you'd think after nearly six years, if there were going to be widespread civil rights abuses, they'd be happening. How many years of onesies and twosies do we have to wait before we acknowledge, yeah, civil liberties weren't really curtailed all that much?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

In addition, you'd think after nearly six years, if there were going to be widespread civil rights abuses, they'd be happening. How many years of onesies and twosies do we have to wait before we acknowledge, yeah, civil liberties weren't really curtailed all that much?

Onesies and twosies are what are publisized. Think about it, if a cop pulls over somebody for drunk driving, the statistics show that person has been driving drunk many times before.

So a few have been publlisized, how many have not?

And more importantly the constant complaining by a few libertarians might be the reason why the government is more limited in its abuses.

There should NEVER be an abuse of civil liberties, and if it is ever allowed, then it could get out of control. Once it's out of control we will never regain a position to maintain them. You mist that point.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Onesies and twosies are what are publisized. Think about it, if a cop pulls over somebody for drunk driving, the statistics show that person has been driving drunk many times before.

So a few have been publlisized, how many have not?

Oh come on, Arch. You don't really find this persuasive, do you? How many silently oppressed are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of Thousands?

Sounds like paranoia to me.

Originally Posted by Archaea

And more importantly the constant complaining by a few libertarians might be the reason why the government is more limited in its abuses.

There should NEVER be an abuse of civil liberties, and if it is ever allowed, then it could get out of control. Once it's out of control we will never regain a position to maintain them. You mist that point.

That's just wrong. There is ALWAYS a balance between liberty and security. No system is perfect, and there will always be someone, somewhere who overstepped bounds and violated someone's civil rights.

The question is, do we have good laws that are generally enforced, and are the rights of the average American generally uninfringed upon?

If the best you can do for the past 6 years is scare tactics, than I think my point is made.