The United States House of Representatives has voted to restrict the Patriot Act so that it cannot be used to pry into the library borrowing and book purchasing of U.S. citizens. You would think that this would be a no-brainer – nobody I know wants to live in a state where the temperatures can reach Fahrenheit 451.
You would think.
However, the Bush administration has promised to veto any such restriction. Explains Republican Representative Tom Feeny, of Florida, “If there are terrorists in libraries studying how to fly planes, how to put together biological weapons, how to put together chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, … we have to have an avenue through the federal court system so that we can stop the attack before it occurs.”
Meanwhile, the Feds are telling ISPs to read the handwriting on the wall, and to start thinking about being required to retain the records of their Internet customers and those customers’ activities for a set period of time. Presently many ISPs routinely delete data after a certain number of days, in large part because the massive amount of data generated by an ISP each day makes it too unwieldy and cost-prohibitive to store in perpituity.
Aunty’s readers will recall that earlier this month ISP RoadRunner was ordered to give up the identity of one of its users in the course of a lawsuit, and generally whether an ISP must breach its users’ privacy by fingering them in legal proceedings in which they are not otherwise involved has been a hot legal topic.
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The handwriting on the wall to which the Feds are referring was written in April during a private meeting between the United States Justice Department, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and several ISP industry representatives.
Said Dave McClure, president of the U.S. Internet Industry Association, “It was raised not once but several times in the meeting, very emphatically. We were told, ‘You’re going to have to start thinking about data retention if you don’t want people to think you’re soft on child porn.'”
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Big Brother (the Untied States government – not a typo!) is now controlling our lives from cradle to grave (and beyond).
Anyone who still believes that we still live in the “land of the free” is sadly deluding themselves. The Patriot Act perpetrated on us by George W Bush has overridden whatever shred of freedom we had left. Dubya should be impeached, convicted, tarred and feathered and ridden out of the United States on a ship to nowhere.
53 million voters (I’m not sure that’s correct) did not vote for the fascist state – they believed that the incumbent would protect them better than the challenger.
Most of the 53 million people had no idea of how far the Patriot Act reaches into our private lives. The ruling party wants to keep us in a state of unease, if not outright fear, so they can take away the rest of our rights/freedoms. The terrorists are not going to use our librares to make bombs; they already know how. They’re not going to fly planes into buildings anymore. They will do their deeds by way of our seriously underprotected ports. As for porn, it’s a multibillion dollar business which is not going to go away, not matter what we may want to do about it.
I have been watching the Bush administrations propaganda, and lies about the Patriot act since it’s inception. I have signed over 100 petitions helping to derail many of this maniacs Gestapo like practices. This is one of he lowest yet. We all have to remember that history has shown with very few exceptions that in fact, once a privilege is taken away, a freedom for lack of a better term, it does not come back. Bush, Delay, and frist seem to think that as long as they feed big business, and line their respective wallets with the cash given them, all will be well, and they can pass any laws they wish. Remember a few weeks ago the chip that would stop all recording. Flags they were called. Well so may manufacturers bet on this feature making them money, and stopping the supposed theft of materials such as movies, recordings, and the like that they started making sets with flag protection to be released this month. It took time, money, and the voices of hundreds of thousands of people just like you, and I but we defeated the flag system, and did so using one of their own judges claiming the flags unconstitutional. This is the same thing over, and over again. The only way we can stop this maniac is with the strength of our voices. Libraries are one of the few bastions of free use we have. To take one book off the shelves makes our system crash. the patriot act is supposed to protect, but it does not. It allows people like the Secretary of education, and Tex the wonder President to run rough shot over our rights. Freedom is the key here, and the melting, and chipping away of those freedoms to make the few rich even richer is the game. Our kids are dying for this land of ours, and what it stands for, but our legislators, and the President are taking huge steps to derail our system of government. To take away what our past countries patriots fought for, and give our Federal government powers it was never supposed to have.
I urge you, and all that read this, and other articles written by just plain folks like me, and you. To take action. Go to sites like Move on Org, and citizens for the American way, Aclu, and others that are fighting the fight that can stop these goons for enacting more laws to benefit themselves.
All of what I have said is truth, and can be backed by article after article. It’s up to us. The Patriot act was fine for the period just after 911, but like the war in Iraq is now past being any help to any except those determined to make a profit at the expense of your young men, ad women fighting for what they think is just, but now too much a tool of business. That is what wars are in most if not all cases. Profit making enterprises hidden behind patriotism. We need to rectify this now. We need to stop the Patriot act, and get our brothers, and sisters home. We have done it before, and we can certainly do it again.
Thanks for reading this if you have. IF you take nothing else away from this I hope it is that our freedom. Our very way of life is being threatened by Nazi like pressures being put upon us by those wishing to make a cause out of greed.
911 was more than a wake up call. It was a warning that bullying as we have in the past will not be tolerated by those who are being killed in the name of some what we think is right. What happened was the worst attack on our soil in history, with the exception of our own civil war which was again more in the cause of the rich than it was to free our black brothers. The Patriot act is one in the same, in the way it eats away at our rights, and makes us the bad guys in our own country. I am a Patriot, and love America. I don’t know about you, but I do not want to see the things we have worked so hard for, our rights, and privileges taken away because of paranoid folks like the ones I mentioned above.
American democracy….or American paranoia? So long, Freedom! :-(
Let’s remember that 53 million people, definitely a large number, is still a decided minority of the population of the US, 20 or 25 % if the total. And the results of polls cannot be quoted out of context and still give any indication of the respondee’s true feelings. Even the best intentions on the part of the pollsters is no guarantee. After all, no-one thinks he is bigoted, incapable of unbiased thought, or that his thinking adheres to a hidden agenda. If you were asked if you favored unrestricted internet access, you might answer differently in a poll that measured support for technology than one that measured your thoughts about child pornography. And if you are given a choice between, say, free internet access or legalizing child pornography, what would you choose.
While anything is possible I find parts of this article somewhat confusing. “You would think that this would be a no-brainer – nobody I know wants to live in a state where the temperatures can reach Fahrenheit 451”. In November 2004, 53million American voters said “they do want this type of state”. Are you sure that you know none of the 53million?
The next one is simply ridiculous when we examine the reality of the situation. “You’re going to have to start thinking about data retention if you don’t want people to think you’re soft on child porn”. Having been personally involved in reporting URLs selling access to child pornography to the FBI, I can say without any doubts that the US government does support child pornography. While my reports did result in a change of URL, a new URL containing the exact same content was delivered via spam the very next day. What did not change was the IP#’s of the servers located in New York and Texas used for credit card sign up for child pornography. Nearly all child pornography is sold using credit cards, which results in a 9-18% profit for the owners of these companies. As long as the government allows such profits and treats these companies as “sacred cows” they demonstrate de facto support of child pornography.