Can A 16 Year Old Boy Undo The Patriot Act?

The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act was cobbled together shortly after 9/11. Fear and hysteria gripped the nation and the Congress responded with a severe curtailment of individual rights under the guise of protecting people from terrorism. While there might be a few good things in there, much of it violates the Constitution. That was certainly the case for young Ashton Lundeby, and now his story might be the way to repeal or at least have the bill rewritten so that it respects our Constitutional rights. Regardless, it still needs to be repealed or rewritten.



Update: The answer is no unfortunately, Wired Magazine explains it here.

Airport TSA Coming To A Subway Station Near You

Get ready to take your shoes off when getting on the subway. Well not really, but the TSA employees that demand it of travelers at airports will be coming to New York's subway stations to replace some of the NYPD officers that make random bag searches. It's bad enough that the cops are allowed to randomly (and ineffectually) stop straphangers without probable cause or reasonable suspicion.

Now it'll be even worse:

MYFOXNY.COM - EXCLUSIVE: The New York Police Department is shrinking, and the department can't hire the number of cops it would like to. Fox 5 News has learned that help is coming from security screeners at the area airports. They'll be replacing some police officers in the subway who do bag searches. But some critics say this is just another clear example that the economy has affected security.

Within the next two months, Transportation Security Administration bag screeners from Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airports will be replacing most NYPD cops in the subway that screen bags for explosives.[...]

This is how it would work: About 30 TSA screeners a day will be pulled from the three area airports Monday through Friday to inspect bags at various subway locations throughout the city. At each location they'll be teamed up with one police officer instead of the two or three officers you currently see at inspection sites.

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association is blasting the plan, saying despite the city's financial crisis the city needs to hire more cops. According to the PBA, the city has 4,000 fewer cops on the street than it did in 2001.

Hiring more cops is another issue but the idea of putting the TSA at subway entrances is a terrible idea. They're bad enough at the airport, at worst abusing travelers and at the least acting as if they really made the airports secure. There is no way thirty of these people can keep the M.T.A. secure. Their presence, like that of the NYPD's current bag searchers is an act that either makes people think they're safe or simply that they have to trade their liberties so that it appears law enforcement is doing something to combat terrorism.

Seriously, leave the TSAers at the airport and put the cops on the trains where they can actually be of some assistance.

Dana Gould On NRA, Take My Freedoms As Long As I Can Keep My Gun

On Real Time with Bill Maher, guest Dana Gould made a great point about guns and the NRA. While not all of their members are on the fringe, many that are help control the agenda. Sadly, that agenda is perfectly fine with taking the rights away that those guns were supposedly meant to protect.

How Close We Came To Losing Our Privacy

Mike Papantonio talks with Jon Mills about how dangerous the Bush regime was:

We Just Got A Little More Liberty Today

We can all thank Ann Aiken in Oregon for her decision to rule certain parts of the Patriot Act unconstitutional today in her U.S. District Court. It has been obvious to most legal scholars that the law passed in the fury after 9/11 was largely unconstitutional. A democracy must not give too much authority to one person. This isn't the Autocratic States of America and Judge Aiken reminded us of that today.

From The Washington Post:

A federal judge in Oregon ruled yesterday that two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional, marking the second time in as many weeks that the anti-terrorism law has come under attack in the courts.

In a case brought by a Portland man who was wrongly detained as a terrorism suspect in 2004, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Patriot Act violates the Constitution because it "permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."

"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law -- with unparalleled success," Aiken wrote in a strongly worded 44-page opinion. "A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised."

When Republicans talk about activist judges, this is what it all boils down to. When the judiciary wants to protect the Constitution from their overreaching executive authority Republicans get mad. They would rather have less liberty for the illusion of safety. They would rather give more power to Bush to do whatever he wants than keep our democracy intact.

Well they haven't won that war yet, and with courageous women like Ann Aiken, it won't be theirs to win either.

Prospective U.S. Attorney Is A Criminal

You probably haven't heard of Timothy Griffin unless you are a Republican operative, but it is time to find out who this guy is. After the massive wave of firings of U.S. Attorneys Bush is set to pick a host of new ones to take their place. As the scandal heats up on why the 'Pearl Harbor Day Massacre' occurred, the story of Timothy must be shown the light of day.

From Greg Palast:

Griffin, according to BBC Television, was the hidden hand behind a scheme to wipe out the voting rights of 70,000 citizens prior to the 2004 election.

Key voters on Griffin’s hit list: Black soldiers and homeless men and women. Nice guy, eh? Naughty or nice, however, is not the issue. Targeting voters where race is a factor is a felony crime under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In October 2004, our investigations team at BBC Newsnight received a series of astonishing emails from Mr. Griffin, then Research Director for the Republican National Committee. He didn’t mean to send them to us. They were highly confidential memos meant only for RNC honchos.

However, Griffin made a wee mistake. Instead of sending the emails — potential evidence of a crime — to email addresses ending with the domain name “@GeorgeWBush.com” he sent them to “@GeorgeWBush.ORG.” A website run by prankster John Wooden who owns “GeorgeWBush.org.” When Wooden got the treasure trove of Rove-ian ravings, he sent them to us.

What was in those emails was truly astonishing. His plan was to target minority voters in the tens of thousands and have them stricken from the voting rolls with his nefarious set of tricks. The lists included homeless shelters, African-American schools and military bases, which would secretly disenfranchise these prospective voters.

Now Bush is trying to scurry him past Congressional oversight using the Patriot Act. Breaking laws set by the Voting Act of 1965 will now be subverted with the incredibly unconstitutional Patriot Act. This madness must be stopped......Congressman Conyers, what say you?