F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies
November 23, 2003
WASHINGTON, Nov. 22
And it’s about fucking time, too.
The “antiwar” and “antiglobalization” protesters – same bunch, different costumes – have proven themselves to be thugs and vandals. They damn near destroyed downtown Seattle during the 1999 WTO protests, they trashed Portland a couple of times, and they’ve done the same in other places. They smash windows and loot shops in “protest”.
Watching them in action, it is almost amusing – if it weren’t so sickening – to see them wearing masks to hide their identities from the police as they engage in wanton destruction.
Then when they get – quite legitimately – arrested, they whine that they are merely engaging in “freedom of speech” and “lawful protest” – as if smashing a Starbucks coffeeshop’s window is “speech”, and stealing bags of coffee is “protest” – and their leadershit tie up the courts until some leftist judge throws the case out or fines the scumbags twenty bucks.
Personally, I hope the cops start shooting the bastards.
[quote]A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday’s Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental.
Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War were yanked off a downtown Tallahassee street, directly in front of the Old Capitol, while marching in the holiday parade they had legitimately registered in.
As organizers allowed the parade to roll on – including veterans from various wars, several high school marching bands and even a group of young women from the local Hooters restaurant – the anti-war veterans were ordered onto sidewalks where they passed out leaflets and displayed a banner reading, “Honor the Warrior, Not the War.”
“There’s a war going on that’s based on lies, just like Vietnam,” said veteran Tom Baxter, an Army equipment maintenance officer in Vietnam for 16 months in 1967-69. “They were lying then, and they’re lying now.”[/quote]
[quote]Parade chairman Ken Conroy, a Korean War veteran, said he ejected the anti-war veterans because they were offensive and because Tallahassee police also wanted them removed. He offered to refund their $10 registration fee and said he was not suppressing the group’s free speech rights.
“They can have their free speech, just not in the parade,” Conroy said. “They belong on the sidewalk.”[/quote]
[quote]Using Patriot Act to hunt down ‘terrorists’ at Vegas strip clubs
By Clarence Page
Originally published November 13, 2003
WASHINGTON - In our latest episode of continuing adventures with the USA Patriot Act, FBI agents say they’ve used the new anti-terrorism law to prosecute a political bribery case centered on the owner of some Las Vegas strip clubs.
What do topless dancers in Vegas have to do with terrorism, you may ask? Nothing, everyone agrees, unless perhaps you count the violence that some of the ladies inflict on the wallets of their clientele.
Nevertheless, the FBI now confirms local Las Vegas newspaper reports that the agency used the Patriot Act’s provisions to subpoena financial information about four local politicians and one local businessman, Michael D. Galardi, the owner of the Jaguars strip club in Las Vegas and Cheetahs clubs in Las Vegas and San Diego.
The Patriot Act, passed in the panicky weeks after 9/11, allows the government to peek into the personal affairs of many people, not just suspected terrorists. The law’s powers only begin with suspected terrorists. We have yet to learn how far it extends.
That’s the part that Attorney General John Ashcroft does not talk about much as he tours the country touting the powers the Patriot Act has given the federal government to fight terrorism.
“We have used these tools to save innocent American lives,” Mr. Ashcroft told a convention of law officers at the federal courthouse in Las Vegas in August. “We have used these tools to provide the security that ensures liberty.”
He neglected to mention how, even as he spoke, Las Vegas FBI agents were using those “tools” to go after a strip club owner and the politicians he allegedly paid off.[/quote]
[quote=“Alien”][quote]A group of 30 military veterans critical of the war in Iraq hoped to use Tuesday’s Veterans Day parade to call attention to the increasingly deadly conflict but instead found themselves fighting for something much more fundamental.
Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War were yanked off a downtown Tallahassee street, directly in front of the Old Capitol, while marching in the holiday parade they had legitimately registered in.[/quote]
jacksonville.com/tu-online/s … 0003.shtml[/quote]
What point are you trying to make? The group separated were lawfully separated from the parade. They may have legitimately registered… but apparently they deceived the parade organizers in doing so.
Tell us, Alien, what would you have wanted the police to do if, say, a parade organized by a group marching in support of women’s right to choose abortion were joined “legitimately” by a group of women who carried anti-abortion signs and shouted anti-abortion slogans?
You would want the police to take those anti-abortion women out of the pro-choice parade, wouldn’t you? Or, would you whine that the police were unfairly silencing the anti-abortion women?
Really, I don’t understand the point of your post.
I don’t know about Alien, but my point is that Bush & Co are increasingly doing away with constitutional rights of all US citizens in their zealous infringement on civil liberties. Under the pretext of a war on terror, Bush & Co are engaged in a war on human rights and people (republicans and democrats, liberals and conservatives) are increasing growing aware of that and stating their opposition.
U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes from Drugs to Swindling
New York Times, 27 September 2003
Washington - The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.
. . . a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to terrorism in which federal authorities have used their expanded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance . . . Justice Department officials said the cases cited in the report represent only a small sampling of the many hundreds of nonterrorism cases pursued under the law. . .
Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other criminal uses. . . Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much broader mandate. . . A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as “international terrorism” were wrongly labeled. . .
Senator Patrick J. Leahy . . . said the Justice Department’s secrecy and lack of cooperation in putting the legislation into effect made him question whether “the government is taking shortcuts around the criminal laws” by invoking intelligence powers - with differing standards of evidence - to conduct surveillance operations and demand access to records. “We did not intend for the government to shed the traditional tools of criminal investigation, such as grand jury subpoenas governed by well-established precedent and wiretaps strictly monitored” by federal judges, he said.
truthout.org/docs_03/092903I.shtml
Congress Has Second Thoughts On Patriot Act
July 24, 2003
Taking a clear stand against anti-privacy provisions in the Patriot Act, the U.S. House of Representatives in an overwhelmingly bipartisan effort last night agreed to an amendment that would bar federal law enforcement from carrying out secret “sneak and peek” searches without notifying the target of the warrant. The Otter Amendment . . . passed by an extraordinary margin of 309 to 118, with 113 Republicans voting in favor.
. . . The amendment would effectively prohibit any implementation of the controversial section 213 of the Patriot Act, which enables federal agents to obtain so-called “sneak and peek” warrants with far less evidence than was required before the bill was passed. Under these warrants
Let’s see the FBI starts trying to keep track of a bunch of arsonists, vandals, animal torturers, thieves, and thugs. Then all of a sudden these people are anti-war/globalization folk. They need surveilannce, it should have been done sooner. There is no need for vandalism looting, arson or animal cruelty in the US. This is what these people do and are.
MT, being of a liberal persuasion politically, would you of put up this post had you known someone that had their shop torched(say in Munich or Seattle) ather than agreeing wth them that Bush is an evil man?
Just a question.
CYA
Okami
So, let’s see if I understand MT’s positions.
I, as an individual who has never committed any property crime or violent crime, am automatically suspect and should undergo a criminal backgound check, psychological evaluation, stool sample parasite check, and fingerprinting before (maybe) being allowed to purchase a firearm, thereby exercising my rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Or maybe not, since MT seems to hate the idea of gun ownership period.
Meanwhile, avowed Anarchists who routinely “disrupt peaceful protest” by engaging in vanadalism and looting are really fine upstanding people who should never be investigated by the FBI for any reason whatsoever, because to do so would be intimidation and violation of their right to free speech and protest under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Hmm.
seattleweekly.com/features/9 … tive.shtml
If these guys are legitimately exercising free speech, why are they hiding their faces?
Okami, I guess you only read mapodofu’s propaganda and didn’t bother reading the facts.
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Atty General Ashcroft has order the FBI to increase surveillance of political rallies, peaceful protests and other public events.
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Under section 213 of the Patriot Act, which was passed following 9/11, authorities may search homes, confiscate property, monitor computer usage and conduct other searches without obtaining a search warrant or notifying the subject of the search.
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Under section 215 of the Patriot Act, authorities may seize “business records” or “any tangible thing” from libraries, booksellers, doctors, universities, Internet service providers and financial institutions, without obtaining a search warrant.
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Under the Terrorism Information Awareness Project that Bush & Co are pushing, authorities may monitor telephone records, credit card info, broadcasts, Internet records, medical files, etc.
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While the Patriot Act was enacted and is billed as an anti-terrorism measure, in fact it is being used mostly in connection with alleged offenses that have nothing to do with terrorism, although the govt is falsely labeling the investigations as terrorist-related.
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Under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the govt is doing away with numerous rights that US citizens are entitled to under the US Constitution as determined by years of careful consideration in various cases by various courts including the US Supreme Court.
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It is not just so-called liberals who are opposed to the above actions. Section 213 of the Patriot Act was opposed by the Otter Amendment, which passed in the House with overwhelming bi-partisan support. Provisions such as 215 are opposed by groups as diverse as the ACLU and the American Conservative Union and by more than 140 US cities and other communities in more than 27 states.
One doesn’t have to be a “leftie” to object to the government walking all over people without restraint. To throw in inflammatory language as you did about animal torturers and the like is to play the games played by Ashroft & Co., using emotion to try to overcome reasoning. The fact is, they’re doing away with the constitutional rights of every US citizen (not to mention other global citizens) and dismantling a careful constructed system of law that protects the privacy of everyone of us. I’m not alone in cherishing my constitutional rights and objecting to them being wrongly usurped.
As for your ridiculous statements, Mapodofu, suggesting that its a violation of your constitutional rights to impose any conditions upon purchase of handguns, such as a background check and fingerprints, that should be in the gun rights thread. But I’ll say here that NO constitutional rights are absolute, even the right to free speech (one can’t shout fire in a crowded theater or claim there’s a bomb on an airplane, etc.). Any simpleton understands that all constitutional rights are subject to reasonable regulation, the parameter of which is usually determined by the courts, and that includes the 2d Amendment. I’ll happy to continue the gun rights discussion in the gun rights thread.
Incidentally, if you’re concerned about constitutional rights, you should be concerned that the government is eliminating them now for all citizens.
If you still think only anarchists and animal torturers are concerned about the over-intrusiveness of the government under the pretext of fighting terrorism, think again. Opposition to unrestrained government snooping is thoroughly bi-partisan. Check out the conservative republicans listed below (although they might fit into the former categories).
Senators propose Patriot Act limitations
Oct 17 2003
A bipartisan group of senators this week announced the latest in a steady trickle of legislative proposals to trim back some of the enhanced search and surveillance powers granted to law enforcement under the USA-PATRIOT Act.
Under the proposed Security and Freedom Ensured Act (SAFE), the FBI would no longer be able to obtain “sneak and peek” warrants allowing them to secretly enter a person’s home or office, except in cases when an overt search would endanger someone’s physical safety, result in a flight from prosecution, or permit the destruction of evidence. . . The bill also introduces a disclosure requirement that would compel the U.S. Attorney General to report to Congress every six months on the number of sneak and peek warrants the Justice Department and FBI sought and obtained.
The proposed legislation would also put limitations on the FBI’s use of so-called “roving wiretap” orders, which permit agents to eavesdrop on any telephone or computer used by a suspect. The act would force the FBI to specify a particular person to be surveilled, and to ascertain that the target is at a particular location before beginning their surveillance.
Finally, the SAFE Act would put limits on the FBI’s ability to obtain secret national security orders that give them access to a person’s utility records, credit card purchases, medical records, and any other documents. SAFE would limit such orders to records of suspected terrorists or spies, while under current law anyone’s records are fair game . . .
The bill was authored by Senators Larry Craig (R-Id.) and Dick Durbin (D- IL), and is cosponsored by Russell Feingold (D-WI), John Sununu (R-NH), Mike Crapo (R-ID), Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). “This legislation intends to ensure the liberties of law-abiding individuals are protected in our nation’s fight against terrorism, without in any way impeding that fight,” Craig said in a statement announcing the bill this week.
In October, 2001, the Senate voted to pass the USA-PATRIOT Act by a margin of 98-1, with Feingold the lone dissenter. It also passed by a wide margin in the House. But since then growing concerns about the potential for abuse of the added surveillance powers have put the Justice Department on the defensive, and the SAFE Act joins several other legislative proposals to roll back, or provide more oversight for, the added surveillance powers.
Not so fast, MT. What do you think they did to police dogs and horses in Seattle. Dogs were set on fire and the leg tendons of horses were cut. I believe the damage was in the counted in the millions of dollars. I have no problem with antiwar or anti-globalisation protesters, but these causes are being/have been hijacked.
The patriot act doesn not override the constitution. In a court of law the constitution will almost always trump any act by a president or congress. You still get a lawyer, a day in court and a fair and impartial trial. Anybody screaming that their rights were infringed by the patriot act is probably using it as a smokescreen. In much the same way that the Democrats are saying the republicans stole memos detailing how special interest groups delayed or impeded judicial confirmations as part of their legal tactics. Change message from special interest manpulations to those damn dastardly republicans stole our stuff.
Now to your points:
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So what if ashcroft is having them do that? Do you think they plan and announce violent peace protests in advance?
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I’ll have to check up on this one, but I believe that their is judge in charge making the decisions whether this is ok or not.
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Do you have something to hide? I still believe that a judge is in charge of these cases. Now for Mr. Legal, these are small things, but I can see how terroist groups or the people who fund them(say the Saudis who have excellent PR) would be worried and want these activities halted by our law enforcement officers.
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Raw info is useless. You have to tailor it to your needs. Reords of this could show who a person met, who he was with and what he had in mind. This can lead to future interception, disruption, and termination of future plots.
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Which are?
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The Patriot act was never going to be popular. It never had a fan base or a special interest support group to support it. It is needed though. I think 9/11 should of showed us that there is a large group of well financed people who will go to extreme lengths to kill and injure us. They will disrupt our lifestyles and bring us to our knees. We had Anthrax in the mail, nuclear proliferation in rogue states, and many muslim countries agreeing wholeheartedly that all their problems were because the US was holding them down and if they just took it out then everyone would be happy living in a muslim theocracy ran by them. Saddam Hussein spent $1 billion US over the time of his rule to have a fan base. How much do you think the other countries spend?
CYA
Okami
I see, Okami, allegedly some wacko lit a dog on fire in Seattle, so we shouldn’t be concerned that federal agents are raiding homes and offices, listening in on phone conversations, reading people’s e-mails, reviewing their medical, library and bank records without consulting with a judge first, without obtaining a search warrant and without any accountability for their actions.
Actually that does kindof make sense. I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors of dog-burnings lately, of poodles in Peoria, Rottweilers in Rochester and Dobermans in Dallas. Obviously all this dog-burning is linked to Al Qaeda too. Once they burn our dogs the whole system of US capitalistic unilateral global interventionism is vulnerable. In fact, if the feds don’t act now, it’s pretty obvious what’s next – they’ll come after our cats. Well I don’t know about you, but they’ll have to pry my cold dead fingers off my Fluffy.
And if that growing groundswell of bipartisan congressmen thinks they can pass some law to cut back on warrantless searches they’re dead wrong. There will be an uprising by the cats, dogs and horses of the world like they never imagined. God Bless the kitties and the doggies and God Bless AmeriKKKKa.
Thanks for setting me straight Okami. I guess I should just have more faith in John Ashcroft. After all, he always did give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside, making me feel all safe and secure.
Thanx
Of COURSE you can shout “fire!” in a crowded theater, you simp. In fact, if there is a fire in a crowded theater or a bomb on an airplane and you know about these things, you’d damn well better tell others – else you’re just as liable as your fellow “antiwar” protestors who set the fire, planted the bomb, or vandalized Niketown.
Meaning, you can’t defend yourself from the comparison, and you want to move it away from here. Joined the Axis Of Weasels, have ya?
Oh, really? I haven’t noticed. Neither has anyone else, really, except the ACLU and other organizations which fearmonger and fundraise on such concerns.
Recall the ALA kerfluffle, where the librarians were screaming that being required to provide checkout histories to the feds was unconstitutional? Then Ashcroft kindly pointed out that (a) the DOJ only can demand these histories AFTER going to court – that tricky little “due process of law” bit that the librarians were so afraid didn’t exist – and (b) that the feds had never used the provision anyway.
Some intrusion. Some violation. Oh, wait, not.
So, since you don’t have any way of answering Okami’s or my points, you turn to belittling. How typically leftist. You really don’t have a leg to stand on, do you?
Whose “rights” have been violated under the Patriot Act, MT? Manuel Padilla’s? Some petty criminals’? Your friends the Eugene Anarchists’? Why don’t you go out, get a life, and learn what the difference is between a “right” as interpreted by a bunch of left-wing loons and a right as defined by moral and constitutional law?
Hint: the “right” to trash a store isn’t a right. The right to free (and true) speech is.
There is no “right” to terrorize people by claiming that a bomb is on a plane when you’re just trying to create a panic. There is an absolute right, not to mention a moral obligation, to yell “fire!” in a crowded theater, if the building is burning.
I shouldn’t respond to you mapodofu, because I suspect you’re just trolling, but in case you really can’t read:
The government, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, has been cutting back on the civil liberties of all citizens, not just the groups you named, and has increased its intrusions into peoples’ personal lives without the traditional restraints that citizens have been entitled to, including the requirement for authorities to obtain search warrants.
Consequently, a broad range of people are concerned, including not just the ACLU, but the American Conservatives Union, and a bill to cut back the excessive intrusiveness of the so-called Patriot Act was sponsored not just by democrats but by conservative republicans such as Larry Craig (R-Id.), John Sununu (R-NH), Mike Crapo (R-ID) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
As REPUBLICAN larry craig said, "This legislation intends to ensure the liberties of law-abiding individuals are protected . . . "
So who’s rights have been violated? Any evidence to back up that assertion or are we just supposed to assume that our rights can be trampled on because the government is no better than Nazi Germany?
Anyway, I think that the next “peaceful” protest should have to face the consequences if the storeowners involved believe that their property is threatened. There are laws governing self-defense as well.
If some of these anti-globalists or whatever they call themselves came to my neighborhood, I would definitely want the police to make sure that some career “protesters” were not coming to do property damage or worse. In fact, if the police and FBI failed to do their duty and protect me and my property, they’d be hearing about some “rights” to…IN COURT.
But, fred, unless I’m mistaken, the US Supreme Court has ruled that the police are not obligated to protect you. Thats’ just one more reason for the need to preserve the 2nd Amendment.