al Qaeda Suspects "Disappearing"

[rw4th]

The same can be said about the possibility of wholesale slaughter of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.

On what exactly do you base this statement? While distasteful to some, the images that came out of Abu Ghraib in no way describe any â Å“slaughterâ ?. 

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I have to agree with rw4th here Che, You have previously stated that describing everyone as a "terrorist" cheapens the word.
Using the term "slaughter" in regards to Abu Ghraib, in my opinion grossly undermines the term "slaughter", I have to believe you didn't mean to use that word. I can think of several to describe the stupidity there but not that one.
Bruce

 

[Gunnar]

Muskrat:  Practical knowledge?  Apart from reports on the Internet about secret trials (which were revealed when some court reporter misfiled documents), the arrest of drug dealers and other, non-terrorist scum under "terrorist" laws, and the fact that the TSA doesn't seem to need to pay attention to laws about detaining citizens, some guy who took photos of a TOURIST ATTRACTION in a PUBLIC park is interrogated by the FBI...no practical knowlege.  I am assuming here that you're saying "name me a normal, law-abiding citizen who's rights have been abused, 'cuz everything's fine where I live".

Well, you're right...everything IS fine where you live, for now.  But as Ghostwalk pointed out, once you let the *principle* become accepted, you start down that slippery slope.  There is limited application of the abuses at present, but the rest is only a matter of time. 

Recceguy:  You're right, the Canadian public ARE sheep...that's the 20% comment, although 20% applies more to the US.  Plus, yes, there are widespread abuses by the Liberals and their ilk.  They simply haven't tried too hard to destroy the freedom of individuals up here because the voters, those limited number who vote them in, only get upset when their rights are threatened.  Since "everybody loves us" (and as long as they can make those people believe it), they can afford to let everyone continue to have their rights.  It isn't stopping them from fleecing us. 

Besides, apart from all that, our country isn't based on freedom anyway...it's based on POGG power, as I am sure you are aware.  This means that we already have a tradition of denying people their freedom, so there is little to take away, officially.  But I'll let you read my comments when sober so we can really have it out.  ^-^

Someone else mentioned a sunset clause in the Patriot act...I'm unfamiliar with the actual verbiage of the act, although I continue to see the results.  However, I have to wonder about other famous temporary laws....

The Constitution requires that any law which is passed using the Notwithstanding Clause must be renewed every 5 years, or it reverts to its unconstitutional status....yet Quebec still prosecutes people for posting in English, and nobody has called them on it.  Bourassa is gone.  Can we get rid of his dumb law now?

The Income Tax Act was passed as a temporary measure to help pay for WW1.  I'm so glad it was temporary.  Can I stop paying now?  I don't recall hearing about the solid gold uniforms all our troops must have worn.

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -- Benjamin Franklin

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

bahhhhhhhhhaahhhhhhhh

 

[winchable]

*sigh*

On what exactly do you base this statement? While distasteful to some, the images that came out of Abu Ghraib in no way describe any â Å“slaughterâ ?.  

I was actually alluding to a suggestion you made about 25 of them for 1 of us in another thread regarding Kenneth Bigley.
I was speaking theoretically and of course about the extreme end of things.
If the Americans stray from the values they are in the region to implement (the right to a fair trial, protection from unlawful confinement, freedom, liberty) then they might as well leave. Even if they are dealing with the enemy they are no better than said enemy if they start behaving like the enemy.

and any interrogator worth something knows this. Effective â Å“tortureâ ? based interrogation combines physical discomfort with psychological and chemical factors to disorient and persuade a person into talking.

The thread isn't about casuing psychological and physical discomfort in order to extract information (in fact I'm pretty sure that's what interrogation is tough there are certain degrees of it I'm sure) it's about people dropping off the face of the planet a la the USSR, Cuba, PDRK, Iran....

 

[muskrat89]

although I continue to see the results

equals "continue to read on the internet" ?  ???

 

[muskrat89]

From the Weekly Standard:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/021aigav.asp

To say the Patriot Act authorizes the FBI to spy on people because of their taste in reading is like saying that equipping beat cops with night sticks authorizes the police to bludgeon old ladies who annoy them. Sure, a rogue element at the FBI can run amok. It could before the Patriot Act. It can after the Patriot Act--not by doing what the law authorizes, but by breaking the law.


Judge for yourself. Section 215 is very short. It has to do with record requests "for an investigation to protect against international

terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities." Such an investigation must be authorized by a federal court--the FISA court, specialized in foreign intelligence matters, an entity created by a Democratic Congress and Democratic president in 1978 and manned by normal federal judges assigned by the chief justice for seven-year terms.

Section 215 stipulates that the FBI's application for a court order "shall specify that the records concerned are sought for an authorized investigation . . . to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."

Just in case neither the FBI nor the authorizing court does its job properly, there is an oversight measure built into Section 215: Every six months, the attorney general must report to Congress how many requests for court orders have been made and how many granted. So far the number of searches of library and bookstore records reported under the Patriot Act: zero.


IT IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE, of course, that some piece of Section 215, or any other part of the Patriot Act for that matter, has been ill designed, perhaps too broadly tailored. It's possible, and the question deserves to be examined, and defects repaired. But the good people busy signing petitions--printed in patriotic red, white, and blue--at bookstores aren't being invited into that conversation. They're being cynically manipulated by demagogues who spread contempt for government.

Says Mark Corallo, chief spokesman for the Department of Justice, "You're scaring regular Americans into believing that their government is doing things that the government is neither inclined to do nor has the legal authority to do."

Britain's longest serving prime minister of modern times, Margaret Thatcher, used words with flair. She once called it "wicked" to suggest that those who opposed some particular Labour party social-uplift measure ipso facto didn't care about the poor. It is similarly wicked to suggest that those who see a need to provide the government with new investigative tools appropriate to the new security situation therefore are indifferent to the Constitution.