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Pleased with the ACLU’s action
Posted by Raven on October 29th, 2006
Let’s remember this, because we know down the road the ACLU will come back to haunt themselves.
The American Civil Liberties Union has dropped a three-year-old lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the USA Patriot Act, months after Congress rewrote parts of the law.
The ACLU said Friday it is withdrawing the lawsuit because of “improvements to the law.”
“While the reauthorized Patriot Act is far from perfect, we succeeded in stemming the damage from some of the Bush administration’s most reckless policies,” Ann Beeson, the New York-based associate legal director of the ACLU, said in a written statement.
The Justice Department said it is pleased with the ACLU’s action.
The ACLU must realize that the Patriot Act was never that “bad” to begin with, and the improvements are minute in nature.
I wonder if there is more behind this? Perhaps they ran out of money needed to pursue this?
The Patriot Act is a legitimate and important tool that has better helped law enforcement fight terrorism while simultaneously protecting our valued civil liberties,” Justice spokeswoman Tasia Scolinos said in Washington.
The Justice Department argued last month that amendments approved by Congress in March had corrected any constitutional flaws in the Patriot Act.
The lawsuit, filed in July 2003 on behalf of the Muslim Community Association of Ann Arbor, Mich., and five other nonprofit groups, was the first legal challenge to Section 215. That part of the Patriot Act lets federal agents obtain such things as library records and medical information.
The ACLU said the revisions allow people receiving demands for records to consult with a lawyer and challenge the demands in court.
Challenge the demands all they want- I don’t think it will matter.
Law enforcement & FBI need to know wha American and non American Muslims are up to…they can’t be trusted.
October 30th, 2006 at 6:11 am
The Patriot Act achieved its purpose: Convince the voters that the Big Scary Terrorists are out to get them, and that only the Republicans’ have the action-hero-like muscle-mentality needed to grab a couple of rifles and punch holes in the muslims.
Some statistics:
The annual death-toll from traffic accidents is equal to just over fourteen 9-11 events. Every year.
The annual deaths from heart disease in the US total about one million. For comparisin, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings combined killed about 214,000 – including delayed deaths due to radiation exposure. Less than one-forth as many.
Terrorism really isn’t that great a threat. They can bomb buildings all they want, but they arnt going to destroy America. Even if they could pull a Fawkes and get a nuclear weapon into Washington – even then, the states would just run autonomously until the federal government was rebuilt. Terrorism poses no real threat to the US – its the terror it aims to create that gives it power.