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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
 Posted - 03/20/2009 : 20:22:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by chaloobi
IIRC it was PATRIOT Act financial transaction monitoring that smoked out Eliot Spitzer's hooker payments. He should have known better than use anything but cash to pay for a hooker. Idiot. |
This Newsweek article describes how that happened:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/123489
My opinion is this makes a powerful argument for scaling back these Treasury department reports. |
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Mycroft
Skeptic Friend
USA
427 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2009 : 21:03:10 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
I think what's harsh is spying upon citizens, at home, with no warrants. Criticizing the proponents of such dictatorial practices isn't even in the same Harsh League. |
I'm against that too, but the article wasn't talking about spying without warrants. Roving wiretaps warrants are still warrants.
Originally posted by filthy
Every despotic action, from Nazi Germany to the half-assed vigilante mobs that spring up now & again, have something in common: they all wave the banner and spew the rhetoric of "Public Safety." |
So what? You can say that whenever issues of law enforcement and public safety are raised, but that doesn't make these issues illegitimate.
Governments are still responsible for law enforcement and public safety, the only question is what powers should a government have that strikes a good balance between citizens rights to privacy and a government's responsibility to pursue criminals.
Comparing everyone who argues for more government powers in law enforcement to Nazis is just as ignorant as claiming that everyone who argues for less government powers is a wanna-be criminal. The issues deserve real consideration and not just knee-jerk partisanship.
Originally posted by filthy
I ask again: How many individuals have been prosecuted under the Patriot Act? How many terrorist attacks have been averted?
To the best of my knowledge, none - |
A fair questions, but do you have evidence to support your answer?
Originally posted by filthy
- it was all just a control ploy for the Bush administration, and the Democratic pussies in Congress let the bastards get away with it.
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I'm curious. A control ploy for what purpose? |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2009 : 02:42:16 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Mycroft
Originally posted by filthy
I ask again: How many individuals have been prosecuted under the Patriot Act? How many terrorist attacks have been averted?
To the best of my knowledge, none - |
A fair questions, but do you have evidence to support your answer?
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That's pretty disingenious of you to ask, as you well know he can't possibly answer it.
If he doesn't know of any prosecutions, how can he provide any evidence of it, but his personal testemonial? Lack of evidence is what Filthy was claiming, not that there WASN'T any.
If you on the other hand were to claim that the Patriot Act really do some good, other than violating privacy, then there should be examples of it.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 03/21/2009 : 03:34:55 [Permalink]
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| So what? You can say that whenever issues of law enforcement and public safety are raised, but that doesn't make these issues illegitimate. |
Where did I say that it did?
| Governments are still responsible for law enforcement and public safety, the only question is what powers should a government have that strikes a good balance between citizens rights to privacy and a government's responsibility to pursue criminals. |
Exactly right.
| Comparing everyone who argues for more government powers in law enforcement to Nazis is just as ignorant as claiming that everyone who argues for less government powers is a wanna-be criminal. The issues deserve real consideration and not just knee-jerk partisanship. |
C'mon Mycroft, you're better than this. I compared no one to the Nazis; I merely made a statement. An historically accurate one, I might add.
The Patriot Act would be ok if everyone in government were on the short list for sainthood, but they are not. Indeed, quite the contrary, as has been demonstrated time and again by our "leaders," who, time and again, again, pander to greed (if not outright stealing for themselves).
Ike said it best back in the '50s: "Beware the military/industrial complex." Pretty smart fellow, that Eisenhower; a pity that on one was listening. The Patriot Act has far too much potential for, let us say; private use. And I repeat: There ain't no saints in government, nohow, nowhere.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Oh no, uh-uh, no freakin’ way!
