breastle screen for HLA Adventure Need help designing one 896

Excuse for whatever was meant to be excused by saying that things could be worse.

So, 'thin edge of the wedge' is an appropriate way to describe the situation.

I can't read their minds.

That is not the point. It is more than possible that a general search of everybody's homes will give pointers to persons. Does that mean that we do it?

Further, it is highly unlikely that reading patterns will reveal anything significant. I should hope, for instance, that those in the government responsible for conducting the current 'war' read everything they can find about the enemy. Wouldn't it be funny if FBI agents started arresting each other because of what they read?

The present discussion is about obtaining library records, so this is irrelevant.

So you seem to think that the library searches are not aimed at the persons, but at the rest of us.

No, it's to protect the government from oversight and accountability.

If we abandon those laws and give the government unlimited power to arrest anyone it likes for any reason it likes, without any recourse, we won't live very long, either.

There is a scene in Robert Bolt's play "A Man for All Seasons" that expresses the dilemma very well. The situations are not exactly analogous, but are very close. The speakers are Thomas More; Will Roper, his future son-in-law; Margaret, his daughter; and Alice, his wife. The 'him' in the first line is Richard Rich. I have removed a few lines and the stage directions. This is from pages 37-38 of the Vintage paperback edition from the late 60s.

ROPER: Arrest him. MORE: For what? ROPER: He's dangerous! MARGARET: Father, that man's bad. MORE: There's no law against that. ROPER: Sophistication upon sophistication! MORE: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal. ALICE: While you talk, he's gone! MORE: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law. ROPER: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! MORE: What would you do? Cut a great road though the law to get after the Devil? ROPER: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! MORE: And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you--where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast--and if you cut them down-- and you are just the man to do it--d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Change the reference to Rich and most instances of 'Devil' to 'person', and the instance of 'Devil' on the first line of the last speech to 'FBI', and this scene applies directly to the situation today. People want to remove all legal impediments to getting at persons, but if they do that, what will protect the rest of us from the government when it decides to use those new powers against non-persons, as it surely will? Once a government, any government, get power, it almost never relinquishes that power voluntarily.

Then what are they? What gives the government the power to hold them? Legally, I mean.

That is simply untrue, if you read the text that another poster posted.

Normal, schnormal. The law still applies. The fact that al Qaeda is not a state does not give the government carte blanche to do whatever it likes.

Terrorism and guerilla wars are as old as the hills.

It may be that the existing laws and rules need to be modified for this conflict, but that does not mean either that the government has a free hand, or that, until changes are made, the current laws are void.

That the other side violates the rules does not excuse us from the duty to follow them.

As I said below, they want isolation from US courts. The government as much as admitted this in their brief to the Supreme Court in Rasul v. Bush (which can be found online).

Do you really believe that secure facilities could not be made for them in the US proper?

In other words, they do not want any accountability or oversight.

Theoretically, but in practice governments do not gladly surrender powers they have grabbed.

The likelihood of a relative handful of Islamic fanatics taking over our country is laughably small, even if they blow up dozens of skyscrapers.

Nor will there be if we continue to surrender powers to the government.

Which rules do you mean? Rationing, price controls, and the like? If that is what you do mean, then the government has not given up those powers, it is merely not exercising them at the moment. Nixon imposed wage and price controls for a while. There was talk of gas rationing at the same time. There are plenty of federal laws on wages.

I am part of no group.

Not at all. I am just saying that what you call 'protecting ourselves' is not the only consideration. The need to do unto others before they do unto us must be balanced with the need to remain a free country, which means the need to restrain the power of government and to make the government act within the law.

All the more reason that it is a right.

Within this country, everyone is protected by the consbreastution, even aliens and criminals (I am talking here about things like due process, not welfare benefits).

Outside our borders, the issue is fuzzier. See, for instance, Johnson v. Eisentrager and the recent Rasul v. Bush.

I make no such buttumption; the question is irrelevant. We must play by our rules, regardless of what they do. That does put us at a disadvantage, but that is the price of freedom. For some it is a very high price, but the price to all of us would be much higher if we were to abandon our principles and give the government unlimited power.

You, and many others, too, are making a fundamental mistake here. The Consbreastution is not a grant of privileges from a gracious sovereign to her subjects, as is the recent Canadian bill of rights. It is a grant of powers from the people to the government. In this country, the people are sovereign, not the monarch or the president or whatever. The government may only lawfully exercise the powers it has been granted.

The correct question to ask is, "Where in the Consbreastution is the government given the power to snoop on people or to interfere with their travel?"

Both of these are explicitly in the 1st amendment. I am a bit shocked that you do not know that.

Let me ask for a clarification. Is it your position that the government can do anything at all with regard to those it decides to detain? Could it, for instance, summarily execute everyone being held in Cuba? This is a serious question, not mere provocation. I am trying to find out if you (and those who agree with out) think there are not limits, or whether you think there are and we are just disagreeing over what the limits are.

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