House votes to repeal part of USA Patriot Act

A. How many lives would have been saved if Bush had held intelligence meetings, listened to his operatives and read his memos BEFORE 9/11? Maybe, like Clinton stopping the Millennium attack, he would have actually managed to stop the 9/11 attack.


B. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, had no weapons of mass destruction and was contained. Since his fall, acts of terrorism in the world are UP. The terrorist are getting more new recruits than ever before and killing more and more people every day.

I had better end this now before I start telling you what I really think of your President and anyone that supports him.

You can build concerete borders all the way around America and track every move made, every book read and every article written by everyone in America and you will still be vulnerable to a Timothy McVeigh, a Branch Davidian, a Freeman, a Unibomber or some other extreme group that feels entitled to murder innocent people to further their agenda.

A little common sense (like not granting Visa's to known terrorists), would have gone a lot farther than turning America into fortress that resembles something out of the Minority Report. I for one, do not want to live that way. I truly value my freedom and my privacy.

Oh and for the record, privacy is not about having something to "hide", it's about keeping information intended a for particular person, restricted to that person and also about freedom from unauthorized intrusion.

If you think that nothing is personal, then post your real name, address, social security number, phone number, your annual salary, the names of your kids and your SL log in, you have nothing to hide after all so why not? Oh and while you are at it, how about posting your medical records? After all, we are all strangers, just like the FBI agent who can demand them and then cull through them for any damn reason they want. So why not, what do you have to hide?

The bottom line is that when the WTC was destroyed, the horse was already out of the barn.

Living in constant fear of another attack is the same as locking yourself in your own house and never leaving because your afraid of being mugged. Someone could still break in and rob you. Will locking yourself away in your house greatly reduce the chances that you will be mugged? Of course, but you have to ask yourself, how much of a life will you have locked in your house all the time?

I am 100% with Arcadia Codesmith on this one. I would rather die free at the hands of a terrorist than live in fear of my own government and fellow citizens. The way that I see it, giving the government this kind of power without checks and balances puts average American people in fear of saying what they really think and in fear of being who they really are and truly, I would rather die than lose that freedom.

Oh and for the record, I would never, ever turn in someone that I loved. If someone in my family did something really bad, they would turn themselves in because they are people with a strong sense of ethics. I would believe and trust them a thousand times more than I would believe any representative of the government.

edited to add... then again, my people (Native Americans) haven't had real good luck with the U.S. government treating them in a trustworthy or honorable manner have they?

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Right on, Rose. It's very much not "about having something to hide." It's about remaining a free moral agent who is able to set his/her own destiny without undue governmental interference. If Billy's would allow his Republican sensibilities to break through those mind-dissolving Karl Rovian cataracts, I'm sure he'd be on the same side of this argument.

Rose - If I had even the slightest pull in Vienna, I'd nominate you for the Nobel Peace Prize.

That makes two of us

I wouldn't worry too much, since there are many ways this information can be obtained in serious cases. Oh, and Paolo, we know all about your subscriptions to Cosmo, WWD and PLAYGIRL.

Exactly my point, Monsieur Cartier. The Patriot Act isn't necessary, as there are a jillion other statutes that govern virtually every dot and tittle of our meager little lives.

Oh, and I hate Cosmo but you forgot about all the Men's Fitness-type subscriptions. I subscribe for the articles, dontcha know.