Only the Guilty Need Fear

New at Reason: The federal government's new surveillence powers are not really new, but they are absolutely necesessary to fighting terrorism even though they're not being used, so don't worry but don't expect any right to expect privacy. Jacob Sullum explains it all for you.

Comments

[Jackson]

They were playing clips of his speech on the local (Louisville,KY) news while I was eating lunch yesterday. I nearly choked on my sandwich when I heard him pull that Foxworthy bit. He even used the halting, drawn-out pacing of Foxworthy?s delivery. Surreal, to say the least.

I also heard him go on about how if you're not breaking any laws, you don't have to worry about the Patriot act. Yeah, don't mind the agents peeking through your curtains. If you aren't doing anything wrong they won't arrest you. Sheesh.

That being said, I also happened to be downtown when a 'Patriot Act Info Session' was letting out. I was a little upset about missing it, until I saw the tee-shirts people were holding and wearing as they loaded the folding tables and poster board into the van with the 'Dean in 2004' sign.

The shirts read: "WAKE UP! It IS a Fascist Dictatorship!" I thought, hey maybe they mean Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Hussein?s Iraq. Seeing the front of the shirts, however, disabused me of that notion. It was a skull and cross-bones with Bush's face in the place of the skull.

Oh, now I get it. The USA is the fascist dictatorship. Silly me. I just wonder how it is that they managed to have this very well attended rally in Louisville on a day when one of the big-time bad guys was in town. Maybe the jackbooted thugs showed up after I walked past.

I'm as concerned about the threat to civil liberties and due process as the next guy, but please, can we take the level of this debate up a few notches? I'm growing a little tired of the hyperbole.

[Anonymous]

Some people in germany in the 30's probably denied it was a fascist dictatorshp, too. Some people still deny it.

Not saying it is, but I'm not too sure that it isn't.

[Hearst Wesson]

"They" won't need to make it a fascist dictatorship if we just agree to act as if it already were.

In aggregate, that is: most individuals don't own enough to matter to these guys, and a couple of rich dissidents can be treated as clowns. As long as most rich men are happy and almost everyone else afraid, "They"'ll be happy..."They" don't even get off on Fascism, they just want things to Run Smooth.

[Kevin Carson]

Jackson,

How do you define "fascist dictatorship"? By the powers the government has on paper, and could use any time, if it wanted to? Or by the extent to which it has refrained from using them, out of good will (for the time being)?

The very fact that our liberties depend, not on the absolute language of prohibition in the Bill of Rights, but on the good will of the government, means we in effect HAVE no written Constitution. Civil liberties are something forced on the government from outside, not the gracious concessions a sovereign is pleased to grant his subjects.

When the government has forty years worth of executive orders giving it the power to suspend the Constitution, round up dissidents without trial, and run the economy with federal administrators, on a simple presidential declaration, the fact that it hasn't chosen to do so YET is of limited consolation.

This is the kind of stuff that, if you could go back and tell the guys on Lexington Green about it, would have made them throw down their flintlocks and ask "Why waste our fucking time?"

[David 2]

Of course there's no way to prove Ashcroft is lying... at least without someone breaking the law and going to prison. He's got every reason to lie about the numbers, and no legitimate way to hold him accountable for it.

[David 2]

Of course there's no way to prove Ashcroft is lying... at least without someone breaking the law and going to prison. He's got every reason to lie about the numbers, and no legitimate way to hold him accountable for it.

[Sir Real]

Ashcroft was in KY yesterday for the PATRIOT ACT Traveling Salvation Show, talking to a (small, hand-picked, positive) audience of police.

They showed a clip, where he did a delightful send-up of the "You Might be a Redneck If.." schtick, substituting "spied on with unregulated powers" for redneck.

I prefered it back when the only scary thing about him was those songs he wrote (and those wierd "not mandatory but nescessary if you want to be promoted" bible study groups he held at the DOJ.).

[The Joker]

Hubba, hubba, hubba. Who do you trust? Me. I'm giving away free money.

[Concerned Citizen]

Sir Real, the finest comedic moment in at least the last 5 years was Paul Shaffer's interplay/reactions to Ashcroft's vocal stylings on Letterman.

[Nardo Abby]

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DATE: 02/28/2004 11:22:53
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