Bush can arrest you without pressing charges against you...

[butterfly77]

This is one of the main points I got out of Al Gore's speech. He can hold you for as long as he wants to and say you are a threat to the country, he can hold you for the rest of your life.

Although I knew a little about his arresting people I didn't know that he was kidnapping people in other countries and jailing them. I think that these are the main points and others concerning this, that the dems should keep on pounding into people, because if bush and the gang don't like you or something you do he can arrest you or set you up, or your family members.


Sometimes I think this is what he is doing to some of the dems and this is why they keep backing down.

[baldguy]

1. Thats how the Dems have to frame it:

Bush can put YOU in jail without charge or trial. Bush has authorized wiretaps on YOUR phone. Bush is sifting through YOUR email.

This shit effects EVERYBODY. It makes America less free & more totalitarian BY DEFINITION.



Whenever a kool-aid drinker says "I'm not worried! I'm not a terrorist! I've got nothing to hide!" I tell them to give me their credit cards & their SS number. The NSA has the same information.

[Ouabache]

4. yeah, and do not all these add up to a POLICE STATE

they are POLICE STATE tactics, that is for sure.

[ladjf]

6. Anyone who is not worried that their communications are being

monitored operates from the very false assumption that those doing the bugging are good , honest people and therefore, would do them no harm. How naive can one get?

[jimshoes]

2. Didn't Hitler

basically have the same power to incarcerate undesirables? Why, yes he did.

[savemefromdumbya]

5. yes he did

he did more than incarcerate. Cheney would torture and gas probably

[txaslftist]

3. Yes he can.

It is amazing to me that people aren't more upset about this, but a significant number of people seem to think it's okay.

The magna charta established the writ of habeas corpus, and it was incorporated into our constitution twice. First, in the language that says the writ of habeas corpus shall not be abridged, and secondly in the language forbidding bills of attainder. Bills of attainder are legislative devices where a legislature orders a person arrested by name.

Neither of these ideas are solely about the misuse of power. They are primarily about NOT GRANTING, or denying these noxious powers to tyrants, governors, legislative bodies, etc.

The country gets mesmerized by the sight of two airplanes flying into two buildings, and suddenly it's okay to pass the USA Patriot Act, giving the president the power to arrest based solely on his own say-so.

Jose Padilla, a US citizen, was arrested and held as a "foreign combatant" for three years. This was based solely on an executive branch decision, and it was only at the end that the judicial branch got involved. The question is not whether Padilla was guilty or not, because who knows? The question is if it could happen to YOU.

And it could. It could happen to you based on something you write on the internet. You could be arrested, held without bail for the rest of your life. You could be shipped to a foreign country that permits torture. You could be waterboarded (a mock drowning) until you confessed to whatever 'sin' the administration wanted you to confess to. If you refused to confess, or if it was decided you were 'bad', you could simply disappear. And this power is not just theoretical, the administration is actually using it.

1,000+years of history tossed down the crapper because of 9-11, and we've returned to the days of Torquemada and the inquisition, the Salem witch trials or the Star Chamber in England.

We've restored the terrible absolute power of monarchy to the president and undone the American Revolution.

[ladjf]

7. They just haven't thought it out as yet. They are living in denial.

[butterfly77]

8. You said it better than I ...

I think they have to hear it explained clearly and in personal terms.

[butterfly77]

10. Thats because they believe...

that because he is the president and they believe that all presidents have been spying for years, but they don't know the details and circumstances and how.

[LizW]

9. Here's how it goes:

Shortly after 9/11, Bush declared that he had the authority to declare people, even citizens of the U.S. currently IN the U.S., enemy combatants. Once so declared, the person can be arrested, and held without counsel and, if Bush so decides, in solitary confinement. If Bush decides you might have some information about terrorism, he can have you rendered to a foreign country to be tortured until you confess or die. Once tortured, you can be sure you are never going to get a trial. Gonzalez has advised Bush that all this is okay because of his expanded powers during time of "war".

The CIA has secret prisons where Bush can send you for as long as he pleases. James Risen revealed in his book "State of War" that CIA whistleblowers have told him that one of these is codenamed "Bright Light". When you go to "Bright Light", the CIA source told Risen, you aren't coming back.

Bush claims authority to do all this without even touching the Patriot Act.

Now, add to this that the NSA may be monitoring your phone calls because someone you know once got a phone call from Hamburg, Germany, and then later called you. How do we know what actions might trigger Bushco to pick you up for questioning? We don't, because it is all done in secret.

Gore laid it all out much more clearly than I can, but the chilling facts are clear. If Bush wants to order summary execution for someone that he decides is a terrorist, he can. Who will stop him? Who will even know that it is happening?

[txaslftist]

11. Ironic that we're not even at war...

Congress did not declare one. If it had, that "war" would have been over after the regime of Saddam was toppled and he was captured, and the remaining elements of his armies surrendered.

Bush and Gonzales are defining war in terms that mean, essentially, as long as there are terrorists in the world, we are at war with them. Since we are at war, the presnit gets "special powers" that he doesn't get in peace time.

Since "Global Terra" is and enemy we can never actually completely destroy, there argument is essentially for a permanent expansion of presidential power to include the power of summary imprisonment, torture and execution in the complete absence of any check by the other branches of government and without any due process of law whatsoever.

This administration is not a presidency. It is a coup.

[Jeffersons Ghost]

12. I keep saying it's not only the 4th amendment...

It's also the 5th and 6th Amendments in jepordy but I was wrong... It's the whole damn Bill of Rights this Nazi party wants to abolish... Your next repuke Fuhrer will get rid of the rights this spin tyrant can't destroy. What can we do about it?

[txaslftist]

13. And it ain't temporary either. In the words of the last elected president

"A second reason to believe we may be experiencing something new is that we are told by the Administration that the war footing upon which he has tried to place the country is going to "last for the rest of our lives." So we are told that the conditions of national threat that have been used by other Presidents to justify arrogations of power will persist in near perpetuity." -Al Gore

[Bandit]

14. And the Extreme Court has ruled he can do this

Padilla is a US Citizen arrested in Chicago and has been held for over three years without any charges being filed, without due process or access to an attorney. This is supposed to be unconstitutional but guess what? Bush* is above the Law.....