Bush Admin. Appoints Civil-Liberties Officer 292
Zephyros writes "The WSJ reports that the Bush administration has appointed a Civil Liberties Protection Officer in order to assuage the public's privacy concerns. From the article: 'As the son of a U.S. aid worker stationed in Guatemala during the 1970s civil war, Alex Joel recalls being unable to tell the good guys from the bad as both armed soldiers and civilians alike would order his family out of their car to search it. Those first-hand brushes with totalitarianism, says Mr. [Alex] Joel, have led him to take the rights of individuals very seriously.' It remains to be seen how effective he will be, but at least they're recognizing the concern."
Great... (Score:3, Funny)
You shouldn't... (Score:5, Interesting)
Over a year ago, Bush created the "Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board". They haven't met a single time since the board was created.
The LA Times article that talked about it is now in their archives, and I believe is unavailable unless you pay for it.
Here is a posting that made Fark about it a while ago, although the linked to article is dead.
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLin
Mirror of LA Times article (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022006R.shtml [truthout.org]
Privacy Guardian Is Still a Paper Tiger
By Richard B. Schmitt
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 20 February 2006
A year after its creation, the White House civil liberties board has yet to do a single day of work.
Washington - For Americans troubled by the prospect of federal agents eavesdropping on their phone conversations or combing through their Internet records, there is good news: A little-known board exists in the White House whose purpose is to ensure that privacy and civil liberties are protected in the fight against terrorism.
Someday, it might actually meet.
Initially proposed by the bipartisan commission that investigated the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board was created by the intelligence overhaul that President Bush signed into law in December 2004.
More than a year later, it exists only on paper.
Foot-dragging, debate over its budget and powers, and concern over the qualifications of some of its members - one was treasurer of Bush's first campaign for Texas governor - has kept the board from doing a single day of work.
On Thursday, after months of delay, the Senate Judiciary Committee took a first step toward standing up the fledgling watchdog, approving the two lawyers Bush nominated to lead the panel. But it may take months before the board is up and running and doing much serious work.
Critics say the inaction shows the administration is just going through the motions when it comes to civil liberties.
"They have stalled in giving the board adequate funding. They have stalled in making appointments," said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.). "It is apparent they are not taking this seriously."
The Sept. 11 commission also has expressed reservations about the commitment to the liberties panel.
"We felt it was absolutely vital," said Thomas H. Kean, the Republican former governor of New Jersey who led the commission. "We had certainly hoped it would have been up and running a long time ago."
The inaction is especially noteworthy in light of recent events. Some Republicans joined Democrats to delay renewal of the anti-terrorism Patriot Act because of civil liberties concerns. And the disclosure in December that Bush approved surveillance of certain US residents' international communications without a court order has caused bipartisan dismay in Congress.
"Obviously, civil liberties issues are critically important, and they have been to this president, especially after 9/11," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, adding that the White House had moved expeditiously to establish the board. "We do not formally nominate until we are through the background investigation and the full vetting. It takes time to present those nominations to the Senate. But now that they have been confirmed, that is a good thing."
The board chairwoman is Carol E. Dinkins, a Houston lawyer who was a Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. A longtime friend of the Bush family, she was the treasurer of George W. Bush's first campaign for governor of Texas, in 1994, and co-chair of Lawyers for Bush-Cheney, which recruited Republican lawyers to handle legal battles after the November 2004 election.
Dinkins, a longtime partner in the Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins, where Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales once was a partner, has specialized in defending oil and gas companies in environmental lawsuits.
Foremost among her credentials, she told Senate Judiciary Committee members in a response to their questions, was the two years she spent as deputy attorney general in President Reagan's Justice Department. There, she said, she had to weigh civil liberties concerns while overseeing domestic surveillance and counter-intelligence cases.
The board vice chairman is Alan
Branches (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:War? (Score:3, Insightful)
With very few exceptions there were no police powers added in the Patriot Act - the important change is that you can now call someone "a terrorist" instead of "a drug dealer" to bypass their rights. It's up to the courts now to reign this stuff in. As I say above, I'm OK with the intention, but there always needs to be some system of oversight (and from a different branch, not some apointee of the person being o
Re:War? (Score:3, Interesting)
(sorry, full article has been arch
Re:You shouldn't... (Score:5, Funny)
"Fox Appoints Chicken To Guard Henhouse Against Self"
From the Henhouse-Safe-At-Last department.
Chicken Little writes "The Aesop Journal-Times reports that the Fox has appointed a Henhouse Guardian in order to assuage the hens' fear of their new canid management. From the article: 'As the hatchling of a Rhode Island Red in Ohio during the Wolf Scare, Henrietta recalls being unable to tell the good guys from the bad as both sheep and wolves in sheep clothing would order the chickens out of the henhouse to search it. Those first-hand brushes with predators, says Ms. Henrietta Hen, have led her to take the safety of chickens very seriously.' It remains to be seen how effective she will be at guarding the henhouse from her boss, but at least the fox is recognising the concern."
Re:You shouldn't... (Score:5, Insightful)
For me to believe that the action of appointing this person to this post meant that the Bush Administration had changed its tune, I would have to believe that the Bush Administration had suddenly changed their whole mission to that of peace, discretion, prosperity, and well-being. And I don't believe that.
Time will tell if I'm right or wrong, but if yesterday's news of the resignation of the White House Press Secretary is part of this same plan to show America and the world that the Bush Administration is serious about being caring, then I'm inclined to be insulted -- because the job of Press Secretary is meaningless. All the Press Secretary has to do is tell the press what the rest of the Administration wants him or her to say. You could put anyone in that job. They aren't required to ab lib or create strategy, and I assume that if they did, they'd be fired.
Re:Great... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Great... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sarcasm Aside... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sarcasm Aside... (Score:3, Insightful)
And, scary though MAD was, this continuing use of nuclear weapons has done a remarkable job of preventing shooting wars between major powers.
Actually detonating a nuclear weapon is the least poductive way in which we use it.
Good first step (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good first step (Score:5, Funny)
*wanders off muttering to himself*
Re:Good first step (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah... They can't all be losers.
Re:Good first step (Score:5, Insightful)
in order to assuage the public's privacy concerns
That's right, his supposed purpose is only to make people stop worrying about privacy (at least publically). Naturally, this can be accomplished somewhere between two extremes -- a) returning rights to the people, or b) summary executions
Re:Good first step (Score:2)
Re:Good first step (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good first step (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: That was quick (Score:2)
nope, it was a legitimate comparison.
Useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Useless because he reports to the Director of National Intelligence. Now, if the Director of National Intelligence reported to HIM, then we might have something to celebrate.
Further (Score:4, Informative)
These are problems because
Reading further into TFA, It seems to me that his job is partially going to involve enabling datamining in a more 'anonymous' fashion. Bush, Cheney & company seem to desperately want to track/datamine people. Even after the program was 'shut down', it turns out that it wasn't. It just got a name change & was shuffled around bureaucraticly. This looks to me like another attempt to legitimize that program.
Re:Further (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, give that we are now in an age when a single man--or a small group of men--can kill thousands of others and destroy billions of dollars easily, I can see why they'd want to track people. I'm not saying that they're necessarily right to do so, or that if right they've gone about it in the proper way--but the impetus for their actions is quite clear.
Re:Useless (Score:3, Insightful)
During that war and the many other proxy wars like it anything to stop the spread of communism was OK, including Fascism and death squads killing people trying to organize w
No, no, no! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hooray !!! We're free, thanks to our new ... (Score:2, Funny)
no, wait
Re:No, no, no! (Score:3, Interesting)
So either you're suggesting a radical reformulation of the way "governments are instituted among men" (and perhaps this government has "become destructive of these ends"), or you're merely pointing
Crazytalk (Score:3, Funny)
I have grown up in a communist country, and let me tell you!
All problems can be solved by appointing executives with shiny titles to fix them! All of them!
Remember, and repeat after me:
All animals are equal!
Fishy? Yeah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Talk about propaganda.
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot of people do some pretty bad things while believing they're doing good. Environmentalists firebomb buildings under construction. Animal rights activists sabotage labs and meat processing plants. They believe that they're helping their cause, but most people think that they're insane. Crazy people don't know that they're crazy. Everything they're doing makes perfect sense to them.
I'm not taking a side for or against Bush here, but I do think it's possible that he genuinely believes he's doing the right thing and this guy is there to provide confirmation. Sure, the administration isn't going to go on TV tomorrow night and say "Oh. My. God. We were really out of control. We're sorry. Please forgive us." However, some good can come out of someone who has access to more information than the public saying "umm, don't you think that's a bit excessive?"
Of course, the opposite position is just as likely. This guy could be a stooge that is there to help tell everyone that their liberties are being protected by the video cameras being installed in their homes. If you tell a lie often enough, you may get the majority to believe it. My personal favorite is the movement over the last several decades to declare the constitution unconstitutional. That's some mighty fine doublethink we got going on there. =)
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:4, Funny)
With appologies to Tom Cruise. *wretch*
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:3, Funny)
Nonsense. I know I'm the most humble person ever.
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:2)
I remember reading somewhere that, in Imperial China, there was an interesting punishment meted out to misbehaving schoolgirls. They were to spend a night standing a post near the Emperor's bedroom, and relieve his insomnia by regularly shouting out, "The Empire is at peace! The Empire is at peace!"
It strikes me as unlikely that this was the Emperor's i
Re:Fishy? Yeah. (Score:2)
I'm curious to know what you are referring to, please give a bit more detail. Thanks.
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
Used to be Dept. of War... (Score:2)
Dept. of Peace is not far off.
Dont you mean... (was:In related news...) (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dont you mean... (was:In related news...) (Score:2)
So that makes the Department of Homeland Security the Ministry of Love, AOL/Time Warner, Verizon and AT&T the Ministry of Truth, and Citibank the Ministry of Plenty.
By the way, the correct newspeak term is "Double double-plus ungood." Minus no longer exists in our vocabular, nor does bad, as ungood and unminus are much more structured and logical. Please report to the Ministry of Love immediately for reeducation.
Re:Dont you mean... (was:In related news...) (Score:2)
Re:In related news... (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft has appointed an Open Source Advocate.
DeBeers has created a panel promoting hand-me-down engagement rings.
The Beef Industry is promoting vegetarianism.
Nothing To Hide (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess. He wasn't scared because they had nothing to hide, just like all good americans!
Something tells me Joel's time in Guatemala was well spent taking notes.
Re:Nothing To Hide (Score:2, Insightful)
So that's why they picked him.
Re:Nothing To Hide (Score:2)
Guatemala? I thought Joel was in orbit watching bad movies with his robot friends.
Re:Nothing To Hide (Score:5, Insightful)
"If only I knew which of these groups of murderous thugs I was supposed to place blind, obedient trust in..."
Who appoints? (Score:3, Insightful)
"Although you might have concerns about what might potentially be going on,
those potentials are not actually being realized and if you could see
what was going on, you would be reassured just like everyone else," he says.
He lacks the same foresight as the rest of the administration. Even if you could say that the wiretap was legit, it sets a bad precedent; any forthcoming administration can establish the same program with ever stretching legal boundaries and say "Bush did it, it must be OK." And there wouldn't even be the oversight to say otherwise.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ [runfatboy.net]
Re:Who appoints? (Score:5, Informative)
You have...
The mining lobbyist as a number 2 in the Department of the Interior and a cattle rancher laywer as the chief counsel.
The pharmaceutical lawyer acting as lead counsel for the FDA.
The meat industry lobbyist running our meat labelling program.
The number 2 in the EPA was a Monsanto executive, and his pick for chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality represented GE in its fight against cleaning up its own toxic waste. The chief of staff left to go work for Southern Company (a major owner of coal plants) a week after clean air standard were relaxed.
Read more. [commondreams.org]
Essentially, Bush has packed every government enforcement agency with people who have spent their careers trying to help companies get out of complying with regulations meant to protect the people. Even his own Supreme Court nominees are strong advocates of executive power. His legacy has been to undermine every control meant to keep him and his supports from running out of control.
Let's pick on James Connaughton (Score:4, Informative)
I'll pick James Connaughton for my example. This man is a lawyer who has lobbied on behalf of coal, chemical, and utility companies to avoid having to pay to clean up Superfund sites that they created. One of these companies was GE, which has been responsible for creating the largest number of Superfund sites of any other company in the nation. They've also pumped a ton of money into lobbying against having to pick up the bill for toxic waste dumping and against the designation of sites as toxic waste dumps in the first place. A real good cause there, huh?
He also helped head up the ISO 14000 standard for environmental policy which has no real requirements beyond minimal compliance with the law and no external audit requirement. It's toothless and basically just a free sticker you can apply to your company to claim that you care about the environment without actually having to do so.
Once in office, he helped lead the charge to prevent the government from tightening standards on arsenic in the water supply. He has been a passionate advocate against any policy to reduce greenhouse gasses and has been implicated in censoring language in research studies that support the existence of global warming. He's been a supporter of the "Clean Skies" initiative which destroys a lot of the Clean Air Act's protective provisions. He likes to push for "volunatry standards" a.k.a. "not having to do anything about a problem."
He's just one example. His expertise has entirely been in helping business pursue profits at the expense of public health. His kind of industry experience the people can do without.
The Real Question... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bush's previous appointments / plans (Score:2, Informative)
- Supreme court justice Harriet Myers
- Clean Air
- Environment czar to relax the environment initiatives
- Homeland security from everyone but the illegals
- VP himself to supervise energy policy
- And last but not the least
Re:Bush's previous appointments / plans (Score:5, Informative)
June 2003: Nuala O'Connor Kelly, (former Chief "Privacy" Officer of Doubleclick) [wired.com] appointed to be Chief "Privacy" officer for HomeSec.
February 2005: D. Reed Freeman, (former Gator/Claria Chief "Privacy" Officer) [slashdot.org] sitting on HomeSec's Data "Privacy" and "Integrity" Advisory Committee.
Maybe we should be thankful. Based on precedent, the BSA guy should be put in charge of the Copyright office, or perhaps hired by NSA to... adjust its priorities when it comes to what sort of traffic is worthy of further investigation.
April 2006: Department of Commerce, undersecretary for technology: Robert Cresanti, former VP of public policy at the Business Software Alliance (BSA) [slashdot.org].
Now we have a guy who "recalls being unable to tell the good guys from the bad as both armed soldiers and civilians alike would order his family out of their car to search it", and who says one of his best qualifications for the job includes "first-hand brushes with totalitarianism" in charge of Civil Liberties instead.
"Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun."
- Ash, Army of Darkness (1993)
Anyways, freedom's overrated these days. You know what they do to people in those freedom camps? (Yeah, neither do I, and I'd like to keep it that way!)
There's still time to appoint Jeff Bezos to run USPTO! (I've got a $10 bet riding on it, so please, write your Congressmen today! :)
Re:Bush's previous appointments / plans (Score:2)
The funny part is that it seems pretty obvious to me who the bad guys are here, and that'd be "all of them", assuming I'm not trying to drive my family onto an army base.
This is like (Score:3)
~S
Don't Worry... (Score:2, Interesting)
A.G. (Score:5, Insightful)
-Kurt
The way the founders meant for it to work (Score:3, Interesting)
What was *supposed* to happen was that the states were supposed to protect their citizens against any hypothetical tyranny by the Federal government. If not out of good will, then out of jealousy for their own powers.
That's a dead letter now.
Re:A.G. (Score:3, Informative)
In the new Ministry of Truth (Score:2)
World's fastest handwashing/exoneration. (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally . . (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Personally . . (Score:2)
I must sincerely admit that my initial reaction was very cynical, and that some of the thoughts in my head mirrored many of the unkind comments posted thus far.
However, I will wait and see what happens before I decide that it is all a ploy/head fake/Bad Thing(TM). I love my country, and respect its systems, but sometimes, things get a little scary.
Isn't it Bush's job ? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it Bush's job ? (Score:3, Insightful)
See:
Mike Brown: Katrina
FBI, CIA: September 11th, 2001
Alberto Gonzales: Abu Ghraib Prison
Lewis "Scooter" Libby: Confidential Leaker
When the civil liberties get worse, he just says "Alex Joel was placed there to fix these problems" Then when the media pushes harder he says "Alex Joel was trying his best" Then he removes (has him resign) Mr. Joel from his current
Re:Isn't it Bush's job ? (Score:2)
Re:Isn't it Bush's job ? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Isn't it Bush's job ? (Score:2, Insightful)
The people are also supposed to protect their civil liberties through bills of rights, and state constitutions and the courts that interpret them tend to enact more rigorous protections of those rights than their federal counterparts, but, of course, that doesn'
Powerless (Score:5, Insightful)
And so, they become propaganda tools and little else. They need to give the position teeth, but then that's exactly what the governent doesn't want, given how the 9/11 Commission took the goverment to task for its ineptitude. The last thing they need is a government-appointed civil liberties watchdog actually doing his/her job and exposing the malfeasance going on behind the scenes.
Re:Powerless (Score:3, Insightful)
We have vastly different views on what the term "taking to task" means. Methinks the current attitude of corporate punishment in our society has dulled your sense of justice.
Heh (Score:2)
"Civil liberties" as euphemism (Score:4, Insightful)
Ministry of Truth = Department of Mind Control
Ministry of Peace = Department of War
Re:"Civil liberties" as euphemism (Score:5, Funny)
Now thats not quite accurate, its not as if we live in a society where the government tapes public and private areas looking for wrongdoing... wait, let me start over.
Now thats not quite accurate, its not as if we went to war for the sake of going to war... well, we went to war to make the rich richer, so let me start over.
Now thats not quite accurate, its not as if terrorist attacks are being perpetrated against ourselves by ourselves to trump up support for the war... wait, yes we are...
Well crap, I've got no real response here. 1984 is a good book, and scarilly relevant in this current administration. Anyone have a rebuttal?
The summary is right on (Score:2)
Yep, that's pretty much the only reason for this. To "assuage". Not, mind you, to take any action or actually do anything. But to make people feel better about it through persuasion and talk.
Par for the course in my book. This administration pays a lot of lip service to a lot of things that they don't actually give a damn about. And this is yet another example of it.
Actions speak louder than words.
Is he going to be.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Expecting a conservative to mod me down in 3...2....1...
Re:Is he going to be.. (Score:2)
Unitary Executive (Score:4, Insightful)
Under the Bush doctrine of Unitary Executive, this posting is a contradiction in terms and not just useless but completely meaningless. The "Officer" will be implicitely or explicitely prohibitied from taking any corrective action against anyone in the executive branch, along the same lines that the EPA cannot sure the Department of Defense to clean up depleted uranium dust because both are agents of the executive, and the president cannot sue himself. ridiculous, but that's what it is.
Now, who are the ones in government trampling the hardest on civil liberties?
At first I thought... (Score:4, Insightful)
Coincidence? (Score:2)
He is going to be incredibly effective!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Clear Skies Initiative: let factories pollute more.
No Child Left Behind: helped schools hide minority test scores.
Operation Iraqi Freedom: DUCK MOTHERFUCKER! has become Iraq's national motto.
The Bush administration has been living in Opposite Day for years.
So... A Civil Liberties officer is going to become the head of America's newest brownshirt organization and be highly effective.
Otherwise, why would they cite his hands-on experience dealing with totalitarian methods as if it were a selling point.
If they really wanted to convince us he was serious about civil liberties, he would appoint Larry Flynt or better yet have Hunter S. Thompson brought back from the dead.
The new civil liberties director would be a hard-living, foul-mouth, drug-addicted, woman-grabbing, ass-slapping, hyperactive pervert driving the biggest, meanest gas-guzzling straight-line Cadillac he could find from the car lot nearest to his last traffic accident.
Now it is time to start worrying. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fox in the henhouse (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Fox in the henhouse (Score:2)
Re:Fox in the henhouse (Score:2)
The Bureau of Civil Liberties (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who has a glimmer of hope about this, forget it. Here's a little summary of a comparable establishment, the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I was astonished, but wikipedia is strangely neutral about their existence:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Indian_Aff
But here is some of the truth behind them. They were established to placate the Native population and to ensure that they are permanently marginalized.
They have stolen revenue from them,
http://www.earthportals.com/Portal_Messenger/bia.
they are incompetent and their existence is a keep-your-enemies-closer solution to future American-Native American relations. Just ask anyone who has contracted with them.
You know the what if Microsoft built cars joke? Here's the equivalent BIA joke:
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0304/S00127.htm [scoop.co.nz]
Lastly, note that the name of the agency still reflects an old way of thinking - It ain't the Bureau of Native American Affiars, a symptom of what little regard is given to the North American Natives.
A Civil Liberties appointee will bear some painful resemblences and be used more for turning to the population and placating them about the administration rather than speaking on behalf of the population to the President.
This is business-as-usual.
In other news... (Score:2, Funny)
Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like DMCA, the PATRIOT Act or the Range Safety Act just because it has a happy feel-good name does not make it happy or feel-good.
Everyone is Searching for Something... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is an ironic statement since he could he be talking about either Guatemala or Iraq.
Article with search pictures [www.ctv.ca]
From the article: (Score:2)
Can someone see this dialogue? (Score:5, Funny)
"Why?"
"Well, 'cause we pretty much snoop at them."
"So?"
"Well, ya know, the things 'bout land of free and
"We already eliminated home of the brave, and they kinda liked it. So?"
"Well, it ain't good, ok? They might finally find out that we're not really working in their favor."
"Hmm. I know. We'll appoint someone to take care of civil liberties and observe it all."
"But
"How so?"
"Well, if he's constantly telling us what we can't do?"
"Never said anything 'bout telling us what to do, did I? I said OBSERVE."
"And then?"
"No then. File a nice li'l report to be put into the big round storage under your desk."
"And what should that do?"
"Make them think that someone's taking care of liberty. While we take care of what's left of it."
The Post Is Insightful (Score:2)
Scapegoat (Score:2)
The state is snooping too much and is acting in an oppressive and unconstitutional way. Rumsfeld, Bush, whoever must be held responsible. Someone must resign.
Future situation:
The state is snooping too much and is acting in an oppressive and unconstitutional way.
The Civil-Liberties Officer isn't doing his job properly and he must resign.
Appointing people to posts where they appear to have free reign while their strings are pulled from the shadows puts a superb buffer zone between the public
I don't want my concerns to be assuaged ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Preciousssss... (Score:4, Funny)
Yesssss. The flithy bloggerssss gives uss the dirts. Filthy, fats bloggerssss....
Re:Any bests? (Score:2, Interesting)
Guatemalan history has been marked by the Cold War between the USA and the USSR. The Central Intelligence Agency, supported by a small group of Guatemalan citizens, orchestrated the overthrow of the democratic socialist freely-elected Guatemalan government in 1954. This was known as Operation PBSUCCESS and led to over thirty years of unrest in the nation during which over 200,000 Guate
Re:Any bests? (Score:2)
Re:Any bests? (Score:4, Insightful)
And before any free-market religion convert jumps on this with "but free markets are most efficient thing ever!" meme, lets not kid ourselves, they are efficient only from the perspective of their search function and suffer a host of horrible inefficiencies elsewhere, very much as any other method of allocation of limited resources does, each being more efficient at some of its aspects when compared to others.
Re:Any bests? (Score:2)
Re:Any bests? (Score:2)
Re:The Wrong Way Around (Score:3, Insightful)
murder, rape and mame... that does not mean it is only the government's
job to curtail this.
Re:Good guys from the bad (Score:3, Funny)
After all, if you weren't doing anything wrong why would you have a problem with armed men stopping and searching your car without probable cause? If you think that's wrong it's only because at some point you are PLANNING on doing something wrong.
How do you live with yourself? Planning to do evil things. You are an Evil Doer and an Enemy of the State! By thinking the government could ever possibly do anyt