The Red Brick Times

Badges? We don't need no steenking badges!

U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling. "The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism."

The White House says spying on terrorism suspects without court approval is OK. What about physical searches?: "John Martin, a former Justice Department attorney who prosecuted the two most important cases involving warrantless searches and surveillance, says the department is sending an unambiguous message to Congress. 'They couldn't make it clearer,' says Martin, 'that they are also making the case for inherent presidential power to conduct warrantless physical searches.'"
Posted 6:23 AM by whatley (3) comments

       Comments:

Is it time for an overt Constitutional crisis? We are living through several that call the basic interpretation of our country's foundation into question. The questions about self-determination are inherent in Roe v. Wade and assisted suicide which bracket our life spans. The power of the Executive branch shifted with FDR and boiled over with Nixon/Watergate, FBI abuses and Iran-Contragate. Now the Executive branch is seeking to formalize, legalize and legitimize the entire package, drape it in bunting, and place it on a fundamentalist altar. Will the Supreme Court and the Congress become rubber stamps for the Executive? Are we well on our way to an elected tyranny? The existing power inherent in the Executive finds expression in the control of money, collected by the IRS, and enforced by the administrative court system (completely separate from the Judicial branch), and in which one has no rights of representation or protection from arbitrary action. The succesful survivor needs cunning and the ability to manipulate complex systems to keep the administrative shredder at bay. Either that or be really tiny and insignificant so when you get swatted, it is more like an accident than a preemptive strike. Too bad for the dead bug, though.

# posted by  Andy : March 20, 2006 10:30 AM
 
Man for All Seasons, by Robert Bolt. Near the end of Act 1: "More: What would you do? Cut a great road throught he law to get after the Devil? Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh" And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you-where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? ... and if you cut them down-and you're just the man to do it-d'you realy think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?" I feel that this is what is happening now. Disguised as "Patriotism" and "Being on the side of Right and Goodness", the long-established protections and wonderfully complex thickets of tangled law established by the noisy bickering mass of humanity are being whacked, burned, pruned, fenced, and cleared to make vast superhighways so that juggernaughts of retribution can swoop and roar everywhere in repsonse to percieved threats of the moment. BUT, a highway is a two-way street. I seem to be happier on a wandering forest trail than on an 8-lane sun-baked concrete desert. A pedestrian in 75 mph traffic without even a stop sign to protect met.

# posted by  Andy : March 20, 2006 10:44 AM
 
Good quote.

# posted by  whatley : March 20, 2006 2:29 PM
 
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