yesterday, hidden amoung the smoke and mirrors of the faux bombs in London, Congress voted to extended the Patriot Act. all under the guise of keeping `us` safe.
this isn`t about keep anyone safe, they don`t even know where to begin doing that. and if you think i don`t know what i`m talking about, talk a read throught my archives about my dealings with the USCIS and see how secure that makes you feel. this about maintaining the illusion of safety and the power to fuck with people.
and i hear the voices from the peanut gallery cry, “No, Not our government.”
Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows:
* Order any person or entity to turn over “any tangible things,” so long as the FBI specifies that the order is part of an authorized terrorism or intelligence investigation.
* Obtain personal data, including medical records, without any specific facts connecting those records to a foreign terrorist.
* Prohibit doctors and insurance companies from disclosing to their patients that their medical records have been seized by the government.
* Obtain library and book store records, including lists of books checked out, without any specific facts connecting the records to a foreign agent or terrorist.
* Obtain private financial records without a court order, and without notification to the person involved.
* Conduct intelligence investigations of both United States citizens and permanent residents without probable cause, or even reasonable grounds to believe that they are engaged in criminal activity or are agents of a foreign power.
* Investigate U.S. citizens based in part on their exercise of their First Amendment rights, and non-citizens based solely on their exercise of those rights. (Naturally, decisions about what constitutes “in part” are left to a secret court, meeting secretly.)
of course none of this affects any of you law-abiding, non-terrorist, readers, but without due process how will you ever know?
i`m so livid right now i can`t get the words out, i`m just going to leave this to stew.
yesterday the boychick came home with an assignment that required him to discuss with his family reasons that people would be unhappy with the government.
after laughing hysterically on the couch for a couple of minutes, i tried honestly to have a discussion with him. actually i didn`t but vic vetoed my first title for his essay; Ignorance is Strength, War is Peace, Knowledge is Slavery, she also vetoed my second suggestion; Trust no one; but i decided i`d use that today.
i found it interesting that even at age 9, the boychick had learned how useful self censorship is already, i wish he could teach me. i tend to say what i think regardless of the consequences. it was also kind of sad that the first thing i told him after i`d finished laughing that was that governments couldn`t be trusted.
i`ve come to realise that no matter how noble the intentions, there are two inherent problems with governments; they are massive bureaucracies and to get into power in a `democratic` society requires compromise. i put democratic in quotes because there are no true democracies, as much as we`d like to believe it, the voice of the people means squat. to get elected requires lots of money and since campaign contributors are not giving money for altruistic reasons, they want to see a return on their investment. so at the end of the day our elected officials are not beholden to the voters, but to the campaign contributors. and the problem with bureaucracies is once they get entrenched they are almost impossible to implement change. on the surface it looks like things are being changed but on a day to day basis, it`s business as usual, because the people entrenched therein know governments and policies will change but their jobs are pretty much guaranteed.
there are days when living in the US scares the crap out of me. and today is one of them.
i`ve always been very cynical about paying taxes, i think my money is usually wasted on something that i genuinely abhor and i`ve been proved right. i`m a huge proponent of the separation of church and state. i think if churches don`t pay taxes they should have absolutely say in matters of policy, but obviously my opinion is not shared by the powers that be.
here`s the first paragraph from a story in Sunday`s SF Chronicle:
President Bush has some new troops in his crusade to promote “healthy marriage” and teen celibacy with federal funds — followers of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the controversial Korean evangelist and self-proclaimed new world messiah. read the rest
i`ve been trying to vent my anger here without resorting to expletives, after reading this i`m realising how difficult a task it is.
