Quote:
Originally posted by ARTelevision
I think that is an admonition to determine what safegaurds will be necessary to protect against the abuses of the implementations of the tool in question. Those would be extrinsic to the tool itself and need to be created or applied separately. These would include things like laws clatrifying or strengthening liberties that might be abused or using existing law itself as an interpretive tool or safeguard. It would even include tests of the constitutionality of the instrument or parts of it as implemented.
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This response fails to address Nanofever's basic premise: what safeguards are there in the Patriot Act to prevent miscarriages of justice such as stripping a US citizen of their constitutional rights under the banner of "national security?" One does not have to agree with Jose Padilla to believe that he has inalienable rights that cannot be stripped by executive fiat, indeed that is what the Constitution and Bill of Rights guarantee. We have seen a deluge of leaked memos recently that showcase the Bush adminstration's attempts to redefine the definition of torture. Why should we trust the reassurances of Bush, the FBI, et al, that they will only use these newfound powers in righteous ways? In fact, it would seem to me that a traditional conservative would resist the urge to grant sweeping, new powers to a government that is already all-pervasive. It doesn't take a conspiracy nut to see that easing the regulations on wiretapping, the acquisition of library records/book purchases, and the indefinite detention of suspects with no probable cause can be easily abused. It only takes a cursory examination of US history to understand why limits to government intrusions were in place to begin with, ie Operation Chaos and Cointelpro.