posted 01-07-2003 02:19 PM            

Cops go to bars to arrest drunks
Gestapo-like tactics prompt outrage, complaints among owners, citizenry

World Net Daily 01/07/03

Original Link: http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30288

In the ongoing effort to keep public places clear of intoxicated citizens and drunk drivers, some police agencies are using a controversial tactic – going directly into bars and restaurants in order to make arrests.

Such is the situation in northern Virginia, where Fairfax County Police are targeting patrons suspected of having one too many.

"[Officers] were talking to one of the guests, then physically pulled him off the barstool," Richie Prisco, general manager at Champps bar told the Reston Times. "They were really aggressive and nasty."

According to the report, police are hauling customers outside of establishments to conduct sobriety tests, then arresting them for public drunkenness should they fail.

Tavern owner Jimmy Cirrito says it was intimidating and unnecessary to have some ten officers show up in SWAT-like attire. He notes police seemed to be tagging people at random, despite their telling bar owners they had undercover agents inside, calling in to provide specific descriptions of certain individuals.

"They tapped one lady on the shoulder – who was on her first drink and had just eaten dinner – to take her out on the sidewalk and give her a sobriety test," Cirrito told the paper. "They told her she fit the description of a woman they had complaints about, and that they heard she was dancing topless."

Cirrito said the woman passed the test and was allowed back in, but soon after, police pulled another woman outside who had arrived shortly before officers did.

"They made her count backward, say the alphabet, tell them where she lived, how she got there, how she was getting home," he said. "She had just gotten there five minutes ago in a cab."

Authorities say such methods are not new, despite protests from bar owners that they've never heard of police coming inside their establishments to enforce drinking laws.

"I've been an officer for over 17 years, and we've been doing it on and off over my entire career," police spokeswoman Sophia Grinnan told the Times. "As much as officers hate to spoil a good time, they hate even more to go out at 2 a.m. and work a death of anybody that is alcohol-related."

Virginia statutes say any business with a liquor license is considered a public place; therefore, police are allowed free access. If they find someone over the legal alcohol limit of .08, or suspect a customer of being intoxicated while still being served or present in an establishment, police can issue a ticket for public intoxication.

In response to complaints the raids were overly aggressive, Grinnan said, "I've had bar owners come up to me [and] ask what is going on, but I've also had some approach me aggressively, telling me I couldn't be there and I was violating their constitutional rights. We love to give explanations of what we're doing because it has an impact, but officers don't have to give up their game plan. That is just a courtesy."

In the wake of the published report, citizens appear to be siding with the bar owners and patrons, gauging from posts in an online messageboard.

"The way police are handling the drink situation is the biggest B.S. I have ever heard of," wrote Ray Williams.

"I lost a son (at age 16) a few years ago, and I most certainly support stopping anyone from drinking and driving. However, this police raid that seems to take place at some local bars is just totally crazy. ... Are we now living in a communist environment where we are not allowed to do anything without being harassed by the military/police?"

Russ Heisinger of Northport, N.Y., asked: "What is next, the alcohol police entering your home on Super Bowl Sunday, and inviting you outside to take a breath test? A solution would be for all the bar and restaurant owners to become 'private clubs,' and charge a very nominal fee for membership. However, the true solution is for the 'Barney Fifes' there to uphold the part of the Constitution about unlawful search, and to remember that we are after all, a free society, unless the cops think this is Baghdad!"

Others, like Don Armstrong, urged people to reject field sobriety tests, and request a blood-alcohol test at a local hospital.

"I have a form of arthritis that often affects my speech patterns and walking abilities," he wrote. "Under their standards of an acceptable set of motor functions, I would fail even if I never had an alcoholic drink."

THEY ARE MAKING YOUR EVER DAY LIFE ILLEGAL...THE BUSH PEOPLE ARE THE BIGGEST STOCKHOLDERS IN PRIVATIZED PRISONS.

posted 01-08-2003 02:17 PM            

Fingerprinting kids: A smear on privacy?

Wednesday, January 08, 2003
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?level_3_id=360&page=6228870

By WHITNEY KVASAGER
Herald News

Besides having an evacuation plan and a lockdown strategy, School 1 has another security measure: records of students' fingerprints.

Since last September, Resource Officer Amar Singer has been collecting prints, sending a copy home to parents and filing a copy at the police station on Brown Ave.

The prints will be used if a student is ever abducted, said Capt. Frank Franco.

Singer refused to comment.

But according to an official at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, fingerprints are usually only used to identify bodies. Photographs, said the center's Dave Shapiro, are investigators' ID tool of choice. And according to the state bureau of the American Civil Liberties Union, the procedure could have serious implications.

"This is just one of hundreds of privacy violations that are happening in all kinds of realms," said Deborah Jacobs, ACLU's executive director in New Jersey.

"Fingerprints have never been a significant part of finding lost children," she said. "There are other things that have been introduced to keep track of children. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me."

Dan Riesel, a lawyer who tries constitutional cases in New York, agreed.

"Sometimes, I think the state just has too much goddamn information and they can use it in any way they want," he said. "This does look like a heavy-handed police action. ...There's always a fear that the central government or the local government has some centralized computer bank. "

But Riesel said as long as the program is optional, "parents have the right to do a lot of things with their kids."

Despite misgivings civil liberties experts have about fingerprintings, most parents agree to the procedure when they get the fingerprinting permission slip, according to School 1 Principal Allison Angermeyer.

"Everything I've heard is all positive from parents," Angermeyer said, adding that having the prints on file is just another reassurance against a parent's worst nightmare.

One of those parents is Abby Perez, whose 8-year-old daughter Yasmine was fingerprinted last year.

"I really think fingerprinting is a good idea," Perez said. "I would be reassured if, God forbid, later on something happened to Yasmine."

Perez said she keeps a copy of the prints at home for personal use, too. "In the event that she gets lost or anything, we have that information on record," she said.

According to FBI statistics, about 840,000 people are abducted each year across the country. Most are children. In New Jersey, the abduction rate is about three to four children a year, said Robert Hoever, a State Police detective. Prospect Park police records show that nobody has ever been abducted in the borough.

posted 01-09-2003 09:26 AM            

BET ON IT.

Army unveils 'SmarTruck II'

CNN 01/09/03

Original Link: http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/07/army.truck.reut/index.html

DETROIT, Michigan (Reuters) -- It looks like a contraption that should be entered in a monster truck rally -- menacing black with reinforced silver bumpers, big tires and floodlights mounted on top of the cab.

But it can track down and zap the enemy in so many ways.

At the Detroit auto show, the U.S. Army Tuesday unveiled a hulky, prototype "SmarTruck II" -- designed since the September 11, 2001, attacks with President Bush's War on Terrorism definitely in mind.

It will not be rumbling through the desert toward Baghdad any time soon, but the military is trying to create an all-purpose vehicle that could make a statement if it suddenly appeared over the sand dune.

"Once this vehicle comes on the scene, we want everyone to know that we mean business," Germaine Fuller, the director of the project that created it, told Reuters at a news conference featuring a marching color guard and a military band playing patriotic songs such as "God Bless America."

Last year at the Detroit show, the U.S. Army showcased its first attempt at a high-tech truck, which the military brass now acknowledges was eye-catching with a pop-up pepper spray dispenser and surveillance cameras, but hardly ready for the real world.

"It was more a James Bond vehicle, more 'gee whiz' but not designed for a specific mission," Army Gen. N. Ross Thompson III, chief of the command that designed the truck, told Reuters.

Presto change-o
SmarTruckII is equipped with all the latest high-tech bells and whistles. This time, however, the designers have tried to create a military vehicle that can be changed in an hour or so to fight a new enemy with new weapons in a post-September 11 world.

Built on the modified platform of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with a 350 horsepower, V-8 engine, the watchword of the SmarTruckII is flexibility.

Designers created what they call "nodules," based on a stainless steel box that sits on what would normally be the bed of the truck. The boxes are interchanged depending on the mission.

The idea is for the vehicle to be useful in conventional combat or be transformed quickly to detect chemical and biological weapons, or even to help in recovery from a disaster.

Fuller said the boxes can be changed in about an hour, depending on the situation.

For example, out of the top of one of boxes on the prototype vehicle popped SPIKE, which the military described as a "fire and forget" small missile and launcher system that can fire two missiles simultaneously.

Others boxes housed equipment useful in communications or surveillance.

Big Brother hovering

In another twist, the vehicle can house an unmanned dronelike small aircraft that can hover over a nearby area and send live video back to the vehicle.

In the cab of the truck are housed a 3-D mapping system and a communications system that Fuller described as "hacker in a box." It includes a computer program linked with surveillance equipment to monitor what people in the area around the vehicle are saying in e-mail. SmarTruckII could just sit and listen, send bogus e-mails to confuse an enemy, or, if it is not amused, kill the enemy communications system altogether.

The prototype vehicle cost between $500,000 and $1 million, Fuller said, although she said it is tough to estimate precisely because it involved partnerships with several firms.

The military said it has no plans to produce the truck any time soon, although Bran Ferren, a designer of SmarTruck II, said that if an order came through it could be put in production in a year.

posted 01-17-2003 02:04 AM            

A black man visits an affluent white suburb to attend a co-worker's barbecue. That same night, a crime takes place in the neighborhood. Police review footage taken from a security camera installed in the area, use face-recognition software to identify the man and visit his home to ask him what he was doing in a neighborhood where he "didn't belong."

That's one of the futuristic scenarios offered by the American Civil Liberties Union in its new report titled: "Bigger Monster, Weaker Chains: The Growth of an American Surveillance Society."

Released Tuesday in San Francisco, the document warns that a combination of technological innovation and weakened privacy protections is "feeding a surveillance monster that is growing silently in our midst."

GPS, biometrics, cameras, wireless communication, implantable microchips and other systems that identify, track and record people's activities need to be held in check by legislation to protect Americans' privacy rights, the report argues.

"The kind of surveillance society that people have been talking about since George Orwell is now technically possible," said Jay Stanley, of the ACLU's Technology and Democracy Program, who co-authored the report. "Too many people still do not understand this danger."

Since Sept. 11, the government has invested heavily in technology to combat terrorism, but the ACLU charges that many of the Justice Department's new tools will lead to racial profiling and widespread monitoring of ordinary, innocent Americans.

The ACLU isn't the only group questioning the efficacy of government's tech arsenal.

Several tests of the face-scanning software being deployed at national airports since the terrorist attacks have shown the systems to be shoddy, for example. And database experts have expressed doubts about the feasibility of the Total Information Awareness system, a Herculean data mining effort to suss out terrorist information.

"It will always be important to understand and publicly debate every new technology and every new technique for spying on people," the report concludes.

Not everyone agreed.

posted 01-17-2003 12:02 PM            

Washington Times 01/17/03: Audrey Hudson

Original Link: http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030117-28614801.htm

The Pentagon's Total Information Awareness program is under attack on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are threatening to pull funding or kill the data-mining system legislatively.

A proposed amendment to the omnibus spending bill now before the Senate would prohibit the use of funds for research, development, testing and evaluation on the program's technology.

Dubbed a "Big Brother" program by critics, it would create a database of public and private transactions in an effort to identify terrorists. The TIA program was established quietly last year by retired Vice Adm. John Poindexter and angered some Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"They would be in a position to look at education, travel and medical records, and develop risk profiles for millions of Americans in the quest to examine questionable conduct and certainly suspicious activity that would generate concern for the safety of the American people," said Sen. Ron Wyden, Oregon Democrat.

"I am of the view the Senate has a special obligation to be vigilant in this area so we do not approve actions or condone actions by this particular office that could compromise the bedrock of this nation, our Constitution," said Mr. Wyden, sponsor of the amendment.

The amendment requires the defense secretary, attorney general and CIA director to submit a report to Congress explaining in detail how funding will be used and the program's effect on privacy and civil liberties.

Sen. Russell D. Feingold, Wisconsin Democrat, yesterday introduced a bill to place a moratorium on data mining in the Defense and Homeland Security departments until it could be reviewed by Congress.

"This unchecked system is a dangerous step that threatens one of the values we are fighting for — freedom," Mr. Feingold said.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, said the program has been authorized by the Armed Services and Appropriations committees, which already have oversight responsibility.

"The Armed Services Committee has pretty good oversight on that now, so in a general way Congress seems to be well-satisfied," the spokesman said.

Adm. Poindexter has refused interviews regarding the program, but the TIA program issued a statement on its Web site stating it is not creating a "supercomputer" to snoop into private lives.

The project is described as "an experimental prototype system that consists of three parts — language translation technologies, data search and pattern recognition technologies, and advanced collaborative and decision support tools," the statement said.

If the five-year project is successful, "the Department of Homeland Security will consult with Congress to determine whether the TIA system should be implemented for domestic use."

The statement said safeguards are in place to prevent privacy violations against American citizens, but does not say what those safeguards entail.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican and incoming chairman of the Finance Committee, asked the Defense Department inspector general in November to review the program.

"I am at a loss to understand why [Defense] resources are being spent on research for domestic law enforcement," Mr. Grassley said in a letter to Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Grassley said the senator wanted to see the full inspector general's report before deciding if legislation is needed.

However, preliminary findings of the report have been shared with the senator and "nothing so far has alleviated any concerns Mr. Grassley has," the spokeswoman said.

Several civil liberties groups Tuesday wrote to congressional leaders urging that development of the program be stopped.

"TIA would put the details of Americans' daily lives under the scrutiny of government agents, opening the door to a massive domestic surveillance system," the letter said.

The letter was signed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, American Conservative Union, American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for Tax Reform, Center for Democracy and Technology, Center for National Security Studies, Eagle Forum, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Free Congress Foundation.

posted 01-17-2003 06:40 PM            

EPIC Wins FOIA Lawsuit Against Pentagon on Poindexter Records

U.S. District Judge John Bates today issued a decision that rejects the Defense Department's attempt to impose financial obstacles to EPIC's requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The court ruled that EPIC is entitled to "preferred fee status" under the FOIA and ordered the Pentagon to "expeditiously" process EPIC's almost year-old request for information concerning Admiral John Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness Office. (Jan. 16)

PDF
http://www.epic.org/open_gov/foia/fees/EPICvDOD_decision.pdf

posted 01-19-2003 05:20 PM            

Global Governance for a New Global Union

By Mary Louise

Last week (1/6/03) we explored Dick Cheney's "Project for a New American Century", which is related to the widespread school of global thought or ideas that has permeated and infected society in general. In a speech to the Council of the Americas (COTA) on May 6, 2002 filmed by C-Span, Cheney said that everything is on schedule for completion by January 2005, of the "Free Trade Area of the Americas" (FTAA). The FTAA will become the "American Union"

At this time and there will no longer be a Constitution and Bill of Rights. The old "Fast Track Legislation" has been renamed the "Trade Promotion Authority". They often change the names when people catch on to throw us off the track, in addition to disseminating conflicting, confusing, and false information through the media and other organizations. The globalists couldn't get the support they needed for the League of Nations so they just called it the United Nations instead and so it is with the New World Order, which has now become the New Global Union.

With the European Union (formerly European Economic Community) already established, one of the milestones of completing the American Union will be to outlaw private ownership of firearms by U.S. citizens. To prepare for the anticipated resistance and protests, the Elite have created the Office of Homeland Security to control law-abiding gun owners who are stirred up about gun confiscation, not to protect us from terrorists. They have already previously established concentration camps on military bases in almost every state, to confine resisters to the transition of the American Union. Then they will change the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), created by George H.W. Bush in 1989, to the new name "Asian Union" around 2010, which during this time the former "Soviet Union" will be resurrected under direct control of the Elite. Around 2015 or sooner, the governing body will assume full command over all four of the Global Regions, controlled by the same secret cabal. By this time, if all goes as planned by the globalists who conspire continually, national sovereignty of all nations will be a thing of the past and all people will be enslaved under the strict Global Elite.

The U.N. document entitled "Our Global Neighborhood", is a report of the "Commission on Global Governance" (CGG) published in 1995 by Oxford University Press and available through local bookstores. The CGG report says, "The development of global governance is part of the evolution of human efforts to organize life on the planet..." and was unveiled at the "U.N. World Summit for Social Development" in Denmark (March '95). This was a keystone event in the accelerating campaign agenda of the global socialists to ratify an already prepared historic pact. Then anticipating a reaction of concern by many, they attempted to ease the pain by deceptively stating in the report, "As this report makes clear, global governance is not global government. No misunderstanding should arise from the similarity of terms. We are not proposing movement toward world government." That is a conspicuous LIE and obvious chicanery! Global government is exactly what they are proposing, as they well know and anyone with eyes can see.

The "U.N. Human Development Report" in 1994, contains an essay by Nobel prize-winning Jan Tinbergen called "Global Governance for the 21st Century" where he comes right out with his true intent by saying, "Mankind's problems can no longer be solved by national governments, what is needed is a 'World Government' that should have a 'World Police' and a program for the redistribution of world income." In 1992 Mikhail Gorbachev, who was appointed to head the CFR's "Global Security Project", called for "Global Government" and said it is time to consider putting, "Certain national armed forces at the disposal of the Security Council, making them subordinate to U.N. military command." The worldwide Elite oligarchy includes anyone who is or ever has been a member of the Bilderbergs, CFR, and/or Trilateral Commission, accomplishing their self-serving goals through an endlessly intertwined network of clandestine organizations, clubs, societies, associations, and institutions. They also control the UN, NATO, NSA, CIA, FBI, BATF, Pentagon, Senate and House of Representatives, our courts, and law enforcement agencies either directly or indirectly.

"Who's Who of the Elite" is designed to inform the public about the Wheelers and Dealers of our lives, to better arm themselves with the knowledge of what's happening and going wrong in the world. This book lists the members, organizations, and affiliations to reveal the stranglehold they have over our government, banks, media, industry, universities, think tanks, financial institutions, labor unions, etc. including the real facts about the true ownership of the Federal Reserve System. The Global Elite have left no stone unturned and there is precious little that has not been tampered with. These organizations go to a lot of effort and expense to remain secret, of which the Bilderbergs are the most secretive as the 'High Priests of Globalisation', though the information gets out in spite of the attempts to suppress it. The Bilderbergs decide when wars should start and end and who the players will be, they own the central banks and Federal Reserve System, they are in a position to determine money supply levels, prices of gold and other precious metals, and tightly control what countries should receive loans. They also decide who will be allowed to run for offices of President, Prime Minister, Chancellor, Governor General, or other titles of leaders.

In 1989, then-President Bush and Gorbachev shook hands on a "Unity Through Diversity" doctrine, indicating a convergence of aristocratic Black Arts Occultism with Socialist atheism. Any word ending in 'ism' is a clue that the globalists are behind it, whatever it may be. This policy doctrine is accepted because it appears to be for peace and prosperity, but later it will show itself as violent when the majority have accepted it. This new system of government and religion is falsely presenting itself as the "Great Humanitarian" and the "Master of Peace" that is actually pushing for the 'hive mentality' of collective consciousness and harmonic convergence of oneness of mind and purpose, with no room for personal opinion or individual thought process. Scientologists, satanists, atheists, and futurists are all welcome to merge into the NWO or New Global Union while Jews, Christians, Muslims, and indigenous peoples are marked for extermination. True patriots and Christians are the main targets of the media and new generation of super electronic, nuclear, and biological weapons that have been created. Colonel John Alexander and Dave Alexander openly state in their "The Warrior's Edge", "Future Warrior", and "Tomorrow's Warrior" series, that the main enemy of Globalization is American Constitutionalists and Christians, of whom E.L.F. weapons are designed to wipe out. Colonel Alexander was commander of Los Alamos and leader of the DOD's Non-Lethal Weapons Division, in charge of products that can control your mind, stop your heart, or fry you by microwave.

The "Age of Cataclysm" by Alfred Weber and Philip Less calls for a New Constitution and Federalist Manifesto with a one party system - the World Federalists, eliminating the Congress, the Constitution, and world population for a NWO and Lucifer One World Religion. It lays out the plan to set up a one world electronic mind-controlled totalitarian police state system of slavery and tracking, committing mass genocide to save nature (Gaia) and cleanse the earth of unwanted humans and animals, with the ultimate objective of offering human sacrifices to Lucifer in a high-tech occult Luciferian Age. These same people who claim they want to save nature will destroy it with HAARP, ELF, GWEN, and other WMD's. This book was promoted by the World Federalist Association and World Future Society. The Masons, Club of Rome, World Future Society (WFS), World Federalist Associations (WFA is U.S.), World Federalist Movement (WFM is International), the Global Society, and Global Policy Forum as well as many secret societies along with all intelligence agencies, who are also in alliance with Nazis hired by the CIA through Operation Paperclip, are socially engineering all societies on earth and pushing for it to happen before 2013. The Epilogue of the "Age of Cataclysm" includes a statement from"The Next Development in Man" by Lancelot Law Whyte, to create a unified-science-religion and Webre, a futurologist, goes on to deal with moving entire populations into specific areas. The Global Social Engineers insist that more than 50% of the lands must be "off limits" in order to save nature, resulting in one third of the U.S. population being moved out of rural areas while their media twists the minds of the masses to believe something other than reality. In 1989, plans were made to inter up to 21 million Americans in internment camps and truckers have been transporting snap-together 'tiger cages' to FEMA.

According to the book "The Messiah and the Second Coming", the goals of the World Federalists, The World Future Society, and the U.N. are the same as Masonry and the New Age Movement. The Psychic Agenda is the same as the World Federalist Agenda, which is the same as the U.N. Agenda, which is the same as the FEMA Agenda, and the same as the New Constitution of the U.S. Agenda. World Federalism claims to be the most effective way to organize governance while the U.N. is continuing to implement its agenda to create a world religion and global government. The major thrust is to restructure the global financial system to shift all economic power to the Bank for International Settlements, controlled by private central banks throughout the world. The Millennium Project: Global Future Studies and Research of the American Council for the U.N. University is a global participatory futures research think tank of futurists, scholars, business planners, government, corporations, universities, and policy makers who work for international and non-profit organizations. The WFM is in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the U.N. and receives financial support from dues, supporters, foundations, and government grants.

Barbara Marx Hubbard is an author, futurist, social engineer and architect, co-founder of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution, founding member of the World Future Society, and Society for the Universal Human. She co-founded the Committee for the Future in Washington, D.C., created the multi-media presentation "Theatre for the Future", and hosted a TV series called "Potentials". Hubbard also designed and co-chaired large Soviet-American Citizen Summits, including organizing the 1988 Soviet-American Citizens' Summit in Alexandria, Virginia, coordinated with the Soviet Peace Committee, a creature of the Soviet Central Committees International Department established by Stalin to carry out penetration and subversion of foreign countries. This busy activist claims to be establishing Evolutionary Circles throughout the world to support small groups, in their emergence as universal humans and founders of a global civilization.

The World Future Society is hosting an event at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco on July 18-20 (registration by 2/28/03), called "World Future 2003: 21st Century Opportunities and Challenges". Their conferences have been described as a "global village in microcosm". Then there is the website of the Boston Chapter of the WFS - www.lucifer.com hosted by WFS board member Alexander "Sasha" Chislenko who left Leningrad in 1989 and has founded the Institute of Memetic Engineering (unregistered). He has studied cybernetics, futurology, memetics itself, novel theories such as Ideas Futures and morphogenetic fields hypothesis, semantics in space, etc. and has compiled an extensive list of links to other futurist type organizations.

The New American articles entitled "A Plague of Power" and "Global Gorby" are very enlightening, worth reading, and the source for some of my information: http://thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no07/vo11no07_overview.htm and http://thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no22/vo11no22_gorby.htm.

The organizations and material mentioned in this article can be verified on search engines, so please check out what the global futurists are up to and how far they have progressed with their frontierish scientific, technological, political, and philosophical futuristic concepts. It will explain why so many people get that glazed look in their eyes and act strangely when informed of truthful facts. Those are the ones who have been hypnotized or are willingly going along into the Luciferian Age of deception, destruction, and bondage.

posted 01-20-2003 07:31 PM            

Alex Jones interviews technology expert and syndicated columnist Declan McCullagh, on RFID tracking tags in all products and the Total Information Awareness Office.

LISTEN:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/mccullagh_01_16_03.mp3

posted 01-20-2003 08:20 PM            

Capitol rally slams Patriot Act as contrary to the Constitution

BY MARY BROWN MALOUF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

posted 01-21-2003 10:08 PM            

NOTE: To Receive Paul’s newsletter, “Aftermath News,” e-mail him at: pjw56108@yahoo.com

Our Constitution has indeed been shredded by the High Cabal! A Communazi police state is being implemented right under our noses. They have taken over and ordered us to surrender our rights or face the consequences.

Across the political spectrum, we were incrementally put to sleep through social engineering and an inconceivably sophisticated mass-mind-control program which gained increasing momentum over the past century. By the 50s, and all the way into the 90s, we refused, most of us, to listen to the rising of passionate, patriotic voices crying in the wilderness. "We are in great danger! A Globalist conspiracy is controlling the governments of this world! And they don't care who gets hurt in their drive for absolute totalitarian control over the masses! Wake up! Wake up! They are turning us into slaves!"

Ah, but their dire warnings and "conspiracy theories" meant little to us and sounded like the rantings of raving lunatics frothing at the mouth. We were quite sure that things weren't as bad as that. "The government wouldn't do THAT. They would never lie to us".

How wrong we were. Dead wrong!

These students of the conspiracy were like the protagonist of the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” frantically waving his arms in the middle of the road, warning his fellow citizens of the impending horror descending upon them. "They're here!!" he cries, "and you're next!!" But the passing motorists only honked their horns, jeered and told this nutcase to shut up and get-the-hell out of the way, thus sealing their own fates.

We let this happen to us folks, you and me. Yes, we were conditioned to accept the unfolding of the Globalist agenda as a sign of "progress". In part, we participated in our own undoing by capitulating, going with the flow, and failing to question all the changes and all the strange happenings, the senseless violence, the crimes and corruptions, and all the wars one after another. We trusted those who ran the government to represent our best interests, and many believed implicitly in the United Nations as the one organization that gave hope to the nations of this world for peace and security. Later, almost too late - we discovered the real purposes of the UN. But we didn't do our duty as citizens to maintain "eternal vigilance" which Jefferson tried to inculcate in us at the birth of this nation. We have let things slide.

Now, in fits of stunning revelation and in the clarity of realization, the time has come to alert the rest of the country. No longer is there just one or two sounding the alarm. Many thousands, no ... make that millions of ordinary working folks have woken up and have been motivated by the evil events of 9/11 to educate themselves, start to speak out and take action.

Now is the time to stand up for our rights and take this country back for the sake of the future and especially for the sake of our children and the generations to come. We have time to turn this around. Capitulation and resignation are what the lip-smacking Globalist wolves are expecting from the sheep. But now is the time to refuse to be either a wolf or a sheep - but to be upright human beings and real Americans.

posted 01-22-2003 01:34 PM            

FBI's Possible Involvement in Pentagon Data Project Raises New Privacy Questions
By Curt Anderson Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 21, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) - Possible FBI involvement in a high-tech Pentagon project that sifts through Americans' personal information raises new concerns about privacy and civil liberties, Sen. Charles Grassley said Tuesday.

The Defense Department's inspector general, Joseph Schmitz, told Grassley, R-Iowa, in a letter that the FBI was working on a memorandum of understanding with the Pentagon "for possible experimentation" with the data-mining project.

Disclosure of FBI contacts regarding the Total Information Awareness project "only heightens my concern about the blurring of lines between domestic law enforcement and military security efforts," said Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and a frequent critic of the FBI.

Schmitz also told Grassley he will order an audit to help the Pentagon develop sufficient privacy safeguards that do not exist now to ensure the project has adequate protections for computer security and people's privacy.

The project, being developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, would collect and mine huge amounts of data, including telephone records, credit card transactions, travel information and medical records. The goal of the effort, headed by retired Rear Adm. John Poindexter, is to spot clues and patterns that possibly could identify would-be terrorists.

Grassley asked Attorney General John Ashcroft for detailed information about the possible involvement of the FBI and Justice Department and those agencies' potential uses of the information.

FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said Tuesday the discussions with the Pentagon "have been limited to emerging and advanced technologies and analytical tools in support of its law enforcement and counterterrorism mission."

Kortan added that those talks have been conducted in a way "consistent with all existing guidelines and statutes."

A Justice Department official said agency sharing of intelligence, including any produced under the Pentagon project, is essential to fight the war on terror.

"We will shield Americans from violations of their civil liberties ... while we work across the government to stop terrorists from killing more innocent Americans," said Justice spokesman Mark Corallo.

The proposal has drawn sharp criticism from government watchdog groups and from some Democrats in Congress, who have proposed legislation to shut it down as a threat to Americans' privacy and civil liberties. In the aftermath of the 2001 terror attacks, the government already is using powerful new domestic wiretap and surveillance abilities.

"At a time when Americans are calling for more privacy of personal information, this program would provide a backdoor to databases of private information," said the American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative Eagle Forum and seven other watchdog groups last week in a letter to Congress.

In his letter to Ashcroft, Grassley said the FBI and Justice Department "may have been less than forthright" to the press and public about potential law enforcement uses of data collected and analyzed under the Pentagon project.

"We need to strike a balance between targeting terrorists with everything we've got and also protecting the rights and freedoms cherished by Americans," Grassley said. "Military dollars shouldn't be spent on domestic law enforcement."

---

On the Net: Sen. Grassley: http://grassley.senate.gov

posted 01-23-2003 01:32 AM            

Ridge Approved As Homeland Security Head
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20030122_2299.html

WASHINGTON Jan. 22 —

The Senate confirmed Tom Ridge as homeland security chief Wednesday with a unanimous vote and a strong message that it would be watching carefully as he molds a makeshift operation into one of government's largest agencies.

"With today's historic vote, the Senate has demonstrated our shared commitment to doing everything we can to secure our homeland," President Bush said after the 94-0 vote to make Ridge, former Pennsylvania governor and the president's top adviser on domestic terrorism, the first secretary of the new Homeland Security Department.

Ridge, 57, will head a department that originated in legislation signed by Bush last November and won't formally come into being until Friday, when the president plans to swear Ridge into office.

It eventually will be comprised of 170,000 civil servants now working at 22 separate agencies with security-related functions, including the Customs Service, Immigration and Naturalization Service, Secret Service, Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The Department of Homeland Security's headquarters will be at a secure office complex in northwest Washington that is run by the Navy, spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Wednesday. The department will take over a four-story building that will initially house Ridge and his senior staff, but is expected to grow as Homeland Security takes on more of its duties.

The site, the Naval District of Washington's Nebraska Avenue Complex, is near the American University campus and a few blocks from Vice President Dick Cheney's residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory. It has an operations center where officials will monitor potential terrorist targets and manage crises.

posted 02-12-2003 08:21 AM            

BREAKING NEWS FROM INFOWARS.COM -- Feb 8, 2003

The Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan group, has revealed that it has received a top-secret Justice Department document containing plans for a second and even more draconian Patriot Act which would drastically expand government's police powers.

Calling for even more governmental secrecy and increased surveillance on the American people, the legislation has been kept secret from the public, pending a more conducive environment for its introduction -- say, after a terrorist attack. After an attack, when the sheeple are down on their knees kissing the jackboots of the police state and begging for more control, begging to give up their liberty for security, loving Emperor Bush and his power-mad cabinet-of-thugs would have no problem convincing the duped and frightened population that this "new" legislation would be needed in light of the current, dangerous atmosphere.

We are trying desperately to read all 120 pages of the document. Section 501 (the Expatriation of terrorists) allows the government to grab American citizens secretly for the mere suspicion of a crime, take their citizenship away and extradite them to a foreign country for imprisonment, torture, or execution.

This is Caesar-type power, and they plan to legitimize it by launching another terrorist attack.

PDF:

PART 1 http://www.infowars.com/pdfs/patriot2-hi.pdf

posted 02-14-2003 10:46 AM            

SO MUCH FOR STATES JURISDICTION.

Nagin announces major overhaul of City Hall

New Homeland Security office to oversee cops, firemen, emergency agency

02/11/03 Nola.com
http://www.neworleans.net/news/index.ssf?/breakingnews/021103_cityhall.html

In the wake of terrorist attacks and the creation of national and local agencies to guard against such future calamities, the Nagin administration announced today a City Hall reorganization plan that will bring city public safety agencies under the newly created Department of Homeland Security, the administration announced today.

Also, several other city agencies involved in permitting, planning and historic preservation, will be brought under the control of the Office of Technology in an effort to streamline the process of dealing with City Hall.

The reorganization continues an effort to recast city departments that started when the Utilities Department was dismantled and its duties spread to other city departments. The reorganization is aimed at correcting a confusing organizational structure, creating clear lines of accountability, aligning departments that deal with similar issues and inserting technological expertise in certain departments. Many City Hall operations are decentralized under the new structure.

"We did a complete review of City government operations and came up with a plan that is technology—based while better—aligning departments and agencies to maximize their effectiveness," Nagin said in a statement.

The old organizational chart placed 35 departments and agencies under the Chief Administrative Office, creating a structure where the responsibility for most departments was filtered through the CAO's office. The organization of the mayor's office was also cumbersome, with many duplicated functions.

The reorganization plan creates an Office of Homeland Security and gives it oversight of public safety agencies, including the police department, the fire department and the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The plan streamlines safety and permits and it integrates all financial and accounting duties into a budget and accountability system.

The reorganization of City Hall will be as follows:

Homeland Security
— Will oversee Police, Fire, Office of Emergency and Preparedness. All formerly reported to the Chief Administrative Office.
— Will oversee Emergency Medical Services, which formerly reported to the Health Department.
— Will work with the Orleans Parish Communications District (911 Center)

Office of Technology
— Will oversee Safety and Permits, City Planning Commission, Historic District Landmark Commission (HDLC) and the 311 Center. These departments and agencies formerly reported to the Chief Administrative Office.
— The functions of these departments are highly dependent on each other, but in the past they have been fragmented. Coordinating these offices under the Office of Technology increases efficiencies, improves working relationships and increases business integrity.

Intergovernmental Relations
— Will oversee Federal/State Programs and Grant Monitoring. Formerly these offices reported directly to the Mayor.
— Intergovernmental Relations works directly with federal, state and local agencies to secure funding for the City of New Orleans.

Law Department
— Will oversee the Office of Municipal Investigation and Internal Audit. These offices formerly reported to the Chief Administrative Office.
— Will oversee the risk management department.

CFO/Finance Director
— Will oversee the Budget, Accounting, Revenue, Treasury, Retirement/Pensions/Trust and Purchasing. The Budget Departmentformerly reported to the Chief Administrative Office.

Communications
— Will oversee the Office of Cultural Affairs, which formerly reported to Federal & State Programs.
— Will oversee the Office of Special Events, which formerly reported to the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.

Economic Development
— In addition to overseeing the Canal Street Development Corporation and Rivergate, the Office of Economic Development will oversee the Vieux Carre Commission and French Market Corp. Those agencies formerly reported to the Chief Administrative Office.

Chief Administrative Office
— Will oversee Finance, Parks & Parkways, NORD, Property Mgt, Sanitation, Equipment and Maintenance Division, the Municipal Training Academy, the Health Department, the Human Services Department, Capital projects, Public Works, Civil Service and other administrative functions.

posted 02-18-2003 11:13 PM            

Cameras let police peer down high school halls
By REID J. EPSTEIN
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/feb03/118935.asp

Glendale - Attention, students of Nicolet High School: Big Brother could be watching you. Look for him sitting in a Ford Expedition parked within a half-mile of campus.

******************************Quotable******************

We were able to catch people stealing french fries from our
cafeteria.
- Brian Reiels,
Nicolet's security director

********************************************************

In what officials believe to be the first program of its kind in Wisconsin, Glendale and Brown Deer police have the capability of sitting in police cruisers and watching live video feeds from security cameras inside their respective high schools.

The system is designed, its architect says, to prevent massacres like the one that made Columbine High School a household name. But at these two north suburban schools, the system has seen more benign successes, in the hands not of police but of school officials.

"We were able to catch people stealing french fries from our cafeteria," said Brian Reiels, Nicolet's security director.

And on a recent afternoon, Reiels set the computer in his office to replay footage of two students scuffling in a Nicolet hallway. One of the students pushed the other through a glass trophy case. Using the digital video, Reiels was able to identify both students.

After Reiels showed the video to the students involved in the fracas, they paid the school for the damage.

"Had we not had that technology, we never would have found out what happened," Reiels said. "Two or three times a month, we have an incident where this helps us."

The system, called IVACS Digital City program, is manufactured by Closed Circuit Technology of Naperville, Ill. Nicolet and Brown Deer are the first two high schools it has outfitted, but Steve Cohn, the company's vice president, said schools in Naperville and Glen Ellyn, Ill., will install similar systems soon.

"Before, police had no clue" what was going on inside a school, Cohn said. "There was no way to tell what was happening inside. With our product, they can zoom in and tell what kind of weapons are there and get instant real-time information. Before, they were just guessing."

At Nicolet, administrators did not announce the system to its students, but Reiels said, "There's enough children that have been caught on video that they know about it. Word gets out."

A federal grant picked up the cost - $5,500 for the technology inside the schools and $13,000 per squad car - and Nicolet and Brown Deer installed the system over the summer. The technology digitized the schools' existing analog cameras and allows the signals to be beamed from the roof of the schools to squad cars up to a half-mile away.

From the squad cars, officers can control what they see through the cameras as if they were holding them. At Nicolet, officers can switch to any of 16 cameras, zoom in or out, and replay any footage up to 3 weeks old. And while Reiels and other school officials use the technology to find out who was involved in a fight or stole electronic equipment, the police are not finding themselves glued to laptop screens, monitoring the hallways.

"Generally, it's used on an emergency call," said Glendale police Capt. Larry Rittberg. "They may have used it on alarms once or twice, but nobody has reported anything significant yet."

One of the first communities to implement similar technology, Tewksbury, Mass., installed police video surveillance of its high school in 2000. At Tewksbury Memorial High School, 40 cameras monitor the hallways, common areas and exterior of the campus. But unlike at Nicolet, monitors do not watch the cameras inside Tewksbury High during a regular school day.

"Cameras by policy are only allowed to display the exterior of school when it is in session," said Tewksbury Police Chief John Mackey. "We put it in for a catastrophic situation which we hope is never going to happen."

A version of this story appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Feb. 17, 2003.

posted 02-18-2003 11:32 PM            

Is that even constitutional? Oh wait, what does the constitution have to do with anything.

posted 03-11-2003 05:42 PM            

http://www.kcbs.com/pages/kcbs/news/news_story.nsp?story_id=37235861

Source: kcbs
Publication date: 2003-03-10

(KCBS) - Libraries in Santa Cruz are taking a stand against the US Patriot Act.

KCBS reporter Jim Taylor says warnings have been posted about what can happen to your information if you use the public library.

The Patriot Act allows the federal government to secretly procure your local library's records, enabling checks on what books you may read and what internet sites you may visit.

"Our concern about the Patriot Act is that it really takes away constitutional rights that people have to privacy and a number of the Bill of Rights," said Santa Cruz City Councilman Mike Rotkin. "The Federal Government can come in and get lists of who's been checking out what books, who's been going to what places on the internet, things like that. We think that really has a chilling effect on people's right to get information, which shouldn’t really be happening."

Librarians are prohibited from telling patrons if their library records have been accessed, so all Santa Cruz libraries have posted signs warning users of the possibility.

"We think it's best that our patrons know what's going on," said Rotkin. "In the Patriot Act it says for example if the library is asked for information about someone, they're not allowed to disclose that they were asked for information or that they'd given it out. We thought people should be aware of that."

"They still can see or look for whatever they'd like to get, but we think the disclosure's important," he said.

posted 03-14-2003 02:46 AM            

By Dean Schabner
ABCNEWS.com
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/conservatives_patriot030312.html

March 12 — The opposite ends of the political spectrum are coming together over the war on terror, but not in the way Attorney General John Ashcroft may have wanted.

Some conservative groups are finding common ground with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Bill of Rights Defense Council, expressing concerns about the effect that the USA Patriot Act and a possible follow-up law, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act, could have on civil liberties.

Liberal critics have directed much of their worry at what they saw as an attack on immigrants' rights in the Patriot Act, the massive measure that was passed as the country was reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

More than 60 towns, cities and counties around the country have passed resolutions criticizing the act, some going so far as to instruct municipal employees — including police — not to assist federal agents in investigations that they believe violate the Constitution.

Now, right-leaning groups such as the American Conservative Union, the Eagle Forum and Gun Owners of America say they are concerned that American citizens could also be victimized by what they say are unconstitutional law enforcement powers allowed by the Patriot and the potential enhancement act.

The heart of the issue, according to conservatives, liberals and constitutional scholars, is the effect that USA Patriot has already had on issues of probable cause and due process, and that both of those concepts would be further eroded if the so-called Patriot II were adopted as it appears in the draft form.

Freedom to Operate

According to what is in the draft, if adopted it would allow the Justice Department to wiretap a person for 15 days without a warrant; federal agents could secretly arrest people and provide no information to their family, the media or their attorney until charges are brought, no matter how long that took; and it would allow the government to strip Americans of their citizenship for even unknowingly helping a group that is connected to an organization deemed to be terrrorist.

It would also make it a crime for people subpoenaed in connection with an investigation being carried out under the Patriot Act to alert Congress to any possible abuses committed by federal agents.

There is also no "sunset provision," which constitutional scholars say removes the element of congressional oversight and means lawmakers would have no way of compelling the Justice Department to prove that the powers provided in the act have not been abused.

"There's no question the government has to have the tools to protect us from terror attacks and to prosecute those who want to harm us," ACU Executive Director Stephen Thayer said.

"But having said that, the American Conservative Union wants to be sure that Congress takes into account the civil liberties of the citizens and through their deliberations reaches the proper balance between law enforcement and protecting citizens' rights," he added.

Christopher Pyle, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer who served on the Church Committee, a Senate select committee that studied government intelligence gathering, put it a bit more forcefully.

"I don't think the Fourth Amendment exists anymore," said Pyle, a professor of politics at Mount Holyoke College, referring to the amendment that prohibits unreasonable search and seizure and requires probable cause for a search or arrest. "I think it's been buried by the Patriot Act and some of the court rulings that have been handed down. We need a requiem mass for the Fourth Amendment, because it's gone."

‘Adverse Effect on Conservatives’

Among the concerns Thayer said he has about the draft version of Patriot II are the broad expansion of surveillance and information-gathering powers, the granting of immunity to businesses and their personnel who provide information to anti-terrorism investigators even if the information is fraudulent, and the power to strip native-born Americans of their citizenship.

Michael Hammond, a consultant with Gun Owners of America, which has more than 200,000 members, echoed those concerns, and said that the vague definition given to the term "terrorist" is extremely troubling.

"We have some serious concerns and part of our concerns spring from the fact that some of our members are part of the so-called militia movement," Hammond said. "We're looking into whether some of these groups or even the NRA [National Rifle Association] could be designated terrorists by this or a future administration."

The group is consulting with other conservative organizations about USA Patriot and Patriot II, and meeting with conservative lawmakers to make sure they know how the groups feel about some of the provisions.

"We're going to make our case why basically suspending the Constitution could have an adverse effect on conservatives, either under this administration or under a future administration," he said.

Though the group was concerned about many of the provisions of USA Patriot, Hammond said they "didn't go ballistic" because they believed it was primarily focused on noncitizens.

"All of a sudden it became apparent that a lot of people could be made noncitizens," he said. "We're very concerned about that. The whole thing is Orwellian."

Denials of Enhancement

Pyle and other legal scholars, including a former Justice Department official, say the concerns are justified, especially if the Domestic Security Enhancement Act — a 120-page document that was allegedly leaked to the Center for Public Integrity, which posted it on its Web site — is a legitimate representation of the administration's aims.

The document surfaced after weeks of Justice Department denials that any follow-up to USA Patriot was in the works, and after it appeared the draft was downplayed as just that — a draft that was far from its final form.

"Department staff have not presented any final proposals to either the attorney general or the White House," Barbara Comstock, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in a statement released after the draft appeared. "It would be premature to speculate on any future decisions, particularly ideas or proposals that are still being discussed at staff levels."

Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and other Democrats have been asking Justice Department officials to share their ideas on whether anti-terrorism statutes need to be expanded. Ashcroft was rebuked by Leahy and other senators during an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week for not being forthcoming.

"Somebody who reports directly to you lied … and this is not a good thing," Leahy said. "I think it shows a secretive process in developing this."

Ashcroft denied there is any final proposal for expanding law enforcement's anti-terrorism capabilities.

"I'm keenly aware that the administration cannot pass legislation," Ashcroft said. "Only members of Congress can pass legislation. It would be height of absurdity for me to have a secret matter I hope to make a law without telling Congress."

Undercutting Ashcroft

When Feingold told Ashcroft that it was important to consult with Congress, the attorney general said: "I don't believe that I should start to consult and defend things which I believe are indefensible or are not part of something I would seek to propose. Until I have something I think is appropriate, I don't know that I should engage in some sort of discussion."

Michael Greenberger, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Law and an official in the Justice Department during the Clinton administration, said the draft "has all the appearance of a document that has been worked over and over."

"It seriously undercuts any claim that the department wasn't working on an enhancement act," said Greenberger, who was counselor to Attorney General Janet Reno before being named the Justice Department's principal deputy associate attorney general. He currently directs the University of Maryland's Center for Health and Homeland Security in addition to teaching at the school.

While the enhancement act does in many parts seem to be an effort by the Justice Department to retroactively get the authority to do things they were not allowed to do under USA Patriot, not everything in Patriot II is there to increase law enforcement powers, Greenberger said.

For example, according to the draft, defendants in the supersecret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act courts would be entitled to a court-appointed lawyer, which is a positive change, he said. The lawyer, however, would have to pass a security screening, a requirement that has been criticized by the ACLU.

Supreme Court Challenge Still Far Off

Some of the aspects of USA Patriot could eventually be examined by the Supreme Court, particularly regarding the arrests of six people in Portland, Ore., who are accused of trying to aid al Qaeda, but that challenge is likely a long way off.

A U.S. District Court judge recently denied a defense motion to see the government's justification for phone taps and electronic surveillance on the six: Jeffrey Battle, October Lewis, Patrice Ford, Ahmed Bilal, Muhammad Bilal and Habis al Saoub. All but al Saoub are American citizens who were born in the United States.

The surveillance methods were approved by a secret court that was set up under FISA, which was passed in 1978 but had its powers greatly expanded under USA Patriot.

"These people being prosecuted are claiming that information against them was illegally obtained because their Fourth Amendment rights were violated," Greenberger said. "Those issues will eventually make their way to the Supreme Court."

Douglas Kmiec, the dean of Catholic University Law School and the Justice Department's head of the office of legal counsel from 1985 to 1989, said the concerns are largely unfounded, though he said there are legitimate questions about some of the language, such as the definition of terrorism.

"My feeling in general is that the Patriot Act as enacted was a well-tempered approach to the problems that we face," he said, noting that built into the act are oversight by Congress and so-called sunset clauses, which require that provisions of the act be reviewed after five years.

"That will force the Justice Department to prove that the powers have been used properly," Kmiec said.

Other scholars, though, say that as the senators complained last week, the Justice Department is already resisting providing Congress with the information that USA Patriot says it must give the lawmakers, and some say the indication from the draft of Patriot II is that the department wants to remove the requirement altogether.

A Fundamental Change?

The powers that would be granted under Patriot II as written in the draft would fundamentally change American society, say scholars and conservative critics of the measure, because the government would be allowed to carry out electronic searches of virtually all information available about an individual without having to show probable cause and without informing the individual that the investigation was being carried out.

"Should the government be allowed to use complex software to find patterns of spending or patterns of activities to find out if someone has been committing illegal acts if there is no probable cause in the first place?" asked Ronald Kahn, a professor of politics and law at Oberlin College. "Patriot I and Patriot II open the door to that, and that means that everybody in the country is under suspicion.

"When you take away the notion of probable cause, everyone is under suspicion," he said.

The only positive thing that many of the measures' opponents see is the breadth of the opposition itself, which they hope will make legislators realize that civil liberties must be protected.

Thayer said he believes that any changes to USA Patriot that are eventually enacted will likely be to bring it more in line with the Constitution, rather than to further expand law enforcement powers, because of the attention that the Domestic Security Enhancement Act has received from both the left and the right.