The only plausible outcome for this election would be if Obama won, and he decided in his second term -- with nothing to lose, politically -- that he would repeal the PATRIOT act. (Not because Obama is any better on this issue than Romney, but because by nature, a second-term president has less to fear in making politically risky calls).
I would call this scenario highly unlikely, if only because he'd face strong pressure from his party not to repeal it, jeopardizing everyone else's political futures in doing so.
This is one of those obnoxious political footballs that is entrenched precisely because everyone's too chickenshit to do anything about it. Republicans won't do it, because they have a rah-rah jingoistic voting base to appeal to. Democrats won't do it, because they don't want to look "soft on terrorism." And nobody wants to be the guy who repeals it right before another attack happens. So both parties are strongly disincentivized to repeal it.
In the long run, I think we'd need a grassroots movement to pressure politicians to make it a core issue.
That's assuming he's actively malicious. Given his record, I would doubt that (note, not malicious does not equal the opposite of malicious). It is certainly a possibility, but I wouldn't say it's an equal possibility. In all likelihood, the chances we're discussing here on both sides are far less than one.
No, it's not. It's not assuming that he is against the PATRIOT Act. I've seen no reason to believe that he is, other than the projections of his constituency. President Obama has advanced and legalized most of the encroachments on civil liberties from the Bush years, and in no way that I am aware of has he made any argument to curtail them since he was Candidate Obama.
Assigning malice to that is assuming that he believes that the PATRIOT Act is a bad thing, and that supporting it would be knowingly perpetuating a bad thing. In other words, assuming that he secretly thinks of PATRIOT as you think of PATRIOT.
Obama never claimed to be against the PATRIOT Act. He claimed he would work to reform it. However, Presidents don't write legislation and reform has never made it into any bills reauthorizing the Act. That said, the president has directed the Justice Department to enact certain oversight above and beyond what is required by law.
It's not about malicious or benevolent. Obama has actively reduced civil liberties in this country and abroad. I fully expect Obama to reduce civil liberties even further in his second term
(sources: Obama's stance on the NDAA, warrantless wiretapping, extrajudicial assassination, Omar Khadr, prosecutions of whistleblowers, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project)
Then those of us that consider living somewhere with basic human rights important have exactly two (2) options:
- Take up arms in violent revolution to restore due process,
- or, -
- Flee the country and take one's productive energies and output to a place that has the rule of law.
I abhor violence in all nonconsensual forms. This summer will be five years since I left job, family, friends, native language, and significant other behind in what was easily the most difficult and taxing decision I have ever made in my life.
There are no other reasonable options now but to flee. To remain and to contribute in light of these facts is to support and enable this course of events. Don't be evil.
You don't start a post by earnestly attempting to foment violent revolution, and end it by saying "don't be evil."
If you had ever looked into what tends to happen in a violent revolution, you would have found that due process is not a significant part of it, and the end result is often a dictatorship, theocracy, etc.
There is no reason to suppose that the lawless violence you advocate will ultimately result in any improvement, for anyone except 'the party' which wins the revolution.
After 20 minutes of reading, I'm even more convinced of what my intuition said earlier this morning: the civil rights situation throughout large portions of Europe is much worse than it is in the US. Compare the first N articles of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic to the Bill of Rights. Then read about the "sect filters" the German government(!) drafted to enable employers to deny jobs to people in a disfavored religion.
* The US is a lot more free on paper, but has very little liberty in practice.
Germany is, in theory, a lot less free - however I have never been anywhere else that allows many of the sorts of things that are commonplace here.*
I have a similar understanding of China, based on several limited visits and conversations with extended family and friends there. They've got a lot of restriction in theory, but in practice, as long as you leave the oligarchy alone, they keep to themselves and ignore you.
Given your comments about starting a violent revolution I guess it's not too surprising you moved to the one country that tried twice in the last 100 years to take over the world.
At least vote 3rd party for people who would like to do that. If enough people do that, they might at least want to consider some of those policies for the next elections. Real change has to start somewhere.
October 2011 marked the tenth anniversary of the USA PATRIOT Act going into law.
If change from within worked, it would have accomplished measurable effect within the first decade. Voting in the USA, on the federal level, is now demonstrably meaningless.
How many decades will you live there, having liberty only at the mercy and willingness of your government and its large corporations, entertaining this poisonous delusion?
Candidates differ on concrete policy issues which have concrete consequences after elections. If you don't care about those differences, that is your affair - it does not mean that voting is 'demonstrably meaningless.'
Uprooting a life is complex, expensive, difficult, and unpleasant. Nobody's going to do it until it's more attractive than staying. Look at where people immigrate here from, and you'll have a good benchmark for the difference in quality of life that will have to exist in order for it to start looking attractive to emigrate--and remember that even then, the vast majority of people stay because it was easier or they find it tolerable.
Except it is a quality of life issue. Not many people are willing to endure a worsening quality of life simply to achieve philosophical purity. I'm glad that it worked for you, but do understand that simply by being an immigrant you are demonstrably different. That it worked for you is absolutely not a prescription for everyone.
It's been 10 years since the PATRIOT Act was passed, and nothing has really changed here. The consequences of the legislation were vastly overblown.
Also, the ractchet does not only work in one direction. We've had peaks of restrictions on civil liberties far worse than what we have now. E.g. alien and sedition acts, reconstruction, japanese internment, mccarthyism.
You seem to have worked yourself into a froth over nothing.
> It's been 10 years since the PATRIOT Act was passed, and nothing has really changed here. The consequences of the legislation were vastly overblown.
How exactly have the consequences been overblown? The Patriot Act has been used for everything EXCEPT terrorism. That was predicted and that is what happens now.
> If change from within worked, it would have accomplished measurable effect within the first decade.
Why do you think that's true? Is that just a gut feeling, or is it based on some logic that you did not include here?
To be clear, it is far from obvious to me that what you say is true. It seems to me that change from within could potential work, despite the events of the last ten years.
I am all for changing who is in the White House every four years until they take the hint. I would be of the same mind for Congress but they keep changing the rules to make it near impossible to get them out. The only recent threat to them had even the press siding with politicians!
Just like with schools, most people will claim that Congress is bad but have no reason NOT to support their guy because he is "the good one".
Term Limits, I am more than willing to take the bad many associate with term limits over the situation as is
The post is suggesting that people vote based on issues vitally important to the freedoms of this interest group (HN).
I am pointing out that one should live (and vote, and think, et c) based on issues vitally important to the freedoms of all humans, as these are much more life-and-death than internet censorship (and that one is huge, too).
Political flamebait is usually of the pro-/anti-skub variety. I argue that it is just that - flamebait - as we can expect near-identical behavior on the issue of basic liberties from any candidate in the US with half a prayer of being elected.
I think democrat presidents are actually worse for the discourse, as the blue plebs turn into complacent government supporters, while the red plebs think that repeating the republican party line is a form of dissent.
What "basic human rights" does the PATRIOT Act impinge?
It's been a decade, and I don't see the "there" there. The PATRIOT Act was supposed to be the end of the republic, but so far it seems to have had no impact in practice.
It seems to have had no impact in practice because you haven't been told whether your communications are being monitored, who is monitoring them, or what conclusions they are drawing.
Until there is a publicized abuse of this information - like happened with Watergate - people will not be made aware of how much our political system has been impacted. Of course the people who would like to abuse it are perfectly aware of this, and very conveniently the PATRIOT act has lots of safeguards built in to help them avoid public discussion of their actions.
In this light I find it very concerning that the NSA has argued - with a straight face - that it would violate the right to privacy of Americans for Americans to be told how many are currently being monitored.
The lack of judicial oversight for the executive branch's data gathering powers granted by the Act evaporates any circumstances in which the First Amendment could reasonably and effectively be used for unpopular speech or unpopular assembly.
The banking regulation amendments effectively prohibit large scale anonymous or unpopular publishing and communication/organization of effective resistance.
A shining example presently is the harassment of the social networks of Wikileaks associates and supporters. Another is the collection and use of Twitter and GSM metadata of protesters in New York.
The next time something like COINTELPRO happens, it won't have a wikipedia page for it, and those attempting to draw attention to it will be jailed indefinitely without trial.
Note that this is the same FBI that targeted Martin Luther King - but now with no sunlight. If you don't see the real, live implications of this sort of tyranny, you aren't paying attention.
The government issues over 40,000 NSLs a year, now.
What the FBI did with Martin Luther King came to light years later. Meanwhile, we're seeing their moves with regards to organizations like WikiLeaks in real time. There is far more sunlight today than there was.
National Security Letters are also wildly overblown. They are a formalization of things the FBI was already doing. With that formalization has come increased judicial oversight: the PATRIOT Act Reauthorization in 2006 gave recipients subject to the gag order recourse in court.
You think if the FBI circa 1950 wanted information from you, you'd be able to go complain to a federal court?
(Hint: Obama renewed Bush's PATRIOT Act when it was due to sunset.)
The seemingly commonplace idea that popular american liberals are somehow less evil than the GOP is dangerous poison.
PS: inb4 instant-runoff voting