[extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs

[Mike Lorrey]

--- Adrian Tymes <wingcat at pacbell.net> wrote:
> --- "Robert J. Bradbury" <bradbury at aeiveos.com> wrote:
> > But if you ask me if we should have officials
> > drawing attention
> > to Almanacs and requiring marshals on planes
> 
> How do these compare?  Requiring marshals on planes
> does not itself imply it is okay to trample on
> anyone's
> rights just because of some factor that has a very
> shaky, if any, correlation to terrorists.

There is a distinct difference between trampling someones rights and
placing someone under suspicion based on several factors *including*
having an Almanac in one's posession which is "suspiciously annotated
and dog eared" (to quote the article in question). For example, if I
see someone with an almanac which has margin annotations in arabic on
any page with information about bridges, or tall buildings, or
goverment facilities, or dams, or airports, that is going to be
suspicious.

Would it make me arrest them and subject them to a cavity search on the
spot? Probably not, but I would, were I in law enforcement, check their
IDs against a terrorist watch list, I would likely search their vehicle
or baggage for other items known to be used by terrorist scouts: a
video camera, featuring footage of these same facilities mentioned
above, multiple sets of identification under different names, multiple
passports from different countries, and large amounts of cash. If any
of these items turned up, this would certainly become a 'person of
interest' who I'd like to check for immigration violations in order to
gain more time to investigate the individual.

Would a vehicle search be a civil rights violation? Yup. Does it
matter? Nope. Why? Because national security is not bound by civil
rights laws. Your civil rights being violated is only grounds to
exclude incriminating evidence from trial, it is not a "get out of
Guantanamo Free card". The SCOTUS has ruled on a number of occasions
that violtions of your civil rights taken in defense of national
security are quite acceptable. Terrorism is NOT a civil crime, it is a
military or war crime, and is properly subject to military law, not
civillian law. This is also something that is conveniently ignored by
those on the left.

=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
                                       - Gen. John Stark
"Fascists are objectively pro-pacifist..."
                                       - Mike Lorrey
Do not label me, I am an ism of one...
Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com

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