[extropy-chat] Alert for Suspicious Farmers' Almanacs

[Adrian Tymes]

--- Mike Lorrey <mlorrey at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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.

Yes it is.

> Your civil rights being violated is
> only grounds to
> exclude incriminating evidence from trial, it is not
> a "get out of
> Guantanamo Free card".

No, civil rights also impose limits on government
behavior even when no trial will come of it.
Otherwise, it would be perfectly acceptable to, say,
put a male Arab American under indefinite
investigation - and publicize the fact - just because
he was running for elected office, or because he dared
to vote: "He obviously must be trying to weaken our
defenses against terrorism!"

Ironic that you should use that example, BTW.  Wasn't
it civil rights which was why a bunch of those in
Guantanamo, who otherwise faced indefinite detention
(theoretically pending a military trial, but said
trial showed no signs of being organized in the near
future - result, life in prison w/out trial), were
ordered either into the civil court system (if and
only if formal charges, with evidence, could be
brought in a certain short time frame) or set free?

> The SCOTUS has ruled on a
> number of occasions
> that violtions of your civil rights taken in defense
> of national
> security are quite acceptable.

And it has also ruled that even national security has
its limits as a defense of civil rights violations.
National security is not a "get out of limits on
authority free" card.

> Terrorism is NOT a
> civil crime, it is a
> military or war crime, and is properly subject to
> military law, not
> civillian law.

Even when it becomes an excuse to override civilian
law under any circumstances, and effectively place all
citizens under military law - which can be altered by
those in power at whim?  (Effectively, if not in
statement.  For instance, consider what happens if, at
any time, your rights could be suspended and any
action taken against you for the most tenuous, or even
made up, charges of potential terrorism.  This becomes
a universal excuse whenever anyone in the government
disapproves of your actions.  Running against the
incumbent in an election, and stand a good chance of
winning?  You're a terrorist.  Refuse an office
holder's sexual advances?  You're a terrorist.
Decline to pay the 90% tax rate?  You're not guilty of
tax evasion, since that would require actually
bothering to figure out how much you supposedly owe;
instead, you're just another terrorist.  Get
rear-ended by a drunk police officer?  You're the
terrorist, so you're at fault.  Try researching
biotech, so as to discover a cure for cancer?  Only
terrorists would do that - and it doesn't matter what
you say or what evidence you have, since you're a
terrorist everyone knows you were actually researching
biological weapons.  Refuse to pledge allegiance to
someone else's God?  God damn, are you ever a
terrorist!  And so forth.)

That is what we are objecting to.