It's a Feature, not a Bug
Laws that require the goodwill and ethical functioning of its participants, without oversight, always worry me. The companion argument to this is when someone says (and this is popular among Democrats nowadays) all this infrastructure in the government that does not work will be fine when we get our own smart people running it.
It never, never works. Here is yet another example: All that extra post-9/11 investigatory power? Trust us, we only use it on the bad guys.
The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as
terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state
and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police
chief acknowledged yesterday.Police Superintendent Terrence B.
Sheridan revealed at a legislative hearing that the surveillance
operation, which targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq
war, was far more extensive than was known when its existence was
disclosed in July....
Said the unrepentant leader of this efort:
"I don't believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government," he said.
Reading my history, disrupting the government was not the last thing they were trying to protect, it was the first thing.
Unscripted Thoughts:
What ever happened to teaching History & Civics in school? Tell me our fine educational system (still based on a agrarian calendar and modeled after the best Soviet 'one size fits all' fashion) has not failed the young minds who wander the halls of government today. That would be a truly scary thing as those people would hold our very liberty in their hands as they enter our personal data into their DB's for all to see. Wait a minute....
October 9, 2008, 10:55 am