The So-called, "Patriot" Act

I underatwsend your frustration. I believe in hope and I believe this nation can change that. If we can come together to elect a new president who is of and for the people we can also work with our representatives to make our constitutional rights a priority. I believe we have seen the end of governmental abuses of power and infringement on the private lives of the people of the US. I believe!

I should mention here that the Consitution does not explicitly protect a citizen's right to 'privacy'.

"The U. S. Constitution contains no express right to privacy. The Bill of Rights, however, reflects the concern of James Madison and other framers for protecting specific aspects of privacy, such as the privacy of beliefs (1st Amendment), privacy of the home against demands that it be used to house soldiers (3rd Amendment), privacy of the person and possessions as against unreasonable searches (4th Amendment), and the 5th Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination, which provides protection for the privacy of personal information. In addition, the Ninth Amendment states that the "enumeration of certain rights" in the Bill of Rights "shall not be construed to deny or disparage other rights retained by the people." The meaning of the Ninth Amendment is elusive, but some persons (including Justice Goldberg in his Griswold concurrence) have interpreted the Ninth Amendment as justification for broadly reading the Bill of Rights to protect privacy in ways not specifically provided in the first eight amendments".

It's a bit alarming that the Roe v. Wade decision is fundamentally based on the idea of a 'right to privacy' from an interpretation of these amendments. I'm sure that it is not difficult to make a reasonable argument for the legality of the patriot act, based on US law.

But I agree that it is a travesty. I think that Americans should have a right to privacy - more than what the 'law' allows at the moment.

FISA is a big problem, and unfortunately, Obama supports it. These are the grounds that Bush used to say that communications companies spying on people were immune from prosecution because they were 'ordered to do so' by the President. That's bullshit. Nobody should be allowed to do anything that they want (and against the law) because the Prez says they could before or after the fact.

America has a lot of cleaning up to do. I hope Obama knows what he's doin'.

Thanks for setting me straight. What is FISA? Your comment is very articulate.

FISA is the 'Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act', and it came into existence partly due to the Nixon/Watergate debacle. It's a bit complicated (and lengthy) to explain here, but you can find all the information you need with a quick 'google' :)

Here's an article that I think a lot of people ignored:
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/06/20/obama_supports_fisa_legislatio.html

Before you say anything against me.. just know that I really do believe Obama is by FAR the best choice from the two tickets. I am genuinely happy that he won the election!

No, I wouldn't say anything against you. No reason to. Thanks for the reference. I too am thrilled he won- we all won!

We really did.. you must've seen the world's reaction.. breathtaking.. !

But he should still end the spying and wiretapping.. I think that he will - just got to give him time.