On Tue, 2004-09-07 at 11:09, Levi Bard wrote:
> I'll see your NAFTA and raise you the USA PATRIOT Act.
The PATRIOT Act was actually just the legislative approval of executive
powers _already_ being used. It put a time limit on them with a
judicial watchguard. What Bush and the Congress did was create a way
for there to be a _public_record_ of actions taken. We did _not_ have
that before the PATRIOT Act, so it is _both_ a curse _and_ a blessing.
Most people don't know that President Bush was able to execute most of
his directives _before_ the PATRIOT Act was passed because of the broad
powers President Clinton granted to the FBI and federal agencies in an
1998 Executive Order. Bill Clinton doesn't get a lot of credit (_both_
positive and negative) for a lot of things, and one thing is that he
_knew_ (do _not_ read positive or negative into that statement) an
attack was coming in the near future.
And like Clinton in 1993 (remember _that_ bombing? -- some Democrats out
there like to forget ;-), the terrorists decided to wait until a new
President took office in 2001.
> But you accuse me of being suffering from delusional partisanship.
My apologize for jumping the gun there with my assumptions.
-- Bryan J. Smith b.j.smith@ieee.org ------------------------------------------------------------------ "Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights. ... That idea of community rights is firmly rooted in the 'Communist Manifesto.'" -- Michael Badnarik
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