[QUOTE=Jim in CT;996550][QUOTE=detbuch;996525]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim in CT
Come on, you are better than that. I did not say we are "invulnerable". I said we are "safer". In other words, we are not "perfectly safe". But we are obviously "more safe" than we were on 09/11...you are the first person I have ever heard deny that.
I did not deny that we are "safer," I honestly don't know. We may be "safer" in one respect but more in danger in another. Less hampered "surveillance" may discover various chatter that could lead to the foiling of plots. It is said that has happened. Much of the security measures, such as were used in solving the Boston Marathon bombing, are useful in catching the bad guys after the fact, but don't prevent the fact. I don't know if we are "safer" from terrorists after 9/11, but the number of attacks doesn't appear to have diminished. Several have occurred since then and several are claimed to have been thwarted. I don't "know" if the resolve to attack us by various radical Islamist groups has lessened, and if our "surveillance" will cause them to wither and die away. I understand that the intricacies of todays foreign relations are supposed to be very entangled, subtle, and difficult to manipulate, but my preference after 9/11 would have been to reduce Afghanistan to rubble then leave, with a calling card placed on top of the heap inviting whoever remained to have peaceful, "reasonable" relations, or we could show them more of the same. I know that's "extreme" and very disturbing to saner folks than me, but it might lead to a quicker resolve of the issue than this slow bleeding to see who can outlast who.
So I don't "know" if we are safer from terrorism because of the patriot act, but I think we are less safe from an ever expanding government control.
Al Queda still exists, and they are lethal. But they don't have the operational capacities they once had. We are better at anti-terror than we were 15 years ago. Do you really deny that?
I really don't "know." I am in no position to deny that you do "know."
"Where, in the Constitution, did you read that the Federal Government, or any branch thereof, has the power to write its own search warrants"
You got me there...
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Well, read the Constitution again and find it. It was written by, for, and of the people, not by, for, and of the SCOTUS. The SCOTUS was to protect it from government usurpation. But it was written so that ALL of us could understand, preserve, protect, and defend it. When we sheepishly wait for the Supreme Court to decide, we wait for a case to be brought to them, and then often wait for wolves in black robes to decide.