response 27 of 61:

Aug 4 19:36 UTC 2003

Me vs. Myself vs. I ....

response 35 of 61:

Aug 5 05:46 UTC 2003

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/Business/story_50157.asp
------------------------------------------
AFP - The number of people in the existing US jobless pool - those 
claiming unemployment benefits for at least two weeks - has climbed to 
a 20-year high, the government said.
------------------------------------------

That may not be an all time high but should be worrying. About jobs 
leaving US, only time will tell whether they are come back or not.

About US military, except for China, India and Russia? And they too 
are within aircraft and missile strikes of the US.

response 37 of 61:

Aug 5 05:51 UTC 2003

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/intervention/2003/0710imperialmap.ht
m

156 countries with US troops, 63 countries with US military bases and 
troops, 7 countries with 13 new bases since 9/11. 46 countries with no 
US troops. - Source DoD, Base Structure Report 2002 etc.

response 41 of 61:

Aug 6 01:51 UTC 2003

manufacturing crises / manufacturing consent ...?

response 43 of 61:

Aug 13 13:56 UTC 2003

Are you suggesting gays should move to New Zealand?

response 49 of 61:

Sep 14 23:16 UTC 2003

This seems like the appropriate place for this...

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20030914/ap_o
n_go_ca_st_pe/anti_terror_laws_2

New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals
Sun Sep 14, 1:14 PM ET
Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!

By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA - In the two years since law enforcement agencies gained
fresh powers to help them track down and punish terrorists, police and
prosecutors have increasingly turned the force of the new laws not on
al-Qaida cells but on people charged with common crimes.

The Justice Department (news - web sites) said it has used authority
given to it by the USA Patriot Act to crack down on currency smugglers
and seize money hidden overseas by alleged bookies, con artists and
drug dealers.

Federal prosecutors used the act in June to file a charge of
"terrorism using a weapon of mass destruction" against a California
man after a pipe bomb exploded in his lap, wounding him as he sat in
his car.

A North Carolina county prosecutor charged a man accused of running a
methamphetamine lab with breaking a new state law barring the
manufacture of chemical weapons. If convicted, Martin Dwayne Miller
could get 12 years to life in prison for a crime that usually brings
about six months.

Prosecutor Jerry Wilson says he isn't abusing the law, which defines
chemical weapons of mass destruction as "any substance that is
designed or has the capability to cause death or serious injury" and
contains toxic chemicals.

Civil liberties and legal defense groups are bothered by the string
of cases, and say the government soon will be routinely using harsh
anti-terrorism laws against run-of-the-mill lawbreakers.

"Within six months of passing the Patriot Act, the Justice Department
was conducting seminars on how to stretch the new wiretapping
provisions to extend them beyond terror cases," said Dan Dodson, a
spokesman for the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys.
"They say they want the Patriot Act to fight terrorism, then, within
six months, they are teaching their people how to use it on ordinary
citizens."

Prosecutors aren't apologizing.

Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) completed a 16-city
tour this week defending the Patriot Act as key to preventing a second
catastrophic terrorist attack. Federal prosecutors have brought more
than 250 criminal charges under the law, with more than 130
convictions or guilty pleas.

The law, passed two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, erased many
restrictions that had barred the government from spying on its
citizens, granting agents new powers to use wiretaps, conduct
electronic and computer eavesdropping and access private financial
data.

Stefan Cassella, deputy chief for legal policy for the Justice
Department's asset forfeiture and money laundering section, said that
while the Patriot Act's primary focus was on terrorism, lawmakers were
aware it contained provisions that had been on prosecutors' wish lists
for years and would be used in a wide variety of cases.

In one case prosecuted this year, investigators used a provision of
the Patriot Act to recover $4.5 million from a group of telemarketers
accused of tricking elderly U.S. citizens into thinking they had won
the Canadian lottery. Prosecutors said the defendants told victims
they would receive their prize as soon as they paid thousands of
dollars in income tax on their winnings.

Before the anti-terrorism act, U.S. officials would have had to use
international treaties and appeal for help from foreign governments to
retrieve the cash, deposited in banks in Jordan and Israel. Now, they
simply seized it from assets held by those banks in the United States.

"These are appropriate uses of the statute," Cassella said. "If we
can use the statute to get money back for victims, we are going to do
it."

The complaint that anti-terrorism legislation is being used to go
after people who aren't terrorists is just the latest in a string of
criticisms.

More than 150 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the
law as an overly broad threat to constitutional rights.

Critics also say the government has gone too far in charging three
U.S. citizens as enemy combatants, a power presidents wield during
wartime that is not part of the Patriot Act. The government can detain
such individuals indefinitely without allowing them access to a
lawyer.

And Muslim and civil liberties groups have criticized the
government's decision to force thousands of mostly Middle Eastern men
to risk deportation by registering with immigration authorities.

"The record is clear," said Ralph Neas, president of the liberal
People for the American Way Foundation. "Ashcroft and the Justice
Department have gone too far."

Some of the restrictions on government surveillance that were erased
by the Patriot Act had been enacted after past abuses — including
efforts by the FBI (news - web sites) to spy on civil rights leaders
and anti-war demonstrators during the Cold War. Tim Lynch, director of
the Project on Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute, a libertarian
think tank, said it isn't far fetched to believe that the government
might overstep its bounds again.

"I don't think that those are frivolous fears," Lynch said. "We've
already heard stories of local police chiefs creating files on people
who have protested the (Iraq (news - web sites)) war ... The
government is constantly trying to expand its jurisdictions, and it
needs to be watched very, very closely."

___

On the Net:

Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov

American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites):
http://www.aclu.org