We're getting there...
Sorry about the noise about the sig... I've had major problems with sigs myself...
I'm all for civility as well. I am glad that you have admitted that your initial post had some exagerration. As well, I felt that the "tone" (implying that our current government hates freedom worse than the Taliban - is a slight exagerration as well :-) )... All water under the proverbial bridge now.
Now, I'll admit that I "loaded" statements in my following posts. I was intending to first take apart the rhetoric, then lead to the meat, which is entirely important. I failed miserably... such is life.
Getting back to the Fourth Amendment, I absolutely agree with your premise that it is being "challenged" again with the current crop o' politicos... I just felt it necessary to point out that we truly have been through this kind of "law by reaction" in the past and when cooler heads prevail, then the changes are rescinded. That is my hope in any event.
I have been railing long and hard about the protection of the Bill of Rights and how it has been "stretched", beginning with the sixties (probably before that, but I wasn't around then!). The creation of agencies with legislative and oversight power (never a part of the Constitution). The legal system with too many laws, lawyers and not enough sense to dispense common justice... I could go on :-)
What is important to keep in mind is that people in this country truly are scared, liberals and conservatives alike. Noone (most probably) could have conceived of commercial jets being flown into the World Trade Center or the ramifications that it would have on Arabs, suspected terrorists, etc... It stands to reason, IMHO, that doing nothing is NOT better than attempting to find these types of folks. It does require a tradeoff. How far we are willing to trade our privacy for security is a matter to be played out. I honestly didn't think that our government would "stretch" the Fourth (and Fifth for that matter) as much as it did fighting the "war on drugs"... It did. So there is plenty of reason for our concern.
We added a new agency for Homeland Security... That got the hairs on the back of my liberal neck standing straight up... Hell, these guys and we the people are all "winging it" right now. There is no precedent for the current scenario saving the old Peter Sellers "Mouse that Roared" movie. But then, they didn't really attack anything...
For what it's worth, I am very concerned about our Fourth Amendment rights (as I understand them) and took offense (rightly or wrongly) by how I feel they are being "politicized" currently. Whenever issues become politicized, there is also a tendency for them to become marginalized as well. I feel they are too important to become just another blip on the American commercial network...
Perhaps what we, the concerned citizenry, should be asking for is that any modifications to the Bill during wartime are up for immediate review as soon as the crisis is passed? Then we can clearly scrutinize how badly we've jeopardized individual liberties.
In other words, I like what you're saying, but I don't like how you're saying it... Critics voice, take your choice... You have no problem with me.
