"Steven Douglas" <dsteven@flashmail.com> wrote in message
news:1190577935.733900.11410@y42g2000hsy.googlegroups.com...

On Sep 23, 12:17 pm, "Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:

"Steven Douglas" <dste...@flashmail.com> wrote in message

news:1190572642.201884.65070@57g2000hsv.googlegroups.com...

On Sep 23, 9:31 am, "Docrodile" <swampth...@hellsbayou.net> wrote:

I think this story illustrates the state of paranoia the US suffers
under,
as discussed in Wolfy's thread on the goverment meticulously
tracking
travellers.
Here is apparently a teenaged geeky gal who is quite intelligent,
technically gifted, typically well mannered, and wrapped up in a
high
tech art and science pursuit for a career and hobby, that
momentarily
forgot the extreme restrictions on travellers coming to and from
America,
placed there by new laws exerted by the DHS.

What do you think should have happened?

Let me ask you: where do you think Americans' privacy and
constitutional
rights will be as this restrictive police-state spying monitoring
environment -- which is tightening -- continues unabated??

I haven't lost any of my constitutional rights. Which constitutional
rights do you think you've lost?

For starters, consider this --

ACLU Letter to Congress Outlining Priorities for 110th Congress
(1/25/2007)

Dear Member of Congress:
On behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, a non-partisan
organization with over 550,000 members and activists and 53 affiliates
nation-wide, we welcome you to the 110th Congress and urge you and your
colleagues to restore and protect the rights and freedoms guaranteed by
the Constitution.

In the coming year, we will ask you to take a number of steps to enhance
freedom and fairness for everyone in America. Provided below are
highlights of the actions that we would like you to take this year, and

offer our assistance in helping achieve these outcomes. We believe that
by taking these actions, you and your colleagues will reassert the role

Congress as a check on the executive branch and ensure oversight of the
president and the administration:

Restore habeas corpus.
Congress must conduct oversight hearings to expose the problems with the
Military Commissions Act and enact legislation to restore habeas corpus,
ban the use of coerced evidence, and limit the president's unfettered
authority to define torture and abuse. It should also end the practice

extraordinary rendition and close the detention camps at Guantánamo Bay,
instead of building a new $125 million dollar court complex there.

Investigate and stop warrantless spying.
Lawmakers must ensure vigorous oversight of the NSA program, reject any
attempts to legalize warrantless wiretapping and instead pursue
legislative options that would end this illegal program. They should

ensure that the FBI focuses its investigations on people suspected of
crimes, rather than on law-abiding activists.

Better protect Americans' privacy.
Congress should fix the library records and National Security Letters
provisions of the USA Patriot Act, block unwarranted data mining

and prohibit the formation of centralized databases containing personal
information that are not subject to adequate privacy controls.

Investigate and stop torture, abuse and rendition.
Lawmakers should appoint a special counsel or create a congressional
oversight committee to determine where the illegal policies originated in
the chain-of-command and seek appropriate disciplinary action for those
responsible.

Curb state secrets privilege and Sensitive Security Information.

should restore greater transparency by limiting the state secrets

and the use of the Sensitive Security Information designation for
unclassified material. Both have been used to hide embarrassing
information from the public - exposure of which would not harm national
security. Congress must also strengthen FOIA and protect whistleblowers.

This list is not exhaustive. We will continue our work on racial
profiling, lesbian and gay rights, immigration, the Real ID Act,
reproductive rights and protecting the First Amendment.

Congress has a duty to the American public to act as a check and balance
on the executive branch. We are hopeful that you and your colleagues

live up to this obligation and rein in administration's abuses of power
and protect our Constitution.
We look forward to working with you to restore the constitutional rights
lost in recent years and ensure that all Americans are able to fully

the rights and freedoms that are the hallmark of this great land.

Sincerely,

Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director,
ACLU

Caroline Fredrickson
Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

And then let me ask you: as it progresses, what will be left for us to
defend and protect?

The Constitution is strong. It will remain in effect for a long time
to come.

The Constitution is weaker than it's ever been. A remarkable lie in the
face of the US Patriot Act, the Homeland Security Act.

And, finally, let me ask you: will Americans' mental and social
health --
which many studies indicate is deteriorating -- be treated with more
chemicals?

There you go with those unidentified "many studies" again. Which "many
studies" are you referring to? And personally, I don't take any
chemicals.

The study exposes the deteriorating behavioral health status of US
troops-including depression, anxiety, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), marital problems and suicide. These mental health and
personal problems are shown to directly influence the attitudes US
soldiers hold toward the Iraqi population-resulting in increasing levels
of terror and brutality meted out to civilians.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/pent-m09.shtml

Now, with the overall number of mentally ill college students rising,
college administrators, mental-health professionals and students across
the country are weighing that right to privacy against the need to assist
those students who are deeply distressed or mentally ill.

http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-

The suicide rate among preteen and young teen girls spiked dramatically

a disturbing shift that federal health officials say they can't fully
explain.
For all young people between ages 10 to 24, the suicide rate rose 8
percent from 2003 to 2004 - the biggest single-year bump in 15 years - in
what one official called "a dramatic and huge increase."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iqbNkWQufq1RvybGGAbs9nRTZdSA

A recent upsurge in people with mental illness seeking treatment in
emergency departments is taking a significant toll on patient care and
hospital resources nationwide, according to a new survey of emergency
physicians conducted by the nation's leading mental health organizations
and the American College of Emergency Physicians. Six in 10 emergency
physicians surveyed report that the increase in psychiatric patients is
negatively affecting access to emergency medical care for all patients,
causing longer wait times, fueling patient frustration, limiting the
availability of hospital staff and decreasing the number of available
emergency department beds.

http://www.acep.org/webportal/Newsroom/NR/general/2004/EmergencyDepartmen

Many Gulf Coast residents still feel the wallop of Hurricane Katrina
nearly two years later.
Mental illness is double the pre-storm levels, rising numbers suffer from
post-traumatic stress disorder, and there is a surge in adults who say
they're thinking of suicide.

A government survey released Wednesday to USA TODAY shows no improvement
in mental health from a year ago

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-08-16-neworleans-illness_N.htm


From 1992 to 2003, emergency rooms saw a 56 percent increase in people
experiencing psychiatric crisis -- often people who were unable to access
less expensive community services.


-- Based on Centers for Disease Control (2005) figures

The death rate among people with mental and substance-use disorders has
nearly tripled in America, rising from 5.7 per 100,000 in 1979 to 15.5

100,000 in 1995. This coincides with a decline in psychiatric hospital
beds, from 4 per 1000 Americans in 1960 to 1.3 per 1000 in 1994.


--Psychiatric Services, July 2000.


And it just goes on and on, Virginia. Many who are mentally ill don't

up in the statistics...who need various treatments. Look at you. Here you
are, mentally ill, without a doubt, and have you sought therapy?

*****.

It is not what I think will happen that is the issue,

I didn't ask what you think will happen.

What do you think should have happened? - Stevie.

Doc - I just told you junior that we need to relax our reactiveness to
common social situations. Her's was common -- a young girl wanting to
proudly display her interest in her hobby and future career. As I said,
she apparently forgot. But in Stevie's world of fascistic boot-licking,

shouldn't ever just be FREE to do what we enjoy, with respect to basic
human rights. NO, we should buckle under the whip of any authority that
makes insecure paranoid Stevie feel all cozy and safe. What should have
been done SPECIFICALLY was for the police to quickly cool the drama down
to what they see commonly -- exuberant youth not thinking clearly --and
explain to the media that they thought this was just youthful
irresponsibility and that she had NO history of subversiveness, did not
masturbate to photos of Bin Laden, or have Muslims in her family tree.

that takes all kinds of irrational forms of behaviour, as we've all
experienced earlier in our lives. Maybe you didn't, though. And since

youth was lived out under pre-DHS/Patriot Act police state tactics, it'd
be difficult for you to know what young people are having to endure these
days. *****.



I asked what you thought

should have happened to the girl who walked into the airport with a
circuit board and battery on her shirt?

And I just told you above. Furthermore, she should be charged with a
low-class misdemeanor. The police and hysterical media should apologize
for fanning the flames of fear - which is to none of our benefit as
citizens. Maybe it benefits your agenda, though, ***** fascist.

it's what IS happening. Right now. And worsening by the month.

Go ahead and be a pessimist. It's been a trait of doomsayers like you
for centuries. I choose to be an optimist.

No pessisism, just realism, which is something you have trouble dealing
with. If you want to think we're the Manifest Destiny of the human
species, then delude yourself until our society collapses and is attacked
directly in the next world war.

We're finished, kid. America is going out the back door, oozing ***** as

crawls.

And if you think you're a part of what the rest of us should have as a
better America to come, then so-called pessisism serves us well out here.
*****.

Doc :))~