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Old 08-29-2005, 10:11 PM   #43
Binkie
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: The Beautiful U.S. of A.
Posts: 1,241
Quote:
Originally Posted by Peter
Or forgetting the Patriot Act for a second, does random bag searches on the New York subway system actually help?
Let's put it this way, how many people have tried the shoe-bomb idea since TSA started doing random shoe checks at the airport? If nothing else, it puts people at ease knowing that there are at least SOME measures, however trivial you may view them as, at preventing an attack of that nature. I'd say random bag checks are more helpful than the ol' thumb up the ass. Don't like airport security? Take the train. Don't like train security? Take the bus. Most people would agreeably like to see security measures stepped up after an attack on the transit system as opposed to the government standing with their arms crossed, respecting your liberties and the liberties of all those who were killed when a bomb on a subway train blew up.

Quote:
If your government went too far I'm comforted that you'd change, but a little too far isn't enough for that to happen, or at least that's what I'm guessing, there would be a line they could cross that would make you want to change the government (and if you hadn't lost the vote by this point!).
I still like the story one reporter tells about a muslim summit that happened in New York shortly before the first World Trade Center attack. He was sitting in on it to do a story on what went on there when he realized that group members from such great organizations like HAMAS and the Islamic Jihad were there, attending and actively fund raising. When he called the FBI immediately, they essentially replied, "We don't know what you're talking about, or what you've been smoking."

The FBI really had no idea that these groups were here in the US. That changed after the first World Trade attack, but obviously enough wasn't being done. They changed that again after 9/11, so we'll see if that does the trick this time around. If it doesn't, the hell with the Patriot Act, but thus far there have been more terror cells broken up in major cities in the last 4 years than there were in a decade or two prior. By god, if my library record confidentiality agreement has to be comprimised for that, so be it.
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"[Brian Blair] was a punk. I can break his fucking back - break his back and make him humble and then fuck his ass ... Suplex him, put him in a camel clutch, break his back, and fuck his ass - make him humble. Teach him to respect the Iron Sheik. And I didn't do it, because for the God and Jesus, and Mr. McMahon." -Khosrow Vaziri (The Iron Sheik)
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