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Eminent Domain Stuff


New London Update (2/24/06)
Bad NLDC!
Coverage of the Rally at New London's City Hall (w/ pics)

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

 

Ashcroft And Civil Liberties

It seems that John Ashcroft gets the short end of the Liberal fairness stick simply by virtue of being the Attorney General at the same time the Patriot Act was passed. To date, I am aware of zero ACLU lawsuits claiming that John Ashcroft (or anyone else) has abused their newfound 'powers' in that Act.

Further, I think that this article does a great job of illuminating stark differences between John Ashcroft and the soon-to-be-former-presumptive-nominee John F-ing Kerry. Let's play a game. I'll give you two quotes and you guess whether it was Kerry or Ashcroft who said it. Here we go...

Number 1:

"To date, we have heard a great deal about the needs of law enforcement and not enough about the privacy needs of the rest of us. While we need to revise our laws to reflect the digital age, one thing that does not need revision is the Fourth Amendment... Now, more than ever, we must protect citizens' privacy from the excesses of an arrogant, overly powerful government."
Number 2:

"[O]ne would be hard-pressed," he wrote, "to find a single grieving relative of those killed in the bombings of the World Trade Center in New York or the federal building in Oklahoma City who would not have gladly sacrificed a measure of personal privacy if it could have saved a loved one."
I'm sure that you'll have no trouble assigning the quotes (if for no other reason than my own political persuasion). But let's not forget that old Ben Franklin said: Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither.

The balance between the two is never easy to maintain...but it becomes nearly impossible when the defenders of freedom are demonized while the proponents of empowering an invasive government are held up as the defenders of Civil Liberties.

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