Really? What speech can you not engage in now that you could ten years ago? I've been here all this time, and nothing on that score has changed.
On the other hand, the Patriot Act EXTENDED First Amendment protections to a wide variety of laws that previously made no such exemptions, such as the 1970 RICO Act (written, debated, passed and signed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat President).
Most of the "lost rights" people have been screaming about regarding the Patriot Act were lost in the '30s through '70s via laws which the Patriot Act merely amends. The simple fact is that nobody pays any bloody attention to these things until one party or the other makes an election-year issue out of it.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2006-10-06 03:26 am (UTC)On the other hand, the Patriot Act EXTENDED First Amendment protections to a wide variety of laws that previously made no such exemptions, such as the 1970 RICO Act (written, debated, passed and signed by a Democrat-controlled Congress and a Democrat President).
Most of the "lost rights" people have been screaming about regarding the Patriot Act were lost in the '30s through '70s via laws which the Patriot Act merely amends. The simple fact is that nobody pays any bloody attention to these things until one party or the other makes an election-year issue out of it.