moonshadow says:

The good old days

Richard says:

Love the headline, Andrew. Did Dick Chaney dictate it to you?

Unfortunately, Chaney, Bush & Co. have taken us past Sheriff Taylor to the Middle Ages with illegal wiretaps, kidnapping and torture of prisoners, and the elimination of habeas corpus.

Ah, Moonshadow, those were the good old days when we could trust law enforecement to obey the law.

JazePentz says:

Andy Griffith For President in 2008!!!!!!!

Leland says:

That was a great show.

Joe says:

You may not recognize it, but there is a difference between domestic criminals and foreign terrorists.

The Albatross says:

Thank you Joe.

Andrew says:

There’s also a difference between terrorists and “people we have vague reasons for thinking might have some connection to terrorism, although we won’t tell you what those connections are or why we think that.”

It’s like the folks who refer to the detainees at Gitmo as “terrorists,” when no such thing has been proven. (In fact, quite the opposite.) Hard to do that when you don’t give them attorneys or trials, ain’t it?

And that database of Americans’ phone calls — I guess that’s because, you know, anyone could be a terrorist. And I’m sure that information will only be used to combat terrorism, just like the Patriot Act. (And just like RICO will only be used against organized crime.)

A-yup.

Richard says:

Andrew:
You can ‘splain and ‘splain habeas corpus to the “If you have nothing to hide/if you’re not a terrorist, you have nothing to worry about” crowd, and they never get the point. Perhaps an object lesson is in order: Turn Joe into the FBI/CIA/NSA/SS/Gestapo as a terrorist and see how many years it is before he can say to you, “Gee Paw, I see what you mean now.”
During the last five-plus years, Americans have let the Bush administration scare them to the point that they place no value on their own constitutional rights.
Just who “hates our freedoms”?