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Old 04-30-2003, 11:02 AM   #1 (permalink)
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Scary first-hand USA PATRIOT Act story

at Alternet.

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Old 04-30-2003, 11:51 AM   #2 (permalink)
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Its quite sad.... reminds me of the commie hunt in the 50s? Everyone was suspicious, an a suspect, guilty before proven otherwise.
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Old 04-30-2003, 12:10 PM   #3 (permalink)
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That is a very frightening read. The disturbing nature of these accounts does not subside with their increasing frequency. Being a small town dwelling, white, middle-aged male, these things don't happen to me yet. However, I'm sure that I could easily make myself a target by voicing my opinions more loudly. I hate to wish bad luck on anyone, but perhaps an abuse of this "Act" that results in the death of an innocent person is what's needed to bring attention to the degrading situation of personal liberty.
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Old 04-30-2003, 01:02 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Actually, I had something very much like this happen to me in about 1972. I was living in Canada at the time, teaching at Brock University in St Catharines, Ontario.

My parents were living in New York City; my father was at home recovering from a recent heart attack, and my mother had just gone into the hospital for breast cancer surgery. My aunt and uncle were staying at my folks' apartment, looking after my father, so my wife and I, my brother and his wife, and my friend Mark were staying at their apartment.

All of us except Mark had gone to bed, when the door buzzer rang. Mark answered the intercom, but the desk man downstairs said, "No, no, no one's coming!"

But there was someone coming: the FBI. They demanded to be let in, threatening to shoot the door open if Mark refused. He let them in, and they came into both bedrooms with guns drawn, demanding that we get out of bed and identify ourselves.

They were looking for my cousin and her husband, members of the Weather Underground, who had jumped bail in Seattle on Federal charges. None of us fit their descriptions. The FBI had clearly been tipped of by the desk clerk that five young people were staying in the apartment, but no search warrant. They had a bench warrant for the arrest of Trim and Judy, but that wouldn't make up for the fact that they had not a shadow of probable cause to believe that any of us was a person identified in the warrant. (A tip is not probable cause.)

Nevertheless, because they were embarrassed by their illegal invasion, they wouldn't put away their guns, and kept asking me to show proof that I was not Silas Trim Bissell (who was six inches taller than I and cadaverously lean). Finally, they pretended to find a solution: Trim had an appendectomy scar and, as it happens, I have no such scar. If I would disrobe...

Had I not had to go to the hospital next morning to see my mother, I would have been happy to refuse the request. Then they would have arrested me, and looked like fools when my attorney came. But I was pressed for time. I said "yes", they checked out my scarless bod, and grumpily left.

My brother, who had just the week before finished a year clerking for the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, said, as we sat around doing a post-mortem, "It'd strange how weak your Constitutional rights seem when you're standing there without your pants on."
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