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All:<BR>
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As the media focuses on the earth shattering implications of the Michael Jackson trial, our Fourth Amendment constitutional protections are being rewritten.<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/07/patriot.act.ap/index.html">http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/07/patriot.act.ap/index.html</A><BR>
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But don't worry. The Bush administration focuses on keeping government out of people's lives, unlike those intrusive democrats, who want the government to regulate everything. The courts are just another liberal regulatory bureaucracy that must be marginalized. Just ask that bastion of true American values, Representative Tom Delay. Why should the government have to present evidence to a court of a crime being or about to be committed to justify snooping through private records? We have ample evidence of the accuracy and rigorous fact checking of the intelligence and law enforcement activities of the Bush administration in the claims of WMDs in Iraq, facts used to justify taking this nation to war, to spill the blood of tens of thousands of human beings.<BR>
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For more on the Patriot Act as it actually has been used to abuse the rights of US citizens, <BR>
consider the case of Portland lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested, held in custody, his law practice disrupted and damaged, etc., all based on an erroneous finger print identification, quoted below.<BR>
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Quotes below from these links:<BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.osbar.org/publications/bulletin/04jul/security.html">http://www.osbar.org/publications/bulletin/04jul/security.html</A><BR>
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<A HREF="http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=1240">http://www.masnet.org/news.asp?id=1240</A><BR>
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"During my incarceration I was often manacled and chained," he said,<BR>
mentioning that, initially, he was held in solitary confinement and then in<BR>
the jail's mental ward.<BR>
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He declined to say if FBI agents became physical with him when he was<BR>
arrested, reports Reuters news agency.<BR>
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Mayfield said he feared for his safety when inmates began to recognize him<BR>
on the nightly news. In jail, a prison guard told him: "You should watch<BR>
your back."<BR>
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"People should wake up. We need to start protecting our civil liberties," he<BR>
said, also blasting the Patriot Act. "The material witness statute obviously<BR>
gives the government too much power and must be amended, if not repealed,"<BR>
he said.<BR>
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Mayfield's defense team is asking the courts to investigate leaks by U.S. government authorities and asking the government to preserve the fingerprint information, but Mayfield declined to say if he would bring legal action against the government, reports Reuters. <BR>
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The fiasco has "blown my [law] practice completely apart," Mayfield said, because of negative publicity and the fact that agents had access to confidential legal files in his single practitioner office, the news agency reports. <BR>
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Mayfield expressed concern about others "languishing away" under the material witness law</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"> <BR>
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"Nothing I’ve seen in the last 32 months leads me to believe that my vote against the Patriot Act was misguided," U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer said at the bar’s forum in April. "I don’t trust this administration with these tools. I wouldn’t trust the Clinton administration. I wouldn’t trust what I hope will be the Kerry administration. The history of expanding the powers of government at the expense of our fundamental rights is a sorry one." <BR>
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V2020 Post by Ted Moffett<BR>
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