What rights have been taken away from you?

I find this to be an interesting question. From my little corner of the world, I have experienced no loss of rights that I perceive. In fact, I think I have gained some rights through the lowering of my Federal taxes enacted by Congress and President Bush beginning in 2001.

I would like to hear first hand accounts (no links to articles) from someone who has experienced a real loss of rights due to the direct act of the Bush Administration (i.e., executive branch).

 

We don't yet know. Why? because we are governed by secret signing statements and secret presidential orders.

CtoC www.coasttocoastam.com reported that Bush signed a deal with Canada so that Canadian troops can operate in the US and our troops can be ordered to Canada to serve the Canadian govt. I suspect that when our govt goes house to house to collect our guns it will be Canadian, Mexican, or UN troops. Our national guards will be in Iran.

 

Rights

I'll think about the rights issue a bit and then post about them. But, let me tell you a story. I have been fortunate enough to have travelled quite a bite, both when i was working and after I retired. In all those years, 1969 to 2005 I had never lost anything. Sure I had a bag or two arrive a bit late, but nothing was lost. In 2005 I flew from the US to Prague. When I opened my suitcase in Prague there was a little form from Homeland Security saying that the contents of my suitcase had been inspected and everything replaced. Wrong!!! Several pair of shorts, a shirt or two, a bottle of baby asparin and a few other items that I can not remember now. It was irritating to say the least.

So, to me it is an open question if I am any safer now than in the years before 9/11, but I now know that my personal belongings are at risk. :laugh:

I contacted Homeland Security to see if I could be paid anything for my losses. Basically they said, "Yes, if you provide us with original sales receits and can prove the items were in the suitcase. Thanks a lot.

 

Let's see---------------

Nope can't think of any. :thumbs:

 

Crabtownboy,

I wouldn't call your experience a loss of rights due to the creation of Homeland Security. I say your experience was due to incompetence (at best) or theft (at worst). But the creation of Homeland Security did not diminish your rights - i.e., it did not say that the Dept. has the right to steal your shirts and shorts without due cause. Such an event could have happened without the Dept. of HS - e.g., United Airlines personnel could have done the same thing.

 

You're either up very late or just getting up early, because you and I had a nice chat going on at 4:30am est. However it is great to know that someone wanted your shorts.:laugh:

 

I'm not one who has publically complained, but I somehow got placed on the "Terror Watch List" about two years ago and it is a royal pain to fly anywhere.

I am not supposed to know that I am on the list, although a Southwest Airlines employee quietly mentioned it to me when I had difficulty checking in the first time and I've since had it confirmed by other airlines each time I fly. Furthermore, not only is it supposed to be a secret that I'm on the list, I am not allowed to know why I am on the list. I am also not allowed to challenge the decision, nor have a discussion with the Department of Homeland Security to answer any questions they may have to their satisfaction so that I may be cleared from the list. I am essentially under perpetual investigation without having the opportunity to cooperate with the authorities to clear up any concerns.*

Therefore everytime I fly, I have to wait in line to pick up a boarding pass (answer questions, etc.), I get to take my luggage to a special area where they go through everything (often breaking things and cramming suits, shoes, etc. into places they shouldn't go), and have extra attention at the security checkpoints.


*I believe I was placed on the list because of a last minute flight to McAllen, Texas -- just a couple of miles from the U.S. border -- where I stayed in McAllen less than two hours and flew back the same afternoon. I had to act as a courier for important documents between our office and the City of McAllen and the documents weren't ready to send out through FedEx the night before. Upon returning to the airport for my return flight, I was stopped and addressed by name by three individuals, a border patrol agent, an airport security officer, and a person who didn't identify themselves. They quizzed me on the purpose of my trip and searched my carry-on bag (which was empty except for a newspaper) and spent a lot of time going through my personal effects and examining my shoes (size 15) with the X-ray machine. Ever since that time I have had trouble.

 

This, IMO, is ridiculously unconstitutional.

 

I personally know of another person in exactly your situation.

 

Same here.

 

There's still no evidence that "rights" have been lost. The man can still fly, it's just a bigger pain for him. I'm sorry that his name is on the no fly list. But, I'm glad the list exists in that it limits the bad guys.

 

I do also. Once you are on the list, it is next to impossible to get off. If one agency fixes the problem, the name creeps up in another data base.

Here is another question. Is this a matter of losing rights, or is this another sign of an inept and clueless government?

 

The list isn't the problem. It's the inability to get off the list.

 

Numbers of dead people and obviously innocent people are on the list...yet many prominent terrorists aren't.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/05/60minutes/main2066624_page3.shtml

Remember what Ronald Reagan said: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.' "

 

Rights are being taken away and you don't even know it when you hear the news or experience it yourself. Let me tell a little story about rights and freedom which illustrates the point, before I attempt to go into particulars:

A story is told of a young man who came from a country with a very restrictive regime: He tells how to catch a wild pig.

First you track them and see where they travel repeatedly, and the time of day.

Then you visit the area repeatedly on a daily basis and throw down corn each time, just before their arrival. You wait and watch and see how they become more comfortable with the corn in their path, and how their natural instincts for observing threats go lower and lower.

One day you arrive extra early and build a fence on one side of the path, and throw down the corn. The pigs come to feed. The wild pigs are somewhat suspicious of the fence, and perhaps the odors associated with its placement by human hands. But they feed, and gradually accept the fence without concern.

Then you go early and build another wall to that fence. The pigs come to feed, are briefly suspicious, but go on their way after completing their food.

A third time you build the fence and throw the corn inside. The pigs visit, and eat and return to their travels.

You make a gate to the fence and leave it open. The food is placed within.

The pigs show up. They start to feast. You close the gate. They are startled and confused momentarily, but having food left on the ground, their reaction is short lived, and they return to their peaceful feasting. BUT THEY ARE CAPTIVE!

Now let me ask you, when did the pigs lose their freedom/rights?

Now I grew up on a farm. Most people who know nothing about pigs would think they're a stupid animal: They really are quite smart. But many will read this story and laugh 'at the stupidity' of the pigs!

But, like the pigs, most everyone who visits this board has been the recipient of some government program, for one reason or another, to 'help' relieve a need or deliver a service. Many of us, if not all of us, have advocated for government action to benefit others whose needs we 'saw' but have felt helpless to administer sufficient provisions, time, or skill to be of 'real' help. This current generation is the least aware of all previous generations to the fact (not fiction) that a government big enough to give you what you need is also big enough to take what they want.

What about the right to freedom of movement: Already some have testified to increased delays, repetitive, w/o provisions to know the complaint or to redress and removal of suspicion from records. Years ago, people could walk, ride a horse, a bicycle, drive a car..... without papers or license. We now have to have a license to drive a car. The data collected on the license is changing with the eventual ability to track someone carrying their license within the range of a radio reader. Whether licensed or not to drive, law is already in place to require a person have this federally required identification which may be requested to get a job, to purchase a service, to sell a commodity, to perform one's banking. The 'law' is 'said' to be voluntary for the states...... but the states are under coercsion to comply and tie in to the national data base or lose fundings and their citizens threatened with difficulties and limitations of movement.

Already we have and tolerate..... it is not even challenged by news commentators..... the President saying in effect, a person is either in agreement with him or sides with the terrorist. The Congress has passed law under this threat: Many of us have requested Law, based upon our confidence in leadership without understanding the implications. Many of us ... and many of our legislatures (who don't have the time to read the bills) are pressed into accepting the brief purpose and descriptions of laws without knowing what the fine print really says within and opens wider to inclusions and interpretations designed to limit our freedom or penalize those who exercise their rights.

Small farmers are being told their chickens and livestock must be chipped with a tracking device: This is being 'sold' to the general public as a security requirement to insure access to the international markets that our meat sources are safe..... Well, the truth is the large livestock that sells mostly to the international market is CORPORATELY owned and run..... and they are exempted from having to have every animal 'chipped'. If you have 5 chickens for the eggs to feed your family....why must each bird be 'chipped'? and that at a per cost greater than the value of the whole flock? Isn't it suspicious that the government is so certain of its controls over large meat raisers and meat packers, but a family farm can't be expected to remove from their herd or flock, any animal that is sick? The very economy of small farms demand culling, killing, proper disposal and disinfecting of any sick animal ..... to save the rest.

Social security was 'sold' to the American people as a government rretirement program to help the elderly and the widowed, and the disabled: Now we know it for what it is: It is a tax......not really a 'retirement program', which monies go into the national treasury, and the 'entitlement programs' like social security, widows/survivors benefits, and disability are programs granted by law, governed by law, and can be abolished by law.

The recent Patriot Act and other laws increase the surveillance upon our people and the causes for which suspicion may arise and increases the difficulties for anyone who gets tapped due to their dissent. The problem is you may have a disagreement with politics, policies, or law and still be a patriot, but the laws are equating free speach which is dissent with terrorist which has to do with violence, intimidation, and overpowering rule by fear. The REAL result of some of these laws is: If you or a person you know, somehow gets caught in the cross hairs of suspicion.....who will know? Who will know...that they are imprisoned? Who will know when rights are violated because charges are 'classified information' and persons are not informed? Who will know when the right of habeaus corpus is denied because of incarceration under the laws of terrorism? Who will know that a person's rights are being denied to be present before accusers, to call one's own representatives, to crossexamine evidence and wittnesses, that 'hearsay' evidence is acceptable for conviction? Who will know if persons are tortured for confessions----real or imagined offenses..... and who will believe that our government could pass laws which enable the possibilitiy for these things to occur and not be capable of carrying 'em out.....or let some one live with sanity or credibility intact if a victim of such violations?

We've already been warned by persons in homeland security that the next 'terrorist' attack will trigger 'martial law'. Under martial law, the President has the authority to suspend all elections: send Congress 'home': martial whatever forces necessary to control the order of the populace; confiscate 'for the national good' whatever food stores and provisions and shelter as is considered 'necessary', to draft persons into service; and, as was already seen in New Orleans... of a right violated.... when the people who had guns and were armed for protection of their own property, had their guns removed by the martial forces and were at the mercy of the unlawful gun holders.

How about giving a donation to a charity which has come recommended by someone you thought trustworthy.... possibly another person also 'duped' into confidence and giving....... to find out later that YOUR name has come up on a list of contributors to a sham front for a terrorist organization..... and for that reason you are subject to investigation and incarceration under all the rights and privileges guaranteed by the .......um....... oh, you're a terrorist, and you're guilty until whenever you get the chance to prove yourself innocent.

 

Amen and Amen

RBell, excellent post.

“You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.”

People just have not bothered to see what has been done to take rights away the last 8 years. You are right, it is like pigs, quail, chickens or whatever following the corn into the trap. And you are right, pigs are quite smart. I grew up on a farm also.:tonofbricks:

 

Rights taken from me? When I first gained the right to drive, I had the right to drive without auto insurance. Now I don't. So that's one. Oh yes, and without wearing a safety belt; now I don't have that right, either. That makes 2.