"Police state minus one day and counting"

[Havanger]

that's what's so great about the us. WE CAN CHANGE THE LAWS!!!!!!! ...to make a more perfect union. sure the laws might or are already in affect, but guess what, we chan change them!

-havanger

[stflook]

Yes, we can. Unfortunately, we don't. America is so overwhelmed with a sense of political-correctness that it seems that nobody is allowed to think what they want anymore. Everybody at my high school knows that I'm a gun person, a computer person, and that I don't agree with most of the administrative decisions that go on in the school. Thus, I have been labeled a psychopath, an "evil" hacker, and at risk to shoot up the school. I did not ask for these labels. I got them just for having dissenting views. As long as this type of braindead social attitude goes on, America will keep hacking at personal freedoms at an incredible rate. It's a real shame.

[Darkmo0n]

Change laws? doubtful..

Its near impossible for a law such as this one to be struck down. First of all, someone has to get arrested under this law, then have enough money/popular support to be able to go through all the levels of the US judicial system, appeal after appeal, which is highly unlikely..

and then, IF the supreme court wants to hear it, it can.. and even if it does, with such a conservative court and a strong precedent with the Korematsu case (which allowed japanese internment camps in the interest of national security during WW2) still in the books... your gonna have a tough battle ahead... especially now... if it happens later, after some of the paranoia has died down, it would probably be already too late, the damage would have been done..

and anyway, im not too sure if a non-us citizen is allowed to bring cases to the supreme court, or if their rights are guaranteed by any legal standard (like how the constitution guarantees rights of citizens).. if they arent, its gonna be even harder

the PC attitude that stflook mentioned it totally right... anyone that organizes large protests against the law would be immediately labeled terrorists, and would probably be arrested.. no politician would speak out against it, as they would be called "Un-American" and their political career would be pretty much screwed (the vote in the senate was 96-1 !!!, and it would be hard to combat Bush' 90%+ approval rate)

So in general, unless the ACLU and the author of the article were really exaggerating the implications of the bill (IANAL, i tried to start reading the text of the bill, but got lost in the language/referenes/whatnot), we're pretty much screwed...

Darkmo0n

[digim0rtal]

Its time like this my quote becomes extremely fitting (see below) Peace. Digi

[Darkmo0n]

exactly..

the article couldve been just a result of the same paranoia we've been talking about in this thread... many times people start talking about something horrible that might happen, and then find out that they were seriously exaggerating..

i guess theres no other way to find out than just wait and see.. (unless you feel like going through pages and pages of legal crap, which i certainly dont)

Darkmo0n