Overview of Changes to Legal Rights

[asheris]

Full text of the article curmudgeon linked to at the AP news site:


SEPTEMBER 05, 11:44 ET

Overview of Changes to Legal Rights

By The Associated Press


Some of the fundamental changes to Americans' legal rights by the Bush administration and the USA Patriot Act following the terror attacks:

• FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigation.
  
  
• FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records requests.
  
  
• FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
  
  
• RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
  
  
• FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigation.
  
  
• RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.
  
  
• RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.
  

Overview of changes to legal rights. (You'll be taken first to a page where you select your state and local paper. After you do that, come back and click again, and you'll get right to it.)

Related article- How rights changed after September 11


Scary, scary shit.

Comments

[curmudgeon.livejournal.com]

I think the most telling quote comes from the assistant AG who said, "[L]iberty cannot exist without order and security." That attitude puts us just one small goosestep away from fascism.

[asqmh.livejournal.com]

Odd how the ones theologically disposed to believe that the government will ultimately be an entity we can no longer trust (read: George W. Bush and any brand of millenialist) are the very ones who make it so. Talk about self-fullfilling prophecy. . .