Electric Josh

Sunday, August 04, 2002

So there's some (token?) opposition to the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act, but my local anti-terrorism coordinator seems to be kind of missing the point:

After reviewing the Cambridge resolution, Jerry Leone, the assistant U.S. attorney in Massachusetts and the anti-terrorism coordinator in the state, said the city leaders do not understand the Patriot Act.

"I think some people have formed misconceptions of what the intentions of USA Patriot are," Leone said. "If one is a civil libertarian, I think the first reaction is, 'Hey, that's one more tool for the government to infringe on our rights,' but if you look at the implementation of the law, that's not the case."

Ahem. Assuming that one lives in a society of laws, the letter of a law is typically more important than the implementation of a law. The law specifically rolls back a whole stack of civil liberties, which just might explain why civil libertarians are upset. To wit:

I know the law says that all Jews must be tortured, gassed, and made into candles, but if people looked at the way we're implementing the law they'd see that only the Jews that are bent on Germany's destruction are being treated that way...

...

The hard local Boston TV news reporters are running a story about the possibly cancerous effects of secondhand cigarette smoke on---and this is not a typo---cats. The teaser clips showed people holding housecats in front of a camera. The mind boggles. #