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[James Dasher <jdasher AT ibiblio.org>]

On Tuesday, Mar 9, 2004, at 16:34 US/Eastern, Christian Stalberg wrote:

> see http://www.bordc.org
>
> To date seven local governments in North Carolina have passed USA 
> PATRIOT
> Act resolutions, including Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Davidson, Durham, 
> Durham
> County, Greensboro, and Orange County.

Why did they pass these resolutions?

Yes, yes, the PATRIOT Act reduces our freedoms and consigns us all to 
miserable servitude under the auspices of the Great Leader and his 
Revolutionary Cadre.

Neo-commie sarcasm aside, what does the Act do besides allow the things 
the FBI and others have been doing legally for decades - wiretaps, etc. 
- to take place in a post-AT&T-break-up world?  (That would be 1984, 
the year communications fragmentation and proliferation got the chance 
to take root and blossom.)

Library records?  Though the power to search them is there, I am not 
aware of a single instance in which the power has been used.  Similarly 
with other provisions that heralded the demise of the republic (though 
the roving wiretaps and other things have, I understand, been used).

I don't like wiretaps or other infringements on my privacy, either.  
But we don't really have a right to privacy - else things like 
environmental regulations, civil rights legislation, income 
redistribution programs, etc., couldn't take place or be enforced.

Anyone?  Anyone?  Bueller?  (To revisit a recent joke....)

Regards -