Do you believe that the Forth Amendment was violated after the 9/11 attacks?
154150
Absolutely. The USA PATRIOT Act violated the amendment. As did Bush's wiretapping.
657180
I've been to ground zero.  It happened.  Whether Osama, Israel, or the US was  responsible ---is all guesswork at this point.   The US has defiantly staged events like this in the past to justify a war---The sinking of the Maine, Gulf of Tonkin, etc...  But 9/11?   We saw Osama admit it in the videos.  I wouldn't want to think that our country is so evil we could ever do this, although in my heart I know there is a chance we could have.
1154815
War in the Middle East was only ONE of the pretexts. I've said it before, and I'll undoubtedly say it again: 9/11 mainly happened as a pretext to getting the Patriot Act passed. The Patriot Act was originally written up following the Oklahoma City bombings but was considered too reactionary. I mean, the Global Agenda has been calling for "Big Brother" type scenarios all over the West, not just the States. So, they needed something bigger to further their Agenda. Hence 9/11. It got people to say to the government, "Do something!!!!" so they pulled out the Patriot Act and formed the Department of Homeland Security in order to justify widespread wiretapping and surveillance of the American people. And it's not really "terrorists" HS is after, people. It is domestic dissenters, grassroots left wingers and the militias, all of whom are the REAL threat not only to the governement but to the military industrial complex which is really running the show. Under the Patriot Act, people like ourselves, who are on this site, answering THIS question, and thereby questioning the gov't's actions are committing a terrorist act. So, therefore, any of us can expect to have our phones and internet lines tapped. This, folks, is the post 9/11 world we live in. I know, some people are in total denial about it and simply write off people like myself as "conspiracy theory kooks" and "left wing nuts", but lemme tell ya, it's us kooks who are going to have the last laugh in the end, because we'll be laughing at all those poor fools who'll be saying, "Damn, I should have listened to the conspiracy theorists; they were right after all!"\nMyself, when the fit hits the shan and the police state really starts kicking in, well, I'll be long gone by then, headed for the hills somewhere and dissappear off the face of the earth. Because I sincerely believe that within the next five years, ten tops, the world we live in and take for granted will no longer exist. We'll all be living in a variation of Nazi Germany; kiss our civil rights and freedoms goodbye. \nThe irony is, unless incontovertible evidence is produced, the real truth behind 9/11 will never be officially exposed. It's worse than the JFK assassination and the UFO question put together, because if the truth ever did come out, well...I think America would turn into 1789 France overnight. I hope...
1173224
For the record, we did not get to vote on the so-called Patriot Act.  And as you so correctly point out, there is nothing patriotic about it.\n\nThose who have fought to defend our Constitution must be spinning madly in their graves now, knowing what the American public is currently tolerating in the name of "security."  \n\nThey are in no sense patriots who tamper with our system of justice.  "True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else."  Clarence Darrow
616298
I don't see how it is giving us freedom either. But I do respectfully disagree with your statement that we are just as free today as we were before. Our freedoms have been greatly hampered since 9-11, and the powers that be are steadily trying to chip away further at our freedoms. IMHO...
804934
You have asked an extremely complex and legal question. If the United States Government was in fact responsible for the events leading up to and on 9/11, then Treason at the highest levels of government was committed.\n\nThe popular mechanics issue that was referred to prior has been debunked by scholars for the 9/11 truth as improbable. In fact their are many PHD scholar's in the various fields that have raised question, viewed evidence and raised interesting questions on the official government story. PBS attempted to recreate the pancake theory and could only do so if the 40 interior columns were removed from the WTC towers. The collapse of building 7 has yet to be explained. There is documented proof that evacuations of the world trade centre had taken place prior to the attacks. The weekend before 9/11 the world trade centre was closed and all electrical power was turned off so new Internet cable could be installed. This meant all security systems were down for The entire weekend. On Sept 8th all remaining bomb sniffing dogs were removed from the WTC and services were no longer required. On the morning of Sept 11th, there was a live fly exercise taking place over the North East quadrant of the United States. This was part of a series of war games taking place throughout the United states, Canada and Greenland, all under the control of Dick Cheny.\n\nAt the same time FEMA was on pier 29 in lower Manhattan running operation tripod two. This was a simulation of a chemical  and biological attact on New York. How interesting that FEMA would have a fully operational command post in place on 9/11. Operation vigilant guardian was the live fly exercise simulating hi-jacked airliners moving towards New York City.\n\nOn the morning of 9/11 air traffic controllers were dealing with 19 hi-jacked airliners in the live fly scenario with all transponders turned off. They in effect could not distinguish between the real hi-jacked planes and those involved in the war game. To further complicate matters, there were only eight fighters left to protect the North East quadrant of the United States. Fighters travel in a formation of two, so technically they could only cover four hi-jacked airliners when dispatched. No fighters were dispatched until after all planes had found their targets. What is interesting to note here, is that Vice President Cheney was given a 45 minute heads up on the approaching hi-jacked airliner moving to the pentagon. As the man in charge of the war games underway he would have known which airliners was part of the operation versus the real hi-jacked airliners. \n\nThe Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was established in spring 1997. The nonprofit organization declared that its goal was “to promote American global leadership.” PNAC, which has been inactive since late 2005, was an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, whose chairman is William Kristol, PNAC described itself as a “nonprofit educational organization supporting American military, diplomatic, and moral leadership.”  PNAC's board of directors had the following members, as listed on its website as of May 26, 2006: William Kristol (chairman), Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Mark Gerson, and Randy Scheunemann. Staff members: Ellen Bork (acting executive director), Gary Schmitt (senior fellow), Thomas Donnelly (senior fellow), Reuel Gerecht (director of the Middle East Initiative), Timothy Lehmann, (assistant director), and Michael Goldfarb (research associate). 1\nPNAC's 1997 “Statement of Principles” set forth a new agenda for foreign and military policy that William Kristol and Robert Kagan described as “neo-Reaganite.” Signatories of this charter document said that they aimed “to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.” 2 Excerpts from the statement follow: \n“We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to
809512
Does Germany have jurisdiction over the U.S.?  If the 12 high-ranking officials did break the law, make the case, please.\n\nAnyway, here is what I know.  9/11 occured meaning that the face of the enemy is different from the 20th century and before.  These enemies are different in that they don't fight for a nation-state.  So, it is harder to determine what their rights are.  Have these official made mistakes concerning Gitmo?  Yes but the prisoners have such a Rolls-Royce lifestyle compared to the troops in Iraq that it look like they haven't been tortured.  It is, I believe, hard to determine what is torture but what do I care.  Look, we need to BALANCE between human rights (since the U.S. is a big executer) and capturing the terrorists before they strike not just the U.S. but other countries as well.  Now, coming back to this question.  I don't think that these officials should be prosecuted because they are trying to protect mankind.  I could be wrong somewhere.
1187379
I think both parties are turning a blind eye to the bill of rights. Our republican appointed supreme court ruled that we don't have the right to private property if a city can make more tax revenue by seizing it with eminent domain. Bush stated publically that he would have signed the Brady bill extension has the congress passed it. Federal troops (FEMA) confiscated guns in New Orleans during the aftermath of Katrina from law abiding citizens. \n\nAnd lets not forget that the patriot act basically guts the 4th amendment, even the new head of the CIA Negroponte was caught on tape claiming the 4th amendment didn't require anything more then reasonable suspicion. No wonder the Bush administration is so busy spying on all our phone calls.\n\nLiberals and Republicans are both ignoring our constitution.
797017
yes. all elected officials have a duty to uphold the constitution over anti-democratic laws. the Patriot Acts are profoundly un-American in part. Hopefully, the manipulation of fear to pass such crude restricitions passed with the election.
1159593
Absolutely not.  My favorite, if not the best, example would be the thousands of gun control laws on the books.  These are clearly in violation of the 2nd Amendment which states quite clearly (in easy-to-understand, one- and two-syllable English words) that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.\n\nAnother example is the way the "necessary and proper" clause has come to mean "convenient."  When the Supreme Court can re-define words in the Constitution to mean whatever they want, then what's the point of having a Constitution in the first place?\n\nThe interstate commerce clause has been stretched to absurd proportions so that Congress can now regulate anything that it wants based on the fact that somebody, somewhere might have once traded with someone in another state.\n\nDoes anyone remember the 9th and 10th Amendments, which tell us that the federal government is only allowed to do those few things which are specifically stated in the Constitution?  And yet there are volumes upon volumes of federal statutes that micromanage our lives.\n\nThe American people, through ignorance and apathy, have allowed their government to get by with this.  I know of no solution.  If the people have more faith in legal interpretations and judges' rulings than in their own ability to understand the simple words written down where all can see, then they deserve the tyrannical, authoritarian state that they are destined to get.\n\nFinally, I want to add that I once took a college course called "Constitutional Rights and Liberties."  But the curriculum was focused not around what those rights and liberties are, but on what judges have said about them.  It was a study in case law.  When people are taught that case law is more important than what the Constitution actually says, the outcome is predictable.  We come to depend on the government to interpret for us the document that is supposed to limit its scope of power.  Isn't this like signing a lease with a landlord that says the landlord gets to decide at any point on any question what the lease says?  Isn't re-defining "necessary" to mean "convenient" analogous to re-defining "$400 per month" to mean "$600 per month?"
141600
Agreed that the president isn't above the law, but with some many american associations not doing their jobs (INS especially), it has made this an option.  Did you know the terrorists that blew up the world trade center buildings were here for 6 YEARS on an EXPIRED VISA?  Had someone taken care of that, like noticing that and kicking them from our country, the towers might still be there.  But, how many more people have to die by the time you get a warrant?  What more valuable to you?  Your life or your privacy?  That's the real question...
439123
Absolutely not.  Contrary to what Mr. Bush claims, I don't think that the Authorization for the Use of Force gave him the power to listen to conversations without evidence.  It's a constitutional right that we should be secure in our property and effects, and the government can NOT remove that right without due process (i.e. a warrant).  The day that we let him take that power, we can also say goodbye to free speech.
212267
As others have said, I believe that he was a scapegoat or sacrificial lamb.\n\nWe are talking about terrorists.  From my standpoint, they have NO rights, and we need to do whatever it takes to get information from them.  I could not care less if they are tortured, humiliated, maligned or disgraced, as long as we get the information we need to stop another 9/11 from happening.  \n\nBottom line, it's us or them. I salute Sgt. Michael J. Smith.
195509
I think we are wary of muslams, it is a normal reaction to and action the way I see it. If 9/11 never happened it might be a differant story. But it did. I think to err on the side of caution is probably the right thing to do. Even though it probably doesn't matter who runs the ports.
483581
This question is on the vague side, if it is a question at all, it appears to be more of a statement. The 9/11 hijackings and the aftermath have been documented. There is no debate in my mind and perhaps in those of other Americans minds. \n\nIt's done. One perpetrator has been brought to justice and we need to move so that this doesn't happen again for the sake of our children and grandchildren.\n\nI lost friends that I had gone through training with, it's still very hard to see and comprehend. I don't think that I ever will, when I do, I have become to callous for this world.
1019908
Violation of separation of powers between the three branches, violates the very basis of the constitiution.  Could also have effect on national security by disclosing classified information and on executive priviledge.
757327
It would be a good idea to look up the 11th amendment to the US Constitution. I have and am completely without ideas as it is a hard one to capture in pictures. It gives citizens of any state the right to sue a state.