How many people do you personally know, that have been affected by the Patriot Act or other NSA spying?

Answer 1

No one that I know of has been harmed in any way.
I do know there are about 300,000,000 people who are
safer because of the Patriot Act.

Answer 2

Q: If a bank robber shoots at police, and the police kill a bystander, who is legally culpable?

A: The bank robber

The legal reason for the above is that the bank robber's actions were the proximate cause that set events in motion.

When someone attacks our country and our legal rights are diminished in an effort to protect our ultimate liberty, the attack is the cause, not the ones who try to protect us. Exactly which rights do you retain when a terrorist kills you because the government was not allowed to investigate them?

I don't know anyone affected by the Patriot Act other than having to spend a few extra minutes in paperwork. I don't know anyone affected by NSA spying. I'm sure a few people are mistakenly snared, but there are not enough resources in the world to listen to most people's boring nonsense. Nor will there ever be.

Answer 3

Everyone is affected by the Patriot Act. Anytime you open an account, you have to comply with Patriot Act regulations.

I don't know of anybody affected by NSA spying -- except, if you count carnivore which scans tons of stuff.

Answer 4

I am a conservative all the way but I would have to agree with timothy in that any time any of us are asked to relinquish a right we all will suffer the loss somehow or sometime. On the other hand something needs to be done to curb the danger of terrorists being able to base themselves in the U.S. and freely call other terrorists around the world. Personally I don't know of any person that has been directly affected by the patriot act.

Answer 5

I don't now of anyone personally. I just went thru a Federal background check and was cleared. I was not surprised to clear, but wondered what all they look at . Glad I have been a good boy or else I would have to scream like all the people that are paranoid about their past and present activities.

Answer 6

truthfully wtih no mailce or sarcasm right here's the way it has affected me. it has made me experience extra take care of that we are acountry of guidelines and rights that our president( whom i'm not huge on) quite than merely assuming he has the right -has lengthy previous to congress and requested for persmision to do what each president has consistently performed/ had the right to do to moniter verbal replace techniques in a time of warfare to assist insure my protection. by thinking really suspicious calls entering the country from questionable numbers we've realized alot and It so some distance (inspite of the indisputable fact that i do not imagine this is going to always) has helped deter/dodge extra attacks hostile to us by psycho inaccurate miscreants. that means that as I deliver my son off to Iraq this month to wrestle that i have self assurance like someone a minimum of receives this undesirable challenge we are in and is conscious that our enimies favor to apply human beings contained in the U. S. to break us.

Answer 7

Me. They now click in with every call I make. Of course since I'm already a rebel, I'm not surprised. I've known I'm on their lists since I volunteered for the Libertarian party ten years ago.

The first part of the book 1984 starts with a man stating to himself that he knows he's a dead man. I know how he feels. The saddest commentary on our country today is that free people are afraid of living free. No act of war is a good enough excuse for making people live in fear of their own police. Didn't we learn this lesson from WWII???

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, ‘History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period … was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.’

I am good and I refuse to be silent!

So I keep talking even though every word could get me treated like the families in Waco. The question is: Who else will also refuse to be silent? Who else is willing to risk everything for freedom?

Patrick Henry

Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! March 23, 1775

I much prefer to include more of the quote. It puts it into perspective. I feel as a slave, chained to a government that no longer views my Rights a sacred. No longer views any other countries' Rights as sacred. I will fight with words first and hope that others join me, but I swear that if they show up at my door like they did in Waco, I shall defend myself just the same.

So, they might be spying on us all. I just hope that what they hear teaches them they need to stop before they just look ridiculous to the rest of the world.

Answer 8

Every bank account that is opened is affected by the Patriot Act.

I guarantee that many of us have had our phone calls recorded, whether or not they were actually listened to by any human. This has always gone on, however.

Also, I have a couple of friends with names similar to terrorists that get questioned at airports due to no-fly lists. That seems somewhat warranted, though.

Answer 9

... its not so much the "now" that worrys me .. i could give a **** less ... but the problem would come if and when there is ever a major catastrophe like an economic collapse ... the american people have given too much power and control to the govt and are relying on them to take care of them instead of keeping the power to do somthing about it themselves .. a very dangerous assumption. you could be disarmed and rounded up out of ur home which you no longer own and relocated to a "work city" ... all the info collected on u and in the huge national databases they are constructing could be used to label u as "for" or "against" the system ... give u a red or blue label ... either u go to thw work camp or to the other one in alaska to be "purged" .... this sounds crazy but its the power we are giving to our govt assuming they will do whats best for us .. no, it will be whats best for them when the time comes ...

Answer 10

Actually, several, but I'm not going to violate their right to privacy by posting their stats in a place like this.

Anyway, people are going to believe what they believe until it's too late.

It's a sad day when public library records can be subpeoned when there isn't an actual crime to justify it, or the Secret Service can grill a 13 year old schoolgirl for a posting on MySpace, while tens of THOUSANDS of uninspected cargo containers come into our ports daily.

Oh, that's alright....I wasn't using my civil liberties, anyway................

Answer 11

Every time one of our civil liberties is taken by the government, we are hurt. As a nation, and as a free people. Our own govt is trampling on the fabric of the Constitution, and the core values that this country was founded upon.

People ask what rights I personally have lost. The right to counsel. The right to due process. The right to privacy. The right to assemble. Habeas corpus. Unreasonable searches. Warrantless wiretapping. The list of rights and civil liberties that have been trampled on by the Bush regime grows longer every year.

Every one of those rights stipped away was mine. Just because I never needed to invoke them didn't make them less mine. And just because you haven't needed them yet doesn't make them less yours.

We only have those rights we choose to defend. Only those rights we can defend. And if we do not defend them, we lose them. Not just for those who need them now -- but for all of us.