[thelist] Call your U.S. representative and senators - Bill of Rights

For US boys and girls..
..same "backdoor-law-making" is happening
currently all over Europe.

For the freedom of the Internet,
.wolf

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THE uproar was fierce but quick last summer when an 
internal Clinton administration document leaked out, revealing 
yet again the administration's hostility to fundamental 
liberties. The idea was to give law enforcement the authority 
to secretly break into people's homes and businesses to 
conduct searches, including discovering what was on 
computer hard disks or even plant rogue programs on the 
machines to record keystrokes or transmit data to the 
government.
...
Like burglars in the dead of night, they've quietly attached the 
proposal to several pieces of legislation, including an utterly 
unrelated bankruptcy reform act. Like masters of deception, 
they've hidden it in language that no lay person could 
possibly unravel.

``We've never had a hearing on these provisions,'' says U.S. 
Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a vocal opponent of what are being 
called the ``secret search'' portions of the legislation. 
``They're very, very substantive, and they're being snuck into 
legislation without a chance to have light shed on them.''

It's happened before. In 1998, Congress passed a law that 
included a provision greatly expanding law enforcement's 
wiretapping authority -- a provision that lawmakers had 
explicitly rejected when it stood on its own.
...
That obscure language, according to experts who've studied 
it, would dramatically expand the government's authority to 
conduct what are called ``sneak and peek'' searches.

The government ``could enter your house, apartment or office 
with a search warrant when you are away, conduct a search, 
seize or copy things such as your computer hard drive and 
not tell you until months later,'' the American Civil Liberties 
Union and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers 
recently wrote in a letter to members of Congress.
...
The bankruptcy bill's offensive provisions, passed by the 
Senate with no debate, appear to be identical to language in 
the ``Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act'' (HR 2987), an 
anti-drug bill designed to go after people who operate 
laboratories that manufacture speed.
...
In a triumph of vagueness, the bills would ban direct or 
indirect advertising of drug paraphernalia and illegal drugs. 
You wouldn't be allowed even to post mere hyperlinks to 
sites containing information the government didn't like.
...
In the anti-drug bill, Internet service providers would be 
required to remove allegedly offending materials at 
government request. Forget due process, and who cares 
about that pesky First Amendment, anyway?
...
Since the bankruptcy bill is in conference committee, it's 
fairly close to final passage. Call your U.S. representative 
and senators and demand that they call on the conferees to 
leave the Bill of Rights alone.

The Senate has already passed the methamphetamine bill. 
The House Judiciary Committee is scheduled to look closely 
at it on Wednesday, says Barr, who intends to try to strip out 

the big-brotherish language.
....

Full Text

http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/columns/gillmor/docs/dg052300.htm
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