New Documents Show FBI Targeting Peaceful Protesters in Colorado as Potential Terrorists

I'm a supporter and member of the ACLU, and when some people, in this very thread, get serious, act on their impulse, and finally classify them as terrorists, I'll happily stand first in line to be carted off to your little gulags.

This is the ONE time I will say it, back to the topic!

I have removed all bitching between each other. Anyone who tries to stir up this thread with off-topic flaming and whining about each other will receive a post-ban and MEGA point deduction from myself until I feel you are ready to begin posting again.

OK - Back to the Topic,

What ACLU Does:

Below is a listing of some of our most significant recent victories:

- Defeated many of the Bush Administration’s most egregious attempts to deny liberty in the name of national security. Federal judges in New Jersey and Michigan rejected the government’s blanket policy of conducting secret deportation hearings in post-September 11 cases as a violation of the First Amendment. The ACLU brought both cases on behalf of news organizations and members of the public. We also led a massive media campaign which forced the Administration to dramatically scale back its proposed domestic spy program, Operation TIPS, which would have recruited postal and utility workers to spy on Americans in their homes.

- Hailed four major victories in the ACLU’s ongoing campaign to abolish capital punishment in America. In the states, Illinois and then Maryland declared moratoriums on the death penalty. And in the courts, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that that executing people with mental retardation violates the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment. The Court also ruled that a death penalty trial must be resolved be a jury rather than a judge. Finally, a U.S. District Judge declared that the federal death penalty is unconstitutional.

- Defended in a U.S. Appeals Court the right of Colorado teens to have immediate access to an abortion without seeking parental consent. Parental consent laws put teens at grave risk, preventing them from getting critical health care even when they face serious medical conditions.

- Successfully challenged the Louisiana Governor’s Program on Abstinence which was using federal funds intended for abstinence-only sex education programs to impermissibly advance religion. This landmark victory came on the heels of another ACLU victory over a Louisiana law authorizing “spoken prayer” at public school-sponsored events.

- Spearheaded the overwhelming defeat of an effort by the Christian Coalition and others to overturn a Florida human rights ordinance that bans discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing, employment, lending and public.

- Filed several lawsuits to fix the fundamental inequities in our electoral system that were revealed in the 2000 elections. Victories have come in South Carolina, Montana and Illinois, and we have also filed a major lawsuit that challenges California’s discriminatory voting system.

Just to name a few....

action.aclu.org...

So What is Soooo BAD here Exactly, if somebody Cares to Explain?

A Group of People that tries to Expose any Abuses by the Goverment?

I think the Goverment is something to be Fear of, and not the ACLU.

Awwww,,,,, somethings never change. I love you all.

This is my take on this problem now. As long as i'm NOT targeted, or my family, I could care less now.

I'll let you know if anything changes

Seekerof, or should we say, Seeker of Allusions?

Are you going to merit any discussion to the fact that the FBI was having trouble discerning between peacefull protesters, and potential terrorists, or will you just allude to more nonsense to make absolutely no point what-so-ever?

All these years, and you're still the same.

Luxifero.

Originally posted by dgtempe
This is my take on this problem now. As long as i'm NOT targeted, or my family, I could care less now.

I'll let you know if anything changes

Well you are Kind of Right - why should you bother with this problem, when it's not on your doorstep.

But Maybe that's why these People can get away with such Actions, because most of the People just don't care, until it Happens to them.

I am probably surprise the heck out of some people and come down on the side of.........drum roll please..........

The ACLU

I don't agree with a lot of what they do but they are a needed counter-weight to the ever growing power of the US government. Anytime the government wants to take away a right or make it easier to watch a certain group,etc; this needs to be examined closely to see if its necessary, if it will be effective, wont be abused; etc.

I don't mind taking a moment to make sure that even the things I support, the Minute Men, Anti-Sex offenders laws, etc; are needed, are Constitutional, and will be effective.

If the law is Constitutional there is NOTHING the ACLU can do to stop it and if its not we don't need it anyway.

Today, with the Government passing the Patriot act and laws that will allow Wal-Mart to take your land if they wish, we need a group that will question their EVERY MOVE.

At the end of the day the ACLU cant kick in your doors and drag you off. They have NO POWER except the power to challange laws.


[edit on 6-8-2005 by Amuk]

I wish RANT was here, because he makes a pretty decent case for the ACLU as an organization which simply seeks to forge freedoms out of the hardest stuff by defending the rights of even the least sympathetic victims. His approach would certainly make this discussion interesting, although I do not agree with it.

The ACLU simply is not what its name implies. If the "CL" stood for commie/liberal it might be closer. The bottom line is that while the supposed aim of the ACLU is good, they're deeds betray their true agenda, which is evil.

The ACLU is an organization which uses frivolous lawsuits to provide occasion for activist judges to rewrite the law, to the end of silencing the majority of Amerians in court so that the thinnest of minorities can enjoy far more than their rights, but a privlidged status whereby they can be exempted from whatever inconvenience the rights of others may cause them.

The ACLU fights to destroy any vestige of religion in any public place where it can be found. They take the establishment clause FAR beyond what it was intended for (preventing the establishment of a state religion whereby peoples beliefs can be dictated by the state) and have made it a crusade to silence the very word God from any public place where it might offend the ears of a small handfull of people, whose own hatred and intollerance makes the word unpleasant to them.

In contrast to this view that the right of a person to say "God" ends where the hearing range of an athiest begins, the ACLU believes that the right of a pedophile to swing his arm (in a rapid up and down motion near his crotch even) DOES NOT END where the nose of a young child begins! Far from ensuring the liberties of everyman by defending those of the worst of the worst, as I have seen my friend RANT argue before, in cases such as this the ACLU is clearly prostituting itself to a group of criminals (probably because at the time of the 1982 Supreme Court case which Seekerof brings to our attention, NAMBLA and other pedophile organizations were more or less accepted as part of sexual liberation movement being carried on by various gay organizations, and the ACLU was willing to sell out young children's protection under the law in order to curry favor with part of their radical left base of power.)

Now coming back to the most immediate aspect of the topic, the ACLU's big to do over the fact that the FBI is keeping an eye on people who aren't happy with our goverment. All of the above is valid context, demonstrating that the ACLU will prostitute what is clearly right and good for the American people and their freedoms to shore up the support (and charitable contributions) of the radical left, which is of course their base of power.
Now I will for a change be succint, and show you why it makes perfect sense for the FBI to keep an eye on movements which start out peaceful, but which are extremely frustrated with the government.


If you don't recognize this, it's from the front page of the Sacremento Bee after the events of May 2, 1967, in which a group of between 18 and 30 black panthers (reports seem to vary) entered the California State Assembly with loaded weapons.

So, does anybody else think that maybe the ACLU is just making noise to enhance its standing with its leftwing supporters, while the FBI is simply making sure that what started out as a peaceful movement by frustrated citizens doesn't develop a militant wing?

In 1997, two perverts murdered a 10 year old boy from the Boston area.
The ACLU jumped in and defended NAMBLA in this case.
www.mergemag.org...

You can have them.

"Have them" my foot! I don't want them. Nobody in their right mind would. Maybe somebody in Europe would take them off our hands for us.

The ACLU is in dire need of a rebuild. I'd give life and limb to have a REAL American Civil Liberties Union that stood for the rights of the common man, rather than this crooked, politically ambitious monster which will champion any unjust cause just to further its liberal agenda.

Not you! That was directed at those who defend them.

Originally posted by Souljah

Originally posted by dgtempe
This is my take on this problem now. As long as i'm NOT targeted, or my family, I could care less now.

I'll let you know if anything changes

Well you are Kind of Right - why should you bother with this problem, when it's not on your doorstep.

But Maybe that's why these People can get away with such Actions, because most of the People just don't care, until it Happens to them.

Notice i said "NOW". Basically, its every man for himself, unless we can together change things
The word in vogue nowadays is TERRORISM. Remember when it used to be words like "cool" "giveme 5" "groovey"? Forget that now. Those same groovey, cool people are terrorists now. Its the way of the world .

So anyone accused of a crime doesn't have a right to a defense?

Even the most vile child-killer has a right to a lawyer and a trial (before he is drug out of the court and shot like the dog he is)

Anyone that has read my posts know I am HARDLY soft on crime, but that doesn't mean someone should be shot without a trial. I am no big fan of the ACLU but with so many people ready to accept any and all government intrusion into their lives they are needed. Like Vagabond stated I wished we had something better but I don't see anything out there..........do you?

Originally posted by Amuk
Even the most vile child-killer has a right to a lawyer and a trial (before he is drug out of the court and shot like the dog he is)

Agreed, but the ACLU is not the body which ensures them a fair trial or even a lawyer. The ACLU is not even chiefly concerned with due process. All they do is barge into court rooms either as hired guns for the defense or as unwelcome meddlers (amicus) to push for Judicial Activism, not for the defense of scum, but for the legalization of scum.

Furthermore, in this particular case, we aren't even talking about about due process for the accused. We're talking about the ACLU protesting legitimate surviellance of groups considered to be at risk for violating the law and disrupting the peace and order of other people's lives. It's not as if the feds are dragging these people off to a gulag and attatching battery leads to their genitals. All they're doing is having a look at what groups in opposition to the government are doing, in a sense protecting the rights of these groups to demonstrate by ensuring that the threat of violence does not arise.

The ACLU in this case is simply fear-mongering and siezing the opportunity to be contrary to a government which isn't popular with the left, because doing so is going to build support and encourage charitable contributions to them. To put a long story short, the ACLU is engaging in shameless self promotion at the expense of an operation intended simply to preserve law and order.