Rudy will protect you

Rudy and his crooked PC, Kerik

America's Reinhard Heydrich speaks

Taking Liberties With the Nation's Security

By RUDOLPH W. GIULIANI
Published: December 17, 2005

YESTERDAY the Senate failed to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, as a Democratic-led filibuster prevented a vote. This action - which leaves the act, key elements of which are due to expire on Dec. 31, in limbo - represents a grave potential threat to the nation's security. I support the extension of the Patriot Act for one simple reason: Americans must use every legal and constitutional tool in their arsenal to fight terrorism and protect their lives and liberties.

The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, made clear that the old rules no longer work. The terrorists who attacked us seek to kill innocent men, women and children of all races and creeds. They seek to destroy our liberties. They willingly kill themselves in their effort to bring death and suffering to as many innocents as they can, here in this country or anywhere in the world where freedom has a foothold.
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The central provisions of the Patriot Act allow law enforcement and the intelligence community to share information. This might seem elementary, but for years law enforcement had been stymied by a legal wall that prevented agencies from sharing information. For four years now, inter-agency collaboration, made possible by the Patriot Act, has played an important role in preventing another day like Sept. 11. The act's provisions helped make possible the investigations in Lackawanna, N.Y., and Portland, Ore., in which 12 people were ultimately convicted for attempts to aid Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

So what happened in Washington? The House voted on Wednesday to renew the act; it stalled in the Senate. If the Senate fails to approve the extension, the government will be forced to revert in many ways to our pre-Sept. 11 methods. Sixteen provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire on Dec. 31, including the key information-sharing ones.

It is simply false to claim, as some of its critics do, that this bill does not respond to concerns about civil liberties. The four-year extension of the Patriot Act, as passed by the House, would not only reauthorize the expiring provisions - allowing our Joint Terrorism Task Force, National Counterterrorism Center and Terrorist Screening Center to continue their work uninterrupted - it would also make a number of common-sense clarifications and add dozens of additional civil liberties safeguards.
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Yes, I would take the word of Rudolph Giuliani on civil rights. But.....

He tried to arrest Nation of Islam members for meeting
He fired anyone who criticized him
He tried to defund museums which showed art which he disagreed with
He tried to have Robert Lederman arrested 26 times and lost every case for mocking him
He had armed sharphooters watch a protest of Housing Works, which represents
HIV positive homeless people
He had nearly 80 percent of the black and latino men in New York City illegally searched
His police raped Abner Louima for speaking back to a cop
His police murdered Amadou Diallo for going for his wallet
His police murdered Patrick Doresmond for leaving a bar, then illegally released his sealed juvenile records
He tried to change the election rules to prevent the Public Advocate from assuming the office of mayor
He refused to meet with minority leaders
He sent his police to break up a protest with helicopters, charging a stage and audience with women and children
He paid off a former mistress with a cushy city job for which she had no qualifications
He went for a walk with his mistress on Mother's Day, then used city police and funds to protect her
He ridiculed the mother of his children and tried to remove her security detail
He then had his lawyer call her a greed pig after court
He then tried to use 9/11 to get three extra months in office

So when I want my civil rights protected, Rudy Giuliani is not my go to guy.

posted by Steve @ 12:54:00 AM