I heard a short interview with Orrin Hatch this morning. (He came across as a pretty reasonable guy, which surprised me, given his assorted nutty stances on copyright.)
Anyway, one thing that caught my attention was his claim that the PATRIOT act was merely an extension of the existing anti-mafia laws to apply to terrorists. (ie: there's *nothing* really "new" or unprecedented there). Now it seems to me that extending stuff like racketeering/conspiracy laws to cover terrorists (if they didn't already) isn't a bad idea, but I can't imagine that doing so would cause the kind of concerns and alarm the the PATRIOT act has caused. So I'm inclined to think his claim is probably disingenuous at best... But on the other hand, I wonder how much stuff there is in the PATRIOT act that's actually worth keeping. It's been so politicized that its hard to tell what's what. Anyone care to comment or have any good links to a balanced article? -bryon _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
