Gulags and black listing aren't even close to being similar. In one it was hard to get a job. In the other you (and often your family) disappeared and usually died painfully.
Also, in the US it was ideological anti-communist while in the USSR it was political and personal. > -----Original Message----- > From: Curt Raymond via Mercedes > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:22 PM > > Weren't we (well, not me, I wasn't born yet) doing nearly the same thing at > the same time (minus the killing and gulag of course) with things like the > House Un-American Activities Committee and Hoover's FBI files on people? > -Curt > From: G Mann via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > To: Andrew Strasfogel <astrasfo...@gmail.com>; Mercedes Discussion List > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2015 12:13 PM > Subject: Re: [MBZ] OT License plate Readers > > A working example which we "free Americans" can look to is the files which > still exist, some of which are 70 years old, gathered by the USSR government > by the KGB on soviet citizens. Based on that data collected, Stalin is > reported > to have executed or killed by forced labor in Gulag, some 20 million Russian > citizens. Decisions to kill someone or put them to forced labor and remove > them from society were based on information gathered and kept by > government agency workers and citizen reports. > > As Americans, who spent billions of tax dollars to defend against the "prime > enemy Russia" for decades, there is a natural abhorrence and resistance to > such data collection. Logic would indicate that in the Soviet Communist > system, such data was used improperly by our Constitutional standards. > > Yet..... it seems America has began to repeat exactly that which we fought > against... > > Troubling ..... certainly to those of us who fought the cold war, which was > not > always so cold. > > The legal principle that guides all law enforcement, as stated in our founding > documents, is "innocent till proven guilty". The burden of proof rests with > the accuser, as a function of law properly applied, even then, a prosecutor > has a duty to present any evidence that may prove innocence [seemingly > ignored presently]. > > The collection of data, without good cause shown, against an individual, fails > the protections of 4th Amendment... in general terms, and has been > repeatedly found the rule of law by courts of every level. > > I agree, civil discourse is much appreciated. > > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:16 AM, Andrew Strasfogel via Mercedes < > mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
