The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits the government from conducting “unreasonable searches” of our “persons, houses, papers, and effects” without a warrant…. In passing the USA Patriot Act, lawmakers gave the FBI and other law enforcement agencies the right to secretly subpoena records from Internet service providers without any form of judicial oversight.

[Washington Post]
By Stephen Barr
The mystery provisions are gone.
Yesterday, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), the House chairman who oversees the civil service, yanked provisions from a pending 9/11 bill that would have made it easier for the president to exclude unions at the Department of Homeland Security.
The provisions, which seemed likely to renew contentious debate [...]

[How to Save the World] In yesterday’s post, I quoted Stan Goff as saying that conservation is the only solution to the
coming energy crisis. The word ‘conservation’ is an ambiguous one, which is one reason why politicians can get away with saying they support it without doing anything. At its root, ‘not doing anything’ is, [...]

There have been some rumors floating around lately about an RNC ad that is being sent to people living in the Bible Belt about how ‘liberals’ want to “ban the Bible” (what that really means, I don’t know, but there you have it). It ain’t a rumor folks, this is U.S. Presidential Campaign 2004, [...]

HIV/Aids is twice as common in the war-torn north of Uganda as in the rest of the country, an aid agency says. [BBC News]

It is a quiet day on the polling front today with
only six new polls. Kerry has taken over the lead in
Florida
again, 49% to 48%, but other than that, nothing
much has changed. The big event this week is going to
be the first debate. That could easily decide the outcome
of the election, and both candidates will probably [...]

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