Ron Paul on Spitzer
He’s out of the race so I no longer have to use 1337!
Recently we’ve been told that this increase in the already intolerable invasion of our privacy was justified because the purpose was to apprehend terrorists. We were told that the massive amounts of information being collected on Americans would only be used to root out terrorists. But as we can see today, this monitoring of private activities can also be used for political reasons. We should always be concerned when the government accumulates information on innocent citizens.
Spitzer was brought down because he legally withdrew cash from a bank–not because he committed a crime. This should prompt us to reassess and hopefully reverse this trend of pervasive government intrusion in our private lives.
We need no more Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act! No more Violent Radicalization & Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Acts! No more torture! No more Military Commissions Act! No more secret prisons and extraordinary rendition! No more abuse of habeas corpus! No more PATRIOT Acts!
Indeed.
And, now watch closely, as I will quickly pull a Spitzer pun from thin air:
Spitzer pulls out!
Via AC.
March 14th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I think it should be, “Elliot pulled out and she Spitzered.”
March 14th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Pity poor Paul doesn’t realise that none of the laws he cited were the one that got Spitzer, which dates to… 1970?
He was not busted for “legally withdrawing money”.
He was investigated for withdrawing money in a way that looked crafted to avoid reporting requirements. And it seems that he really was doing so because he really was trying to hide something, which is where the bust came from.
(Why does it matter? Because a politician with something to hide can be blackmailed.)
I broadly sympathise with Paul’s overall less-government stance. I don’t sympathise with the low quality of his arguments and their evident lack of thought or awareness of mere subtleties of law like those I just mentioned.
March 14th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Sigivald: Huh? I realize that none of the laws he listed there at the end were the laws that brought down Spitzer. Surely Ron Paul does as well. He was basically listing laws that were all along the same lines: FedGov spying on American citizens, despite our Constitutional guarantee of freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. These laws are all related. Of course I understand that banks are private institutions which “voluntarily” provide this information to the FedGov, and while that might pass strict Constitutional muster, it is still loathsome.
The problem is that the FedGov even cares whether somebody “is trying to hide something” or that the “reporting requirements” even exist. Why should the FedGov have basically carte blanche access to anybody’s financial records? You seem to be saying that the justification for all of the above is to prevent politicians from being blackmailed. Is it really worth having the FedGov in *all* of our business just to keep a few pols from being blackmailed? If so, I guess it’s really worth having the FedGov making *all* of us fill out a bunch of paperwork to keep a few criminals from getting guns. (Ad nauseum…) Now, if there were anti-corruption laws (which I believe there are) which subject certain elected officials to heightened financial scrutiny, I’m fine with that. But that’s not the case here, as far as I can tell.
I don’t think that RP was trying to make an argument in the way that you think he was. The point was really just to link all of these laws together and say that we need to stop making new ones like them, and repeal the ones that we do have. The Spitzer affair is really just a topical example of our government and laws run amok. RP even seems to appreciate the irony that Spitzer was responsible for a lot of said running-amok himself, and therefore is deserving of being caught. But remember: a broken clock is right twice a day. Just because our stupid laws happened to catch a rat bastard this time doesn’t make them any better. To quote RP, “Two wrongs do not make a right. Two wrongs make it doubly wrong.”
March 14th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Recently we’ve been told that this increase in the already intolerable invasion of our privacy was justified because the purpose was to apprehend terrorists. We were told that the massive amounts of information being collected on Americans would only be used to root out terrorists.
BSA laws were not initially designed to root out terrorism. They were put in place for racketeering (sp?). IOW, they were put in place to prevent our monetary system from being used to hide other criminal activity. ‘
Like it or not, it is not the “climate of fear” issue that RP makes it out to be.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
So I hear that when told that Eliot Spitzer had paid thousands of dollars for sex with a 22 year old prostitute Bill Clinton said: “What?!? Doesn’t New York State have an intern program?”
March 17th, 2008 at 8:23 am
Pulls out! LOL!
That’s almost as good as the one where they rename Washington Monument to the Clinton Monument.
‘Cause it looks nothing like him… It looks more like a tribute to Bill Clinton.
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DoubleTapper, blogging on Guns Politics Defense from Israel