Letters to the Editor
semiloon
Published Letters: 24 Editor's Choice: 1
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L.W.M
[Read the article: Time magazine uncritically prints Nancy Pelosi's "justifications" for the FISA "compromise"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
If I were an administration lawyer, I could argue that it says nothing about privacy and I have not searhed your person, house, papers or effects by grabbing a cell phone call out of the air.
The 4th amendment is *clearly* intended to limit the ability of the government to conduct search and seizure on the people. The founders went so far as to require that "probable cause" be presented to a judge (an impartial 3rd party) in order to issue a warrant to make the search legal.
I don't know how you can possibly interpret this to mean that the government can read my emails, monitor my phone calls, or search my bank and other records, without a warrant or possible cause, without completely contradicting this basic tenet of the 4th amendment. My conversations, my email, and my records *are* my "papers and effects" just as 200 years ago any letters you kept at your house were your "papers and effects."
Anyway this is case law. Look up Katz v. United States where the Supreme Court ruled that:
*So long as an individual can justifiably expect that his conversation would remain private, his/her conversation is protected from "unreasonable search and seizure" by the Fourth Amendment.
*The Fourth Amendment protects people, not just places. Therefore, the rights of an individual may not be violated, regardless of whether or not there is physical intrusion into any given area.
*A warrant is required before the government can execute a wiretap, and the warrant must be sufficiently limited in scope and duration. (from Wikipedia)
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Just in case anyone thinks this was a simple little experiment...
[Read the article: Worst. Encyclopedia. Ever.]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]...Lenski and his graduate students ran this experiment for 11 years. They maintained 12 separate cultures of e.coli bacteria, and recorded three separate mutations that finally allowed some cultures of the bacteria to metabolize citrate.
Furthermore, Lenski froze samples of the bacteria cultures at regular intervals so that other scientists could go back to any point in the experiment and re-run it from that particular point. That's what science is about; replicating others' results.
It boggles the mind that after a well-constructed 11 year experiment, a ground-breaking scientific paper, and meticulously maintained records and samples, that some know-nothing blowhard like Schlafly (a law degree!) would have the nads to insinuate that the whole thing was fraud. I bet Schlafly spent a whole hour thinking of how he would crush Lenski.
Conservapedia is an embarrassment.
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rupert_c said....
[Read the article: Can't Darwin and God get along?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Evolution AND Creationism
Both are religions for the true believers who think not and question even less
What a moronic statement.
If you think that evolution, which is a cornerstone of science, is not about thinking and questioning, then you obviously haven't a clue what science or evolution is really about.
Science has made possible the computer, the internet, the digital transmission of information and your squalid little keyboard on which you type out tripe like your above statement.
Thanks for completely trivializing the contribution of many thousands of people who devote and have devoted their lives to science to make this planet just a little better, safer, less disease ridden, and more knowledgeable.
Show some respect.