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Drug-Crazy 
Posted by FoM on May 26, 2000 at 09:24:26 PT
Editorial
Source: Times-Dispatch
Drugs can lead you to do awful things -- and can do serious damage to you -- even when you don't take them. Just look at a bill making its way through Congress. The Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, sponsored by Republican Orrin Hatch and Democrat Dianne Feinstein, contains a couple of provisions that endanger the rights of all Americans. 
The first provision would loosen the rules governing police searches. It would permit the police to search your residence, vehicle, or workplace and to take "intangible evidence" (by making a copy of your computer's hard drive, for example) without telling you. The entirely reasonable justification for the change: Notifying someone running a methamphetamine lab before a search gives him time to destroy the evidence or flee the state. Yet the cardinal question to ask about any new law, or any change in existing law, is not "How do supporters say the law will be used?" but "How could the law be used?" And the change in notification requirements does not apply only to drug dealers. It is not hard to imagine a pliable judge approving search warrants for numerous residences in a high-crime neighborhood where the police are not sure which house (if any) hides the stuff. The homes of perfectly innocent citizens could be searched, and they might never learn of it. The second provision attempts to crack down on drugs by cracking down on speech. It would punish persons who so much as mention an Internet site that sells drug paraphernalia. Even anti-drug crusaders who listed some drug-related Web sites as examples of the heinous stuff out there would be breaking the law. The bill also would make it illegal to tell someone how to produce drugs. Thus, someone writing to a relative where marijuana has been decriminalized about a Web site with advice on growing the weed could face criminal prosecution. Talk about Reefer Madness. Several versions of the meth bill are floating around; one piggybacks on a bankruptcy measure. Congress could reduce such redundancy and increase efficiency if it simply found a copy of the Bill of Rights and borrowed one of those rubber stamps for marking things cancelled.Published: May 26, 2000© 2000, Richmond Newspapers Inc.Related Articles:The Anti-Meth Billhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5844.shtmlObscure Anti-Drug Provision Could Expand Searcheshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5831.shtmlLatest Drug War Tactic An Attack on All Americans http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5830.shtmlBill is a Sneak Attack on Our Digital Libertieshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5821.shtmlBill Criminalizes Drug Links http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5674.shtml 
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Comment #2 posted by bobbie sellers on May 26, 2000 at 15:44:58 PT:
Civil rights
  Essentially I agree with the first commentator.   The bill will pass and the Bill will not veto despiteit's obvious infringement on the freedom of speech. TheSupremes pulled a suprise out of the hat this week aboutsexual content programming so I doubt they could findthis nonsense.  Probably the ACLU will take it to court promptly andget it over-turned before more than a few thousand citizenare jailed because of improperly gather evidence andun-Constitutional searches and seizures.  Please begin to organise political clubs in yourown parties for the maintaince of the Bill of Rightsand the ending of prohibitionist laws in all areas.  Bobbie Sellers  Victoria C. Woodhull Democratic Club, San Francisco.  bliss at global.california.com (for further information)
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Comment #1 posted by CD1 on May 26, 2000 at 12:09:44 PT
CIVIL RIGHTS
I have no doubt that this bill will pass. I also have no doubt that the Supreme Court will strike it down. The question is How many people will go to jail and have their lives ruined, just for Free Speech? Technically, what I am writing now could be a federal offense. It's our freedom, contact your congressmen now, and tell them that you do not support this bill.
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