Sorry about the length, i got this in my e-mail today and wanted to share it seeing that it may affect some of us here...

NETWORK NEWS - September 2000
>
> This Issue:
>
> 1. House Judiciary Passes Meth/Ecstasy Bill
> 2. U.S. Has Almost 500,000 Non-Violent Drug War Prisoners
> 3. Supreme Court Ruling Could Free Thousands of Drug Offenders
> 4. Congress OKs Prescription Buprenorphine
> 5. News In Brief
> 6. Around the World
>
>
> 1) House Judiciary Passes Meth/Ecstasy Bill
>
> On July 25th the House Judiciary Committee considered H.R. 2987, the
> Methamphetamines Anti-Proliferation Act. The Committee approved an
> amendment offered by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL) that replaced the language
> in H.R. 2987 with language written by his staff. The new H.R. 2987,
renamed
> the Methamphetamine and Club Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000, removed
> some of the provisions that were in the original bill but added new ones.
> Among the provisions removed were the so-called 'sneak and peek'
provisions
> that would have allowed federal law enforcement officers to secretly
search
> people's homes and copy their computer files without notifying owners for
> months, possibly years. Among the provisions added were provisions copied
> from Rep. Judy Biggert's (R-IL) Club Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000,
> H.R. 4553, that essentially increase penalties for trafficking in Ecstasy
> and other so-called 'club drugs.' The Committee approved McCollum's
> substitute language by voice vote, and then debated the new bill and
> various proposed amendments to it.
>
> Rep. Conyers (D-MI), Scott (D-VA), and Waters (D-CA) offered an amendment
> to the bill that would have abolished all federal mandatory minimums for
> nonviolent drug offenses. That amendment was defeated 8 to 18. The
> Committee, however, did approve by voice vote an amendment introduced by
> Conyers that allows federal judges to consider sentencing people charged
> with simple possession of an illegal drug to alternatives other than
> incarceration, such as drug treatment or house arrest. The Committee also
> approved by voice vote an amendment by Conyers and Scott that instructs
the
> Attorney General to issue a report within one year on the "racial impact
of
> mandatory minimum sentences for controlled substances, their effectiveness
> in reducing drug-related crime by nonviolent offenders in contrast with
> other approaches such as drug treatment programs, and the appropriateness
> of the use of such sentences on nonviolent offenders."
>
> Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) offered an amendment to H.R.
> 2987 that would remove all the bill's anti-free speech provisions. As it
> stood, the McCollum substitute bill still made it a federal crime,
> punishable by up to ten years, to teach or distribute information on the
> manufacture of a controlled substance and made it a federal crime,
> punishable by up to three years, to advertise drug paraphernalia for sale
> on the internet. The bill also gave federal law-enforcement agencies the
> power to order internet service providers to take down within 48 hours any
> web sites that federal law enforcement believed to be illegal.
>
> Baldwin charged that the anti-speech provisions were blatantly
> unconstitutional, as well as unnecessary to combat drug trafficking. Barr
> warned that the provisions established a new federal speech crime and
> created an entirely new Chapter of the U.S. Code for the sole purpose of
> suppressing certain speech. He warned that if these provisions became law,
> future politicians might expand them to criminalize speech on other
> subjects, such as other drug-related speech or gun-related speech. Rep.
Asa
> Hutchinson (R-AR) and several other Republicans spoke against the
> amendment, but the Committee approved it, 15 to 12.
>
> The amended Meth/Ecstasy bill was then passed by a voice vote and sent to
> the House floor to be scheduled for a vote. The House is expected to vote
> on the bill in September, and it is expected to pass overwhelmingly. A
> similar bill, S. 486, passed the Senate unanimously earlier this year.
> That bill contains the same anti-free speech and anti-Fourth Amendment
> provisions removed from this bill, but lacks the Ecstasy provisions. When
> the House approves the House version, the House and Senate will appoint
> members to reconcile differences in each bill and develop one that both
> sides can agree on.
>
> Below is a list of Representatives that voted for the Barr/Baldwin
> amendment stripping H.R. 2987 of its anti-free speech provisions. If your
> Representative voted for this amendment, please send him or her a letter
> thanking him or her for putting the First Amendment before the drug war.
>
> Maxine Waters (D-CA)
> Bob Barr (R-GA)
> Steve Chabot (R-OH)
> Joe Scarborough (R-FL)
> William Delahunt (D-MA)
> Barney Frank (D-MA)
> Martin Meehan (D-MA)
> John Conyers (D-MI)
> Melvin Watt (D-NC)
> Jerold Nadler (D-NY)
> Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
> Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)
> Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
> "Bobby" Scott (D-VA)
> Tammy Baldwin (D-WI)
>

I wrote Dick Luger, asking him not to vote for this bill, yet he still did. He's a real fucking dick, and soon, my oh my, I can smell it, we'll be living 1984, this is fucking unbelievable.

well I'll be damned.

i long time ago i realized that america was in fact not a free country and soon im going to be told that i dont have freedom of speech or the freedom to write about anything i damn well please...something has to be done and soon.

this bill is also telling us we cant learn...thats nice.

quote:

---

to teach or distribute information on the
> manufacture of a controlled substance and made it a federal crime,
> punishable by up to three years, to advertise drug paraphernalia for sale
> on the internet. The bill also gave federal law-enforcement agencies the
> power to order internet service providers to take down within 48 hours
any
> web sites that federal law enforcement believed to be illegal.
>

---

I can't wait till they try to strongarm another country into closing down their (foreign) ISP... heh heh... fuckin' bastards