"Gould 0738" wrote in message
...
The thief was selling goods purchased illegally in Romania, the
Netherlands,
Great Britain, an elsewhere. How do you know that it isn't a
money-producing scheme used to fund terrorism?

Thank you for making my point.

Under the Patriot Act, there is no need to establish any link to
terrorism,
merely to claim that one exists.

Take search warrants, for instance. Under the Patriot Act, no judge can
refuse
to grant a search warrant if the law enforcement agency mentions the word
"terrorist" anywhere in the application for such a warrant. Under the
patriot
act, an initially issued search warrant can be used over, and over, and
over,
and over again if the police believe the search "could be" related to an
existing investigation that "could be" related to terrorism.

The Patriot Act effectively guts the constitutional protection against
illegal
search and seizure. But I guess that's OK, Bush and Ashcroft have decided
we
didn't need that portion of the Bill of Rights, anyway.

Chuck,
You've effectively managed to change the point of my whole story. Now it's
time to bring you back to reality. The person who stole my wife's credit
card number is using a valid AOL email account to commit his crimes. This
isn't an issue of "protecting the innocent". He/she is guilty. He/she is
continuing to commit the crimes using the AOL account. If the account was
fraudulently created, then the subpoena will at least allow the Feds to shut
it down. If it's legit, then the thief goes to jail. It's a matter of
finally having some legislation that grants law enforcement the power to
pursue criminals that historically have operated outside the reach of
traditional law enforcement methods.