While I don't know the act myself, there have been current affairs items on it over here. It seems to spell out the right for authorities to detain you for many hours, without arrest, for even a suspicion that you might be doing something illegal.

Muzza, the Patriot Act isn't just for anybody doing "anything" illegal. It's to protect against terrorists who are actively in our country plotting against it. I agree that it is Drakonian and I am uncomfortable with it, but because of the overly lax borders we have in the United States and the unenforced immigration policies since forever ago, drastic measures need to be taken. And as much as I trust my government (no matter what political party they are from), I actually like the fact that some people are raising questions about it because it will keep things a little more honest. Of course, raising questions is a differant thing than spitting out unfounded claims of wrong doing. The conspiracy theorists can go fly a kite as far as I'm concerned. But they're too busy thinking that 5 Jews are sitting in that little pyramid on the back of our $1 bill ruling the world to be a real factor in this world.

The truth of the matter is that the US is afraid right now. Except for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, there really has never been any major attack on our own soil. We don't have any ally anywhere that can do a better job than we can. We can't count on the UN or EU or whatever to help us. They are incapable of it. Our backs are against the wall and some ugly things have to be done to get us through this. That's why I was talking about this being a "War" and not just a "Day called 9/11".

The point that Sen. Bob Brown was making was that if these people have done something wrong, arrest them or at least declare them prisoners of war. At that point, they have the right to be deported back here, and that's what we want.

You hit the nail right on the head here. Even the "20th hijacker" said "The US is my enemy, but I know it is an honest enemy". You see, we'd love to just declare them POW's but only if we could as part of a War on Terror. But there has never been (to my knowledge) a declared war involving a state (the USA) and an organization that isn't state sponsored (Al-Qaeda). Because of this, everyone is going to say "Those are prisoners from the war in Afghanistan and that war is over. Let them go." And since this is "on going", letting them go so that they can continue against us isn't going to happen.

Maybe a good solution would be for the USA to make arangments with allies like Australia (whose Special Forces were a MAJOR asset to us), UK, Italy, etc whereby they could get their criminals back as long as they met certain conditions including keeping them in captivity (after being formally charged) and maintaining isolation so that they can not pass on any information that they have obtained. I mean, come on, it has been long enough for us to get whatever intelligence we need from them.

The call is not for a public hearing, just for legal rights of the prisoners.

Bitt was calling for public hearings. He's just a BIG fan of Court TV (j/k Bitt! ).

It is really scary how little the US public knows about international events (present company excepted).
This cracked my up when it aired last night

I'm not even going to click on that link because I know it's true. It saddens me. But I bet 70% of us could name the cast of "Charles in Charge." It's almost funny how the more money we toss at education (rather than reforming it) the worse our students perform.